In that time, I've found both intense stillness and intense productivity. Like I've mentioned before, I have written many, many pages over the past two years and eight scripts in those past years. This year so far I have written six scripts (one ten-minute, one full-length play, two pilots, and two half-hour episodes. The script I'm getting ready to work on now is a rewrite of one of the pilots. I will finish the year having written six scripts. I had this drive to do more and more every year. My drive has not disappeared, but I know that six scripts is enough. I need to take time to nail this next script and then I can move on and get ready for next year. If I take the remaining three months of the year to work on this one script, then I'm happy.
It feels like I'm slowing down a bit. And maybe that's where the search for stillness comes into play. I am open for many surprises and for much productivity. A psychic told me this year that the pilot I finished was going to be the script that made everything happen. He also told me that I would be busier than I had ever been or every thought I could be. Maybe I'm bracing for that. I'm enjoying this time where I can recharge. I don't know if that psychic is correct. And I'm not waiting around for magical things to happen. I am continuing to work and to grow from my teaching and from my work with the theatre company. I am setting some roots down with the theatre I now call my creative home. I also know that the play I finished altered something in me as a writer. I feel like I pushed myself and now my torn muscles need to heal in order to grow stronger.
I don't know yet how this change will show up in my writing. Maybe it will show up in this pilot rewrite. Maybe it will show up in this new play idea. Maybe it will show up later. But I know that I feel reborn as a writer. At the end of 2016, I will have written close to 4500 pages in three years. I don't know when I have crossed the threshold that of 10,000 hours that Malcolm Gladwell talks about. But I can feel that transformation.
I became an employed professional writer this year. That experience has stretched me and made me a better producer and authority on my work. Having both the experience of the show and the play in the same year has strengthened my resolve, it has made me a more skilled writer for sure. I almost feel like I was a kid before and finally I'm an adult writer. My work has matured in ways that it hadn't before. Truly, that feels like enough.
I have fellow writers in my life who are desperately seeking the big prize or the big production that will launch them. Honestly, I don't know what it means to have that big Edward Albee, Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller, Tony Kushner, Carol Churchill career. Annie Baker has that career - as someone who makes a living from playwriting and has a Pulitzer. I don't know if that's what I should be pursuing. I wrote a play that transformed me this year. Honestly, a Tony can't compare to that. Those aren't my goals any more. I feel like that outside recognition is truly unimportant. And I don't know when that happened. It doesn't mean I'm less ambitious or that I'm less hungry. I feel that my appetite is actually more acute than ever. I have a refined palette. Before, I'd eat anything - even if it wasn't good for me. But my creative appetite is just as hungry, but more refined now.
And I don't even have judgment over friends who do want to win the awards and have their name out there. The more I live, the more I realize that for me those things are a byproduct and not the main goal. I've had so many satisfying experiences in the past several years that mean so much more to me than an award. Besides, the thing I really want is money. I want a career and I want to be making money. That money represents value - it represents equity in my career that I have built on. And I can leverage that equity into more opportunities. The money isn't about greed. It's about building value in what I bring to the table.
Yet, I'm not panicked or rushing to make that happen. I'm writing. I'm not worried if someone is writing more than I'm writing. Or if someone is writing less. I'm not turning around to see who's catching up with me or looking to see who's ahead. It's that formula that got me to the place I am now. Comparing myself to other people is too exhausting. I don't speak of it in the past tense because I'll never be past it completely. That sort of competition is in my DNA. I try and ignore it.
I've said in the past that once I stopped worrying so much I had a lot more time to write. Anxiety ate up so much of my time. When I finished work on our show and when I finished working on my play after the workshop, I wanted to go back to work right away. I wanted to have the next thing to jump into. That hasn't happened. I had the opportunity to develop something and that opportunity went away. If I had gotten that opportunity, I would have not had the time to finish my pilot and my play. I believe those are the projects the psychic was talking about when he said that what I was working on now would make all of the productivity to come in the near future possible. I'm working on finishing this other script so that my runway is totally clear.
Sometimes I don't like to talk about my new found perspective because I feel it makes me sound like I think I'm so evolved and above all the worrying. I don't talk about the worrying in the past tense because we all worry. I'm not saying worry is bad. It just takes up a lot of space. And that's what makes me feel like I have to rush around, instead of settling in and doing the work and not worrying about the time.
My intention is to do the work in front of me.
My intention is to leap and soar.
My intention is to do.
I am grateful for Amazon Prime.
I am grateful for afternoon TV binging.
I am grateful for stillness.
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