Working on Something New

I'm working on a new play.
Yes, it seems like every year or so I'm working on a new play.
Part of the challenge for me is to experience playwriting in a new way. I don't just like to do it the way I did it before. It would be totally boring for me to have the same approach to all the work I do. I really like to mix it up.
I was asked by my dramaturg about the way I'm formatting my dialogue. If it had any meaning. And it's really so that I can start thinking about the play differently than I have the other plays I've worked on. This isn't really a play with a story. It's got a collective story, but it's more thematic in certain ways. And I want the story to emerge.
So I wanted to think about the dialogue in a different way.
I'm not writing straight across
sometimes I'm breaking up thoughts differently.
The idea is that it's read a bit more deliberately
and that there's a rhythm that's suggested.
I'm going instinctually.  I am not really putting a ton of
thought into it. That means that there's less dialogue on the page, but I still think there should be time taken.
If I wrote the dialogue like I write all of my dialogue and if I formatted in Final Draft
like I format everything, then the play would sound the same.
I'm thinking about word choice differently
because I'm taking time to hit the return button more often
this time around.
It gets me to think about word choice.
It also creates more space on the page.
And I've been writing pilot scripts and screenplays lately,
so those feel so formatted in a certain way.
I wanted to get my head out of that way of talking and formatting
so that the play's dialogue would feel different.
So that the play would feel different.
I have a bunch of scenes that have little or no dialogue.
I have some one page scenes.
I have scenes that are also longer than traditional 3 page max screen scenes.
I've got some theatrics and some overlapping.

My boyfriend just asked me if I was happy with my progress.
I'm trying really hard not to cringe whenever he asks that question,
although the question does make me cringe.
He's a drummer. He has a different way of looking at creativity.
And of course, he's so sweet for asking and being concerned. So I don't want to be a dick.
Although I am.
I'm such a dick and I'm so temperamental.
I'm such a stereotype in that way. I get grumpy and sad and quiet.
I like to spend a lot of time alone.
I dedicate my whole day to the creative process
so I like to get up at a reasonable hour, spend time in silence and write a bit.
Then I like to get distracted with other things and read a bit.
I did a lot of research today and tonight.
I did some writing today and tonight.
I read over 100 pages of The Andy Cohen Diaries, actually closer to 200.
Some pages I skimmed, but I read 85 percent of those 200 pages that I covered.
That was really what I did today and I want to read more before I go to bed.
I could literally go to bed at 5 AM when I have so many other things I need to be doing.
And I need to be sleeping.
But I don't feel like it.
I feel energized.
Maybe there will be more for me to write later, like at 4 AM.
Who knows?

Over the summer,
my hours were 9-5 or 10-6
Monday through Friday
and i didn't work on weekends, for the most part.
Now that I don't have an office, my work days are long
and unfocused.
I start around 10 or 11 and I'm breaking and writing until 1 or 2 or 3 in the morning.
I am enjoying this too.
I'm doing the intake and the output simultaneously.
It's like stuffing myself with food while I sit on the toilet and expel it.
That's gross.
And this is a little cross as well.
It's a constant steady stream of activity and information coming in.

So it's not just that I'm working on something new, but I'm working in new ways.
It's not easy to change the approach when so many of the factors
Involved in putting this piece together are not my usual ways of working.
I can't fall back on what's familiar.
And that's good.

I am grateful for strength.
I am grateful for 115 pages. And counting.
I am grateful for The Andy Cohen Diaries.
I am grateful for stories.
I am grateful for the 4 hours I spent in relative silence today.