Who's Lazy?

There's this Howlround article that's circulating again (from 2011) where playwright Mat Smart breaks down why emerging playwrights are failing.  Even though this was written over two years ago, it was recently reposted on Howlround and then circulated on a Playwrights group on Facebook where people got all up in arms.

I can't say I agree with him entirely because I think there are factors that contribute to success and failure and one of those is our own personal definition of those terms.

But one of the things he says is that we are lazy.  And what's the first thing you say when someone calls you lazy?

Fuck you!  I'm not lazy.  You're lazy.  Asshole.

Or something to that effect.  I'm the first person to look inward and try to figure out what I can do that I'm not doing.  I'm overly critical in that regard.

What's wrong with me?

And by the way, I always think I'm lazy.  I always think it's my fault that I'm not succeeding.  So my problem is not accountability.  But I think some of that is a huge waste of time.  Sometimes you are doing everything you can be doing and you're just subject to an industry that operates a certain way.  I do think the conversation is different if you're a man or a woman or a minority or any combination of those three.  But since Mat Smart broke it down for all of us and put us on blast, I'm going to break down his article.

There is a widespread defeatist attitude among “emerging” playwrights that the system is broken. It’s impossible to make a living. We don’t have enough time to write after making rent. Sexism, racism, commercialism, stupidism runs rampant in established theaters (i.e., theaters we can actually make money at). Development opportunities are imperfect, too short, too finite. Theaters just need to do our plays already. We’ll do all the work we need to do on the script in rehearsal, trust us; your audience will come, trust us; you won’t take a bath on my play, just do it already—no really, the theater will die if you don’t support new work, assholes. Dear Artistic Director of a Major Regional Theater That Will Only Do New Plays by Playwrights Who Have Won Pulitzers: Fuck you. Sincerely, The Future of Theater That You Are Killing. 

I do think the system is broken.  I am guilty of everything that Mat accuses me of in this first paragraph.  But I don't just depend on the system to get my work out there.  I don't know if I'm a playwright who will ever operate within "the system."  And why do I need "the system" to tell me if I'm doing good work or not.  Well, I need it to win the Pulitzer, the Tony, the Obie and countless other awards that I would love on my mantel piece and that I could use as leverage to get prestigious large lump sums of money that famous and noted playwrights get.  But if my happiness as a playwright is based on whether or not I'm approved of by a broken system, then I'm giving too much of my power away and I'm in the business of being important instead of the business of being a writer.

And I'm just not as angry as the person he's speaking about.

On a bad day, that is what we “emerging” playwrights will say. I am not qualified to speak for all “emerging” playwrights, but this is often how I feel and what I hear over coffee or whiskey or the internet. I am not qualified to speak for all “emerging” playwrights because I am a straight, white male, and I don’t have a trust fund. I live on the $19,000 to $31,000 I make per year from a combination of playwriting royalties, commissions, fellowships, teaching, and working part-time at a real estate company. I am not qualified to speak for all “emerging” playwrights because I like to write linear plays with dramatic action and a climax where the protagonist makes a decision that changes him or her irrevocably. The diversity of we—the “emerging” playwright—is vast and necessary and I am unable to speak for all of us. However, this is what I believe, with all due respect to my peers:

our general laziness,
inability to commit,
defeatist attitude,
lack of talent,
and unwillingness to truly listen and change—
are the real reasons we—the “emerging” playwright—fail.

First of all, he says he's not qualified to speak for everybody, but he's feeling entitled enough to speak for a lot of people.  And I think he's just qualifying his statement so he doesn't come off as a dick.  I say be a dick!  It's fine.  So I'm just skipping to this last bit.

Laziness: Last year I wrote three new pilots (including several drafts) and several drafts of a new play.  That play hasn't been produced yet and neither have those pilots.  I submitted to a bunch of play development workshops and didn't get into any of them, although I did get some honorable mentions.  I did get a couple of readings that year and some this year as well.  And my father, who I was the major caretaker for, died.  You can't call that lazy.  This year, I wrote a new pilot and rewrote two plays.  I knew that this year would be slower in some regards because all of the mourning I was putting off was going to happen this year.  And I'm doing some growth in other areas.  I started a new play.  I have a complete outline for another play that I want to start.  And I have been reading and watching lots of films for that play I'm working on.  Sometimes the writing is not actual fingers on keys.  Sometimes it's thinking about it and journaling about it and blogging and talking to friends.  Fran Lebowitz says that you have to be out in life and socialize in order to get writing done.  You have to get out of your own head.  I'm also networking my ass off and taking meetings and lunches.  I'm meeting with friends to write every week and I'm in writers groups.  So if the definition of lazy is that I'm not locked in a room six days a week for eight hours a day…then yes, I guess I'm lazy.  But I'm also not trying to get water from the same old dried up well.

Defeatist attitude: Well, some people are just negative and they think this negativity makes them more serious or gives them the appearance of being hard working and dedicated because they're never satisfied.  Mat's right here.  That's a shitty attitude and has a lot to do with why you're not getting anywhere.

Lack of Talent: Well, here's the thing no one wants to say.  Or maybe Mat Smart wants to say because he wants people to get out of the race so he can get there faster.  Could a "defeatist" attitude also mean that you want to defeat everyone because you're hyper competitive?  In that case, I might be a defeatist. Mat's right.  Some people suck and they'll never get anywhere.  But we also don't operate in a meritocracy.  There are plenty of talentless people (that's what we call out competition…on a bad day) who are huge successes.  There are people who aren't as good as us who are having better careers.  I don't think that's sour grapes.  Because I don't think talent is always a prerequisite.  And audiences respond to plays for countless other reasons than being well-written or well-constructed.  Some people write technically proficient plays that are boring as hell.  But I don't think it's fair to say that lack of talent is a reason someone isn't successful.  Who's standard are we looking at?  And if we're taking someone who didn't go to NYU/Yale/Columbia/Brown/Julliard/UCSD/New School/Northwestern out of it…well, let's just assume we are.  Because Mat Smart might not be talking about you.  Because to "the system" you don't exist.  So quit now!  And I can say that as someone who went to one of those schools.  But you see, that's the problem with "the system."

Unwillingness to truly listen or change: Okay, I can get on board with this to some degree.  I think there are writers who are just stubborn and who think they came out of the womb a miniature, fully formed Edward Albee at his prime.  And if you think your play is perfect as it is, then you will never get any better.  But I do think there are theaters who don't always ask the right questions of a writer.  I think there are institutions who are also unwilling to listen or change because they own the building (the proverbial building, as opposed to the physical one in some cases).  And to be fair, if it's their money, it's their rules.  But it's not always their money.  It's the money of various trusts and institutions that exist for play development and they're just the custodians of that funding.  But they're still in charge of it.  Here's where I think we can make some strides to adjust the system or play in a new system adjacent to the existing one: If we use our money or resources towards alternatives, then maybe the system will be forced to listen and change because we're giving ourselves more options.  I think that can be as grassroots as self-producing or putting on cheap, public readings.  I know we want the cache that a certain seal of approval will give us.  But what happens when you are just chasing the system is that you become disgruntled, disillusioned, bitter and frustrated.  And that seeps into your writing whether you want it to or not.  And that is the real real reason playwrights fail.

This is already getting to be too long, so I'm going to touch on a few points that Mat makes in his article.  It's time for a speed round.

We—the “emerging” playwrights—are fucking lazy. This is what we don’t want you to know, Dear Artistic Director. Most of us don’t really know how to keep working on a play. Not what it really takes. To get a play where it needs to be—to get a theater to pull the trigger on a new script—you have to be relentless, indefatigable. You have to love the actual working on the thing—the actual writing—so much that there is an inevitability about it all….There must be a sense that “I am going down with the ship.” And frankly, it is a commitment that I don’t see many emerging playwrights make. 

Here's a question Mat doesn't ask: Does this Artistic Director decide how good I am? The answer is yes within the system we're talking about.  And some writers rewrite their script and put in the time, but the theatre doesn't do the play.  Then they have to engage in another relationship with another AD and undo everything they did to please that AD.  It's like the person who changes themselves in relationships to make someone else happy.  But when does that writer get to please themselves?  But I agree with him about "going down with the ship."  You have to stick by your work at all costs.

What if you rewrote and rewrote your ass off?  And worked on that script for months until it was exactly the way you want it?  What if you had a trusted group of advisors--an eclectic mix of writers, friends, literary staff and audience members who just know what they like--giving you their feedback?  And what if at the end of this rigorous process you ended up with a play you could stand behind?  What if that was the definition of success in the theatre world?  What if those were the plays that were going up and being seen nationally and internationally?  Would this conversation be irrelevant?  What if we stopped being people pleasers in our role as writer and truly made it about the work?

There's a notion in Kabbalah that the two partners can't make their relationship work if they're just focused on each other.  But if they're both focused on God, forming a triangular relationship, then there's a strength, foundation and a structure there.  What if we used that example?  What if the work was God?  What if we put the work first?

All right, I'm not even going to go further with breaking down Mat's article because frankly, I'm tired of it.  I don't think it's applicable to me personally.  I think he makes some valid points for some writers.  And if his point is that we're not working hard enough, then his point has been taken.  So once we solve that issue where are we?

I think playwrights fail for too many reasons to count.  But some of them include work ethic and others include our choice to buy into a system that doesn't serve everyone because no system can serve everyone.  If we are aware of the inherent prejudice in "the system"…and I'm not even talking just a white prejudice (which also includes white guilt, by the way).  I'm mainly talking the prejudice that exists because most emerging playwrights working today who are on the radar of major theaters are from one of the schools I mentioned earlier.  And it can reflect a certain mentality or at least taste level.  If you fall outside of that because you didn't go to one of those schools, you're left out of the conversation.

The major problem I have with this article is that it comes from a place of blame and of what we're not doing instead of telling us what we can do.  In other words (thank you Bethenny Frankel), it is not coming from a Place of Yes.

Work Harder Than Everyone in the Room (or your circle)
Don't Pay Attention to What Other People Are Doing
Get Your Work Out There
Be Your Biggest Fan
Understand What the Note Is

I'll explain more of what I mean in another post, but let's just digest that for now.  That is what will lead to your success.  That is what will lead to good work.  The other stuff isn't up to us.

A Self Description

Email 10 friends.  Ask them for 10-15 adjectives that describe you as well as any celebrities that you remind them of.  What we're looking to do is capture your essence.  What is it about each celebrity that reminds them of you?

A friend of mine sent that to me in an email yesterday because she was working with a life coach on developing some marketing strategies.  I had three thoughts when I got the email:

1. I should be a life coach.
2. I'm going to do this for myself.
3. I'm glad my friend thought of me as one of her 10 friends she wanted advice from.

I love a good exercise.  A writing exercise.  A physical exercise.  A mental exercise.  Anything that gets me moving and gets me to think rather than do.

That's why I write every day.  And that's why I run every day.

Here it goes:

Adjectives that describe me:

1. Studious
2. Silly
3. Interested
4. Enthusiastic
5. Articulate
6. Funny
7. Sexual
8. Wonderful
9. Organized
10. Loud
11. Opinionated
12. Forceful
13. Loving
14. Dedicated
15. Open-minded

And celebrities (this is harder):

• Angelina Jolie - not really, but that's the first name that popped into my head
• Aziz Ansari - because I like food, I'm brown and I think I'm funny
• Jimmy Fallon - Because years ago, three different people on three different occasions told me I reminded them of Jimmy Fallen.  And because I'm ethnic, I was just happy they didn't say Keanu Reeves.
• Bea Arthur - Because I'm at my best and my funniest when I'm quick-witted and a little salty.
• Fran Lebowitz - Because I fancy myself the literary version of Bea Arthur.

All right.  So how do I parlay that into a marketing strategy?

The Story I Want To Tell

I keep seeing these ads for writing classes:

"Tell the Story You Want to Tell"

"Writing the Memoir"

"How to Tell the Story You Were Meant to Tell"

And people flock to these seminars and workshops because they truly believe they have a story.  I have even tried to coach people on telling the story they feel they need to tell.  Because it's true: we all have a story.  Fran Lebowitz has a line in her HBO documentary, Public Speaking: "When Toni Morrison said that everyone should write their novel, she didn't mean EVERYONE."  I'm paraphrasing.  But I get it.  Everyone thinks they're a writer.  And, as I told my friend Susan yesterday as she was winning a big award, when she said she hadn't had a lot of luck in her career and that it was all hard work: "Being a good writer is the biggest stroke of luck ever."  And it's true.  As writers, we just assume that everyone has the same gift of articulation, wit, observation, and candor as we do.  But they don't.  Not by a mile. But it gives us anxiety and is the source of a lot of impatience.  I constantly am annoyed that my boyfriend isn't as clear and concise about his feelings as I am.  But he can't be.  First of all he's a musician.  Secondly, he's a civilian.  It's unfair for me to ask that of him.

But that's not really the reason I started writing this entry.  It's an intro.

When I think about the stories I'm meant to tell, I don't think about the stories themselves in terms of subject.  But I think about how I want to tell those stories.  What's the way in?  What do I want to cover?   But just as importantly is...what don't I want to say?

I'm writing a play right now.  Brand new.  And at first glance you could say that it's about advertising.  That's an easy one liner.  I'm writing a play about advertising.  The linear, story driven approach to that is that I'm going to write about the goings on at an advertising agency and how the ads get made.  Or it's going to be about a group of writers trying to work on a campaign.  In actuality, all of that is true in the story I'm writing.

Much like when one writes about lawyers or doctors or cops, you've got the workplace.  Here is what happens in the workplace.  They've got a goal: to try the case, to cure the patient or to solve the crime.  In this case, the problem to solve would be to get the campaign or to get people to buy the product.  My idea isn't about that, even though it involves a campaign and it involves selling a product.  I want to know what happens to the idea and how it gets permeated into the fabric of the culture.  That's a bigger idea.  But it's not one I'm going to get into if I write about the inner workings of the agency or if I try to write Mad Men.  And that's why I'm not writing a pilot about advertising.  That doesn't interest me.  I've been watching this show on AMC called The Pitch, which is really intriguing.  And I watched it for research.  Correction: Season One is intriguing.  Season Two is watered down and not interesting at all.

But the story I want to tell is about a utopian society and what happens when their ideas and their hopefulness for the very altruistic and well-meaning message they're telling ends up being interpreted in ways that they never intended or actually have control over.  What happens then?

And that's not a story that can just be told in a straight forward way.  It's a story that involves philosophical conversations.  It's a story that has a lot of people who are trying to be heard all at once.  It's got images and ideas and thoughts.  And those things need to breathe and resonate.  They can't just be a plot point.

Even though we're bombarded with phrases like "inciting incident" and "plot point", we need to think about if our story needs those things in such a defined way.  Yes, you want to get the action moving.  And action is important in dramatic writing.  But can those things be a little more fuzzy and a little less deliberate and defined and still be effective?  That's a great question.

I'm going to find that out hopefully as I make my way through it.

Writer's Blockade

Its this running joke that Fran Lebowitz hasn't written a book of essays in thirty years.  She says that it has gone beyond writer's block and now it's a writer's blockade.  

The thought of that is frightening to me.  I think it's frightening to any writer.  I had an old friend over for drinks last night.  He has one novel out, which he has written a screenplay for and is turning into a graphic novel.  He's sitting down to write his second novel, which is a sequel to the first.  And it's not coming out.  I told him that maybe he's just too close to the material since he hasn't really let it go in the two years since he completed the original novel.

I'm the opposite.  I like to write something and let it go.  I don't think I've ever even thought about writing a sequel to anything I've written.  I'm invested in television, which is possibly several years of several characters' lives.  But the idea of writing something, being done with it, and then going back to these folks is scary.  I don't often have writer's block.  That's not bragging.  That's just saying that I've tried to work around it.  I like to have several projects going on at once.  I don't like to focus on one thing.  If I'm going to procrastinate, I try to procrastinate with another project.

I'm not trying to be some sort of hero here.  I'm not some sort of superstar writer.  I just like to know that if something is stalling, or if I have to put something down, then I can just move to the next thing.  Every project needs a little space.  It's just that I hate the feeling of writer's block.  I couldn't imagine having it for decades.  I also try not to force myself into it.  I try to write every day.  And that could mean a zillion things.

• Reading a book.
• Going for a run.
• Seeing a movie.
• Watching TV.
• Writing.

One of my first mentors as a writing student was the playwright Erik Ehn.  And his advice to me was to make everything writing.  In other words, do everything consciously so that it influences and affects your writing.  Even if you're not doing the physical act.  I have tried to do that ever since I got that advice.  Then I never feel like I'm not doing something productive.  Well, almost never.  I am human after all.  And a writer.  So I feel inadequate about 50 times a day.  For a writer, that qualifies as "almost never."   

Also, I don't give myself the pressure to always write.  Yes, it's wonderful if you've got a writing schedule and you're churning out pages every day.  But one has to live.  That's why we're on this planet, not just to document our lives.  And even though I have made that my life's work and vocation, it doesn't always feel good.  And it's not always there for me.  But that doesn't mean I get writer's block.  I just turn around and come back when the block is clear.  That's the way I have to do it.  Otherwise I would drive myself crazy.

And I'm crazy enough as it is.

Where the Magic Happens

I am someone who seems to always be writing.  At least according to my Facebook and Twitter posts.  Whenever I see a friend out and about they always say, "So it sounds like you've been writing a lot lately."  I nod yes.  I have been writing a lot lately.  Lately being the past several years.  Before that I had a job and a boyfriend that were really demanding.  So I wrote, but I didn't write every day.

I used to hate it when professors of mine used to say, "To be a writer, you have to write every day.  You have to set a schedule.  You have to dedicate yourself to it."  I was always of the opinion that the muse would hit me when she hit me and then things would fall out.  Because I am stubborn, it's incredibly difficult for me to admit that my professors were right.  But when I was in grad school, I had friends who took this too seriously.  I had a friend who was on her Winter Break and was home in Seattle from 9 AM to 5 PM in her parents' home office, just sitting there.  Even if nothing came, she was committed.  She had to be there.  But in a way, it felt like she was waiting for the muses too.

I always felt like I needed to live.  "Life is a banquet and most poor suckers are starving to death," goes the famous quote from Auntie Mame.  It's true.  You can't have anything interesting or substantial to write about if you're not living.  I was just watching the Public Speaking documentary that Martin Scorese did a couple of years ago about Fran Lebowitz, one of my favorite writers and personalities.  She said that it's the writer's work to hang around and talk, to do nothing.  That's how writing gets done by talking to other people.  It's the exchange of ideas.  And I tend to agree with that.  But Fran has been in a writer's block (or as she says it blockade for the past thirty or so years).

I exist somewhere in between the two.  I do think that the routine of sitting in front of the computer is good because that's where the work happens.  But if the work is not happening, then what the fuck are you doing?  Go see a play!  Go see a movie!  Go see friends!  Go blow somebody!  Do something that fills you with life and inspiration.  Go outside!  Go for a run!  The work will be there for you when you get back.  And it doesn't help to just hit your head against a wall.

I think the reason I get so much writing done is that I also get a lot of TV watching done.  I watch a lot of documentaries.  I love documentaries.  They put my brain on rest.  In a similar way, that's why I love reality TV, but that's another conversation.  Documentaries are just straight info.  It's not necessarily fictionalized, so I don't have to think about how I would do it better.  They give my brain a rest, but they are also thought-provoking sometimes.  I love fashion documentaries and I love art documentaries.  Documentaries are the thing that I'll watch over and over again.  Maybe it's because I love to hear people talk.

But the point I'm trying to make here is that I can get a lot of writing done because I shut that part of my brain off sometimes.  The baby-making part.  The creative part.  Watching something that's not a piece of scripted material allows me to just relax and enjoy.  When I watch a movie, it's either for research or it's something that I have been told I need to see.  And whether it's planned or not, I end up studying it--or taking it apart.

But the only things I really seem to get excited about are documentaries.  There's the Karine Rothfeld documentary, Mademoiselle C that's coming out soon.  She's the former Editor in Chief at French Vogue.  I love how over the top that world is.  I love how they talk about art and fashion (or fashion as art) in a way that's so elitist and rarified.  It's so full of optimism and hope because it exists in a world where money is not an issue.  So it starts out as something superficial, but it also says something deeper about what people desire.  It's entertaining and it gets me to think about things that I like to think about. That's the best form of art and/or entertainment for me.

But the magic happens because I am able to have a relationship to a piece of art: a painting, a sculpture, a film, a play, whatever.  Then that dialogue gets me thinking about my own work.  Sometimes it's a boring conversation that allows me to wander and then I think about what I could do better.  That happens a lot.  And I'm okay with that.  Any way for the art to happen, right?  Just as long as the wheels start turning and the fingers start tapping away on the keys.  Sometimes the muses descend on you and sometimes you need to set out on a mission to find them.