I Can't Believe It's Not Shakespeare

Virginia Woolf, in her infinite wisdom, said: “a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction”. (What do men need, by the way?)

I have a room all of my own, and (some) money. And yet, Mrs.Dalloway is hardly pouring out of my fingers. Especially when I’m working a lot to be able to afford this room of my own with (some) money left over.

I’m definitely in a writing rut. There are no teachers to impress with my latest pages (or actors, for that matter), no meetings with directors or agents to polish up a script for, certainly no plans for productions. There’s just….gulp…me. And, in the immortal words of Andrew Lloyd Webber, “Sometimes it’s very difficult to keep momentum when it’s you that you are following.”***

Anyway, partly for the benefit of the readers of this blog, but mostly for my own, I have compiled a list of ways to keep motivated during what we will some day fondly look back on as our “pre-Pulitzer” days…(after the jump)

***I am aware, that, in general ICBINS is not big on musical theater….but if anyone out in the blogosphere knows what that is from, WITHOUT using google, I will be so impressed….

• Find someone you really really really want to impress. Casually mention to that person that you are having a reading of your newest play in a month and he/she should come check it out. They will say yes, and then you will have one month to writing a play and put together a staged reading, or look like a total ass.

• Write out an acceptance speech for your first Oscar. It’s poignant and modest, isn’t it? It’d be a shame if you never got a chance to use it.

• Don’t pay your internet or cable bill for a month. I know, it sounds torturous. I know! But what coffee shop in New York City doesn’t have internet? And you KNOW you’ll be more productive without it. 

• Remember the last thing you wrote that went well? No, not that one, the one that went WELL. Can you think back that far? Ok, good. Now: wouldn’t it be nice to recapture that feeling? The fame? The glory? Get typing.

• High School Reunion coming up. What’ve you done lately? Not much? Oh, that’s impressive. Break out the moleskine.

• Take out a calculator. Time for some fun math! Quickly calculate how much money you spent getting your theater or writing degree. Ouch! Good thing you’re using it for something worthwhi—oh wait. START WRITING!

• Remember how everyone reacts when you tell them you want to be a playwright? How they’re always like “oh boy, that’s a hard life!”, as if no one had ever told you that before? And how you KNOW you won’t make any money and you KNOW you probably won’t be famous, but you still want to do it, because you think, despite all the crap that you usually produce, that every once in a while you manage to pull off something that is entertaining, that people like, that people would want to see? 

Page one.

Scene one.

Write.