Obviously I don’t need to state the fact that I’m a writer, as I am clearly running this blog on my own. But for those who don’t know me, I write a lot more than a weekly blog post. I’ve dabbled in most kinds of writing, from poetry to novels to non-fiction, and everything in between. Writing is hard. I think that’s a basic fact that most people don’t grasp. We’re so used to seeing the finished product that we don’t always think about what went into whatever we’re reading. These things are polished, have been through edit after edit…if you look at any original piece of writing, it’s probably not as pretty as the one you’re reading.
In my time, I’ve written a lot. Poetry, novels, shorts, a one woman play, and a complete disaster of a play. It’s one of those things that I look at and really want to make right, but I also sort of cringe just thinking about it. I really, really want to be a playwright. Theatre has been one of the most important pieces of my life for my entire life. Writing has been for a very long time as well. And my one woman play was pretty badass, not going to lie, even if it could only be performed by a high school girl. But I guess writing an actual play is a little different.
Honestly, I don’t have to say “I guess” on that one. Especially because I know exactly why that play didn’t turn out right. I think the concept was there, as well as the characters and storyline, but I wrote the play the way I would write a novel. Well, maybe a mix between a novel and a one person show. Novels are all about text. You’re reading the story as it goes. You’re not watching it being performed. And a one person show is basically a giant monologue or soliloquy. Again, it’s a lot of text, and you don’t have to worry about interactions or blocking.
Novels have always been the type of writing that I’ve been most comfortable with. I started attempting to write novels when I was eleven or so. I don’t even think playwriting had even crossed my mind at that point. I was a voracious reader from a young age, and that was just a format that I fell into. I also wrote a lot of poetry, but that’s something different entirely. I found a lot in novels. They were fun to read, and I felt like I was bursting with ideas, even if none of them ever really saw the light of day (thank goodness for that one…trust me).
So there was my genre. I wrote novels, and I wrote poetry. My one woman play came about my junior year of high school. I’m pretty sure I wrote this in a prior post, but I was inspired by The Shape of a Girl by Joan MacLeod. Writing that felt comfortable enough. It was kind of a nice combination of writing a novel and writing something for stage. I was able to perform it for theatre classmates and workshop it with regular classmates. And not to brag, but I had tremendous success with it in both settings. I felt like I had done something wonderful. Something that could be on stage.
My first attempt at a play came a couple years later, in my early twenties. I wanted to write a play for me and my dear friend Drew, even though neither of us were acting at that time. I guess it wasn’t terrible…maybe a bit strange, but I had an idea. And every writer knows all these things start with an idea. It didn’t go very far, mainly because of personal reasons, but I felt like it was something I could realistically pull off.
It really wasn’t. I attempted my second play a few years later, and it was a disaster. I had the idea there, but it didn’t translate. I still did a lot of monologues, since that seemed to be my thing. Every character got to open with a monologue. I thought it was kind of cool. The problem was, I didn’t seem to be able to write beyond opening monologues. I did a lot of introspective stuff, where characters would be narrating things that should have been stage directions. It was obvious I had no idea what I was doing.
The thing is, I’ve read a ridiculous amount of plays. I know what they look like. How they sound, how they read, how they look on stage. But it was something I couldn’t do on my own. Could I go back and rewrite what I had written? It’s definitely possible. Like I said, it makes me cringe a bit. Would I like to go back and rewrite what I had written? Yeah, I think I would.
At the same time, maybe playwriting just isn’t my thing. Everyone has a different style…fits into a different genre. I just really wish playwriting was something I could do. It’s just so different from anything else I’ve ever tackled. And as much as I want to be good at everything I write, I know that’s just not realistic. I suppose that I will always know that that play is waiting for me, in case I ever feel like it’s something that can be resurrected. Honestly? I guess you never know.
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