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Day Three Hundred and Seventeen:  Real Art Takes Courage and Honesty

I’m at a stand still with my one act play.  I haven’t read it over in a few days, and I have some very real changes to make, but I need something to happen.  Sounds like life, right?  Something substantial, something to write about, to write home about.  Something essential needs to happy, and at this point the heartbeat of the story comes from the characters and what they say to eachother and the only external force driving their actions is pain, and since I’m trying to stick to realism I am having a hard time figuring out a solution for action in order to…get them moving, ish.  There are so many revelations you can make in a half-hour one-act that will be substantial enough for a story, for a theatrical drama, for a piece.  I need something honest.

Have you ever gotten lost looking for honesty?  It is one of the hardest and yet most pure forms of journeys, looking for something that may or may not be there, but the truth exists somewhere.  I think that the honesty in this piece is there, it is I know it is, but it’s beyond my reach at this point.  I’m thinking that by the middle of next week my stress points will be reaching the level where I usual get epiphanies.  Now, if you don’t believe in epiphanies I think that’s silly but in the event that that word is taboo it really is just a moment of clarity.

Clarity is beautiful, and wonderful, but sometimes I think I’m being clear and brilliant and read my thoughts over later and struggle to see what was so…interesting.  Honest or not, someone is going to have to want to read it.

Funny thing is it’s my confidence that separates me from what I believe people will want to read and what is only interesting to me.  Like this post, for example.  Things like this fascinate me.  I love to write about the act of writing, why use a specific word?  Why intentionally put punctuation, or something of the kind?  What are the thought processes of authorship, editing and publications?  What motivates anyone to write anything down, from to-do lists to poetry to academic analysis.  Writing itself is interesting enough, why can’t anyone honestly put down words on a page about putting words down on a page?  And not in a Stephin King, meta-writing a horror novel about a writer thing, but truly just talk about how it is to write.  These things probably exist.

At any rate my play is not done, and won’t be for a while, I find that most of my work may never be finished until my own finality, but I’d rather end on a positive note:  looking forward to finishing this draft of this play I intend to really understand the characters and get them doing something.  Nobody wants to watch or listen to a play where nothing ever happens.  Or I guess you could Beckett it out, if you really want, I guess.

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