Back to Texas

So I'm going back to Texas (Austin, again, as per) and we're taking a sidetrip north to Dallas. For the first time in, oh, twelve years? Yikes. For the first twelve years of my life, I was a Texas girl (as much as anyone can really be a Texas girl when your parents are both militant atheists from New Jersey), and it's gonna be weird to go back.

But also, I have some research to do-- next play I want to write takes place in Mesquite, or somewhere like Mesquite. Also that play is about cults and a woman returning from a cult and maybe we'll swing through Waco, which is conveniently located directly between Austin and Dallas.

I'm excited to do a lot of traveling to new places this summer (albeit nowhere really exciting, like my friend Laura who is going to Cambodia. Aaa, I want to go to Cambodia!). But every time I go somewhere new, I get a script out of it, even if that script isn't necessarily set in wherever I've just been to. Although often it is, so.

I think when you travel, your eyes are more open. And your mind is kind of fuzzy and relaxed, like just before you fall asleep, and ideas can creep in more easily.

I love this ad

You gotta appreciate that Denny's understands its target audience. Stoned unicorns.

No, I don't know how I get anything done, ever

I'm going to Austin for a week, ostensibly to finish my book. But I just started another play and another screenplay, and if there's one thing that I'm good at, it's distracting myself with new projects. Like three or four at once. That's the way I work.

I was talking to Chiara about this last night (about what keeps you motivated and gets you writing), and for me, it's having an excess of work. I have never focused on one script at a time-- I can't do that. I've tried, but it literally gives me panic attacks, especially if I get stuck or bored. I always have two or three documents open on the desktop, and I sometimes flit between them as I'm working.

This insane multitasking/ADD writing isn't for everyone. I know people who write one script at a time, or who spend four days on a first draft and four weeks rewriting or who spend years on one project or who thrive under external deadline pressure or who write one draft and wait for development. Whatever works.

Truth is, I think you need to figure out how you function best in life, when you're the most comfortable with what you're doing and how you're doing it, and then that translates into how you write.

And I've gotten flak for this before, but I write with the TV on and the roommates running around and one hand scratching the dog's tummy. I never have a "DO NOT DISTURB ME I'M WRITING" sign around my neck. So I don't know what it means that I'm fueled by constant and often self-imposed interruptions. Some of the writing teachers I've had would be mortified to watch me at work.

I'm curious how other people write. I imagine there are much more peaceful and serious-minded processes than mine. Ah, well.

Five Careers I'm Considering Now That I've Graduated from Juilliard

1. Blacksmith, specifically in colonial Williamsburg.

2. Hole puncher. I don't know. I find it therapeutic.

3. Online survey taker. The email says I'll make 500 dollars a DAY.

4. Daycare owner/operator. Me and children? What?? Wait for it... Can you say, "underground sweatshop"? That means two sources of income in one!

5. A 19th century Swiss. I know, this isn't really a career, I just really loved Heidi when I was a little girl.

The king is dead! Long live the king!

So "Emily" is no longer (thank God) the top baby name for girls!

Unfortunately, it's just being replaced by a markedly similar name: "Emma."

(can you believe how fun this is)

When you think of things that I like, among them is not interactive theater.

So I was surprised how much I liked (and was not intimidated by) a show I saw last night at soloNOVA called Fun Design with Svelte. Laura brought me-- the show is being produced by Fresh Ground Pepper/Centrifuge in this festival at the DR2 off Union Square.

It's very charming. And oddly (surprisingly) moving? Basically, you join "Svelte" as he designs fun for you and talks at you in a strange nonaccent. I can't describe it without ruining it, but I just Google'd the show and found this, Svelte's pseudo-Tumblr.

Last Jyard post

Five Things at Our Last Class at Juilliard

1. Marsha's tequila and Sam's bourbon

2. Theater gossip that cannot be reprinted here

3. Cupcakes, cheese and something amazing called "s'more brownies"

4. Horror stories of the non-business-related variety (needles, baboons, peanut allergies, smashed jaws-- yeah)

5. Pseudo-goodbyes

Here's something to do with all those spare cat paws you have around the house

At least, here's what Charles Dickens did with his dead cat's paw

Last Lab Luck

I have the worst Lab luck ever. I think in the history of Juilliard Play Labs.
Here's a chronology:

YEAR ONE

1st Lab: SPLINTERS. Room = 100 degrees. Play runs long. Really long.

2nd Lab: CARTHAGE. Marsha has emergency, cannot make it. Talkback = disaster. Crazy person in room. Actor tells me to cut entire scene. I am forced to actually talk back.

3rd Lab: The Tag Play Lab (all of the writers do one scene and pass it on). Um... if you were there... you know.

YEAR TWO

4th Lab: MAN-MADE. Marsha out of town doing amazing things with The Color Purple. Former Juilliard alum comes in to sort of take her place. Talkback = odd, but not disaster! Things are looking up!

5th Lab: THE CHILDREN OF DENTISTS. All seems to be going well! One of my labs? What? Finally! And then the fire alarm goes off.

So today is the Anonymous Playwrights Monologues Lab, in which all the playwrights wrote one or two monologues, and we're presenting them to the school anonymously although some are much more obvious than others. Also, it's the last lab of the year and my last lab ever. And two hours before the lab-- the last lab of the year and my last lab ever-- my actress has an emergency trip to the dentist and CANNOT SPEAK. Last minute substitution time!

Yup, that sounds about right.

Rainy Sunday

This is exactly what I wanted to look at and listen to today:

On NOT being a one-trick pony

So I finished my first screenplay (feature) ever. Big deal for me, because writing screenplays definitely has always felt like work, whereas writing plays has not. I've always felt out of my element, like a hack, like I'm writing someone trying to write like me. And it takes me for-e-v-er. But again, not this one. Maybe I just had to find the right one-- this screenplay took me a little over a month to get out (my usual pace for plays) and not the agonizing three+ months where I still only have half of it.

So.

Hooray.

Now I just need a title.