The Struggle is Real (and in Real Time)

I had two phenomenal readings of a new play last week. Another reading of a play I wrote last year is also coming up in May.

I'm not saying this to brag. I'm saying this to remind myself that, as a playwright, I have things to say. I'm reminding myself because I'm sitting down to work on the fourth draft of a pilot that has gone through many iterations since I started writing in October.

I think those two plays (and my other plays) work because I have a freedom when I'm writing plays. I play with structure. I allow myself (not without struggle) to write about subjects I'm passionate about with structures that seem to work with and not against the subject matter. I'm able to allow form to follow function. With TV work, there's a certain structure. And sometimes that structure makes me feel confined and constricted. It's as if I think that because there's a traditional structure somehow my pilots need to feel traditional in order for them to communicate to the most people possible. Yet even though I play with structure in my plays, I don't think I'm writing in an obscure way.

A few years ago, I wrote a guest article for a friend's blog about the struggle to allow one's voice to come through in writing TV pilots.  If you're interested, here's a link to that blog post:

http://lpontius.com/guest-blog-eric-loo-the-rules-are-the-same-or-writers-amnesia/

I just re-read that blog post. I am excellent at giving advice. I am less excellent at taking my own advice. I have been struggling with this pilot because I haven't gotten down to what I want to say. I think I've finally figured out what I want to say and now I'm scared. I have an outrageous idea for a hook that illustrates my character's conflict. But then I start asking myself those questions:

Is it too outrageous?
Am I going to get laughed at?
I know "over the top" is kind of a trend right now, but is this just insane?

I'm writing a soap and this hook is classic soap in some ways. But it's also a hook that was at the center of a well-received and (at the time) innovative cable show from several years back. And I'm clearly not sharing that hook for obvious reasons.

I find that I'm judging myself. I'm the king of trying not to be judgmental. If I had a student who had an idea, I would tell them not to judge themselves and to be free to write the idea, even if it seems outrageous. I would tell that student that they should write from a place of (as Mike Nichols used to say): What would really happen? If this situation were to happen to someone, what would really happen? Ground it in reality.

So I suppose I need to ask myself: What would really happen?  

If I was writing this as a play, I wouldn't be afraid to experiment. In the play I'm writing now, I am experimenting. I am writing big and broadly. I'm not afraid to do so. I feel like it's my obligation in order to get my point across. Is this the best way to write the pilot story in order to get my point across? I think so (and that's more hesitant than assertive).

But like the wise guy who is giving advice in the aforementioned blog post says: Don't forget what makes you a great playwright. Why are you getting amnesia all of a sudden just because you're writing a TV pilot?

Take the courage and confidence you have from writing this big, epic, swinging for the fences play that currently clocks in at 134 pages and put some of that into the pilot. Write Big. Go for it. Write the version of the pilot that you need to get out of you and don't judge. Put it out there unapologetically. Stay courageous the whole way through. Write those five acts. Finish it. Write the words: END OF PILOT.

And then drop the mic.

BOOM.

I am grateful for the gift of writing.
I am grateful that one piece of writing can help another piece of writing.
I am grateful for time to type this blog post.
I am grateful for the courage to get these thoughts out.
I am grateful for the knowledge that comes with age and experience.