It tells you a lot about me, I think, to say that I forgot that I even had a blog for the longest time.
(It poured rain and rumbled with thunder and lightning all morning today. Excellent reading and writing weather, especially considering that the last couple of days have been sweltering with the hard-baked humidity that the Midwest so generously bestowes on us. Sadly, the rain was over by the time I had to go to work this afternoon, and we were back to flat heat.)
I've taken up writing again, fairly regularly, if for no other reason than because it was the quickest and easiest thing to fill the hole when theatre was out of my life for the summer. I am, once again, home from university, and not entirely sure whether I actually have a life. To be honest, I have spent a lot of time reading webcomics, daydreaming, skimming through library books, and watching movies on my laptop. I'm itching for a real, solid project to sink my teeth into, but don't seem to have the willpower (or direction) to make it happen by myself.
(By the way, I was
hoping to be working an internship in a theater, and/or going on a road trip to the beach this summer. Neither of those things worked out. I am, of course, not bitter at all. Nope. Instead, I am working two jobs and gloating over finding all my textbooks online for wicked cheap.)
It sounds lame, but I have a steampunk novel that I have been allowing to just float in the back of my mind for awhile now. These days, I am hesitantly, carefully bringing it back to the dock and scraping the barnacles off it, caulking the seams, re-planking the deck and allowing myself to speculate on whether it's worth giving the whole thing a new paint job and taking her out for a real spin. I won't go on about the details of the story here--that would be very, very lame--but I have to admit I am hopeful about it.
There is just one general problem that may ground this little sweetheart before she quite makes it out of the bay.
My problem is, a couple of my best friends are writers. They are a) very good, and b) extremely committed. I, on the other hand 1) write as a form of escapism (probably obvious by now), and 2) don't have the drive required to do this for a living. I've seen what they do for their work, what it takes for them to make it the best possible and keep going, keep their dedication to it even when things get ugly. I love my friends, which is why we have such a good relationship. But sometimes, they intimidate the hell out of me.
So...maybe I'll keep this baby tied up at the dock for a bit longer. Hoping no one will notice. I mean, she's not exactly fit to be seen just yet.
(Yes, I do have a tendency to overanalyze
everything. I am aware of my uptightness, and still working on it.)
This, by the way, is a large part of why I've hitched my wagon to more of a theatrical star. A quick sketch:
In a theatrical production, there are a lot of people involved who must come together and make a project happen. For better or for worse, it's not just you and the computer screen/paper.
Also, the entire process--from auditions to strike--is, I am given to understand, typically no more than six weeks long. Then you are DONE. Finito. On to the next thing. I can't imagine even finishing a
draft of a novel in six weeks, let alone being done with the thing.
Finally, a play is more of a fluid, living thing. It happens more than once, with real people and tangible sets...you can't control all the elements precisely, and each time, it's going to be a little bit different. I find that just plain exciting.
I can wax quite poetical about my dear theatre, but I won't just now. For one thing, I've rambled across quite enough subjects (and overzealous metaphors) for one posting. For another, I'm tired and I want to go to bed. But I'm not tired of this blogging thing yet, so maybe it was a good idea after all.
