Please visit my website: www.graceduff.net/Brian to see samples of my work and to learn more about me.

Friday, January 17, 2014

The Drought and The Glut

I don't know if this happens to my fellow writers, but as a playwright I exist almost exclusively in a binary state. The zero I call The Drought. It's not hard to imagine what this is. Some call it writer's block, which for me is a bit of a misnomer. A block implies there is something on the other side of it, something pushing, struggling to break out if only it could get passed this THING sitting in its path. On rare occasions, I've had this feeling. And I believe I have tools to deal with this. Most of the time I write around the block, other scenes or other ideas. Often when I return to the trouble, I find the block was never really there and I just didn't understand what I was really working on. But The Drought is different. When I'm going through The Drought, there is simply nothing there. I have nothing to say and I have no way to say it.

Nothing.

This state can and will and has gone on forever. "You will never write again" is often the line I hear echoing in my barren head. It unnerves me and drives me to think that everything I have created is small and terrible. The Drought is depression and anxiety. It creeps into my personal life and drains every scrap of energy I have. I lay awake at night and worry. And I don't know how to fight it because I'm so immersed in the nothingness of it. Trying new projects seems futile and burdensome. Old projects just reveal what a horrible writer I am.And The Drought just persists, waiting for me to die as a failed writer.

And then the The Glut comes. I don't know why or how, but after my time in the wilderness, I find The Glut.

The Glut isn't an entirely joyous state. It's not focus. It's not the cup being replenished. Just like dried land hit by a sudden rain, it's an overflow of ideas. I have learned to try and capture as many of them as I can, to hope that I can get enough of any one of them down to finish it before The Drought returns. I think this is why I call it The Glut. It's not just the flow of ideas, but me frantically shoveling them into a form I can hold onto, even if I'm already over-flowing with thoughts. My writing returns to the teenage compulsion that could drive my mother insane. I scribble lines and ideas on any scrap of paper I find. It's often difficult to sleep (insomnia seems to be a core component of all of my writing) and when I do sleep, I curse myself awake for not getting that last brilliant line down before I drifted off. Unlike The Drought, I always know The Glut will end. I have this sensation that tomorrow it will be over and I'll be left with the wreckage.

Sometimes I can make useful time amongst the wreckage. Sometimes I can repair and complete the pieces thrown together in The Glut. But too often, I find the thing that kills The Glut is The Drought and forever has begun anew.

Such is my writing.

Over time, I have learned to feel each one less, to be less connected to the emotion of each state. But if I'm honest, they're still there. They still exist. I don't know why I'm saying this. But it's part of the process. It's how I function. And while the process of thought is a strange thing to analyze, I feel like admitting it somehow helps.

 That's all for now.


-BGD




Thursday, January 2, 2014

Remembering Todd Marrone

I can't shake this sadness that's been looming over my head, clouding my heart, that's been staying three steps behind me and waiting for me to sit down and get comfortable. It's then I feel it pressing down on my shoulders and pulling at the pit of my stomach. I've had this feeling since the day after Christmas, an association that has nothing to do with the holiday. That's the day I had to say this sentence to my wife: Todd Marrone died.

I met Todd once.

And just saying that hurts me. a bit. I met him once. I didn't need to meet him again because I would always have the chance to meet him again. He wasn't hard to find, he was a force of nature in the Philly arts scene, or at least in my head. I could email him and he'd paint a portrait for next to nothing. (I know because he did this for my wife.) I could go to First Friday and take one of the free drawings he always had stapled to a plywood board. (I know this because I did this with my daughter. I got to speak to her about Todd like he was Rembrandt or Van Gogh, because he was. I called him a great man, because he was.) I could just follow his wit and passion from online, watch as he changed the lives of young artists. I didn't have to put the effort into actually meeting him because nothing can stop a force of nature like Todd was.

Only...

Yeah, I'm not going to say it. Partially because I don't know the whole truth. I only have my inferences from what I've gathered online. It would be unfair. But I will say that I never wanted to be stronger than Todd. I always wanted someone to look up to like him. And now I find out that I probably am stronger, and I still don't want to be. I want... This is harder than I thought. I'm at work and I'm near falling apart. I've had to quickly scroll past the memorials and the love facebook is exploding with for Todd because I just can't let my heart break that much, that often. I've actually thought about hiding his feed because even a moment is too much. But I can't do that. I have to be stronger than I want to be, and I have to believe that I am.

But more than that. I have to celebrate art, celebrate life. I have to give away the weird pieces of me for next to nothing so it can be shared with people I don't even know. I have to tell my daughter that there are great people out there doing impossible things for all the right reasons. And that people are bigger than you can imagine, they are forces of nature.

And they're small and fragile too.

I have to remember Todd Marrone... because I never want to forget him.

With Love,
-BGD