If by chance you’re an aspiring writer, I really only have one thing to say: if you write because you love it and you really can’t help it––you’ve done your level best to stop, but can’t––then by all means, carry on no matter how choppy the waters, how sluggish the forward motion.
All others, cease and desist. Here there be dragons.
It’s not that writing itself (like aging) isn’t for the faint of heart, it’s that you will be rejected on a regular basis for so long as you attempt to take your work public, and most days, all you really have to fall back on as armor is the simple joy of the writing itself. The ideation and creation. The refusal to settle for less than all the muse can give.
Because if that doesn’t give you a certain inherent satisfaction, the road can be bleak indeed. Husbands, wives, and supportive partners can only take you just so far, or hold you just so well. Friends, no matter how well-intentioned, won’t be able to buoy you forever. As for reviews, the only ones that count are positive responses from total strangers, and those can be few and far between.
All this is to say that it’s been a desert these past few months, but I keep as many irons in the fire as I possibly can, and I get my work done. I submit said work, carefully and honestly, and I do my best to fairly represent who I am and what I do. I make time for family, and for issues close to my heart. Making art is a dilettante’s undertaking unless one also makes an active effort to improve the world in realms beyond the creative.
I’m currently hard at work birthing two new and very unlike plays. Prose lurks on the horizon, and one day soon the next novel will force its way to the fore, demanding to be written.
If you’re connected to high school theater, please check out my two offerings at Gitelman & Good, The Wizard Delivers (and Pinky Stays the Course) and Techies. Over at Playscripts, my titles have been swallowed by the bigger shark known as Concord Theatricals, but they’re still ready for licensing any time, including Acts of God, Ten Red Kings, and shorter work like “Porch Revival” and The Shout. (My head shot there is hilariously out of date; I haven’t seen hair like that on my pate for two decades at least. Time to do something about that…tomorrow.)
Vinyl Wonderland soldiers on, one review at a time. I just worked a very entertaining and well-attended author event at the Evansville Public Library, and sold a number of copies. Not enough to live on, but so it goes.
My screenplay, Burying Marshal Campion, made it as far as the semi-final round of the last Scriptation contest, which I gather is a feat to be proud of, but in a winner-take-all scheme, I’m not much interested in accolades. Production is what counts, or at least an option. Still, I guess several layers of readers thought that Campion and I had chops. It’s a start.
Meanwhile, in the outside world, I spotted the season’s first red-winged blackbird, newly arrived from climes both southern and distant. Even further south, I was lucky enough to capture this shot of a scarlet-rumped tanager (see photo, above). Birds continue to astonish, and spring threatens to burst at any moment.
Onward!