"I got plenty to confess, but better to wait till it’s over, get it all out at once."

Confession: I often feel like someone is about to expose me as a playwrighting fraud. This rears its head at ugly and awkward times: when getting dressed to go to one of my events, ("Is this what a playwright wears, or just someone trying to look like a playwright?") after I meet creative staff for the first time, ("I totally didn't sound like a playwright, what playwright says that?") and anytime the words 'method' or 'style' come up in terms of the words I put down on paper and ask people to perform in front of other people who have paid money to see it.

...because I haven't been 'trained'. And as a write that, I can't help but think of the poor dumb mutt who isn't house broken and just looks forlornly at his own poop when you come home, suddenly realizing that 'Oh, that probably doesn't belong here... But where should I put it?' That's how my work is when I stop to try and catalog it. I've taken some really awesome classes, and I don't want to take away anything from the amazing teachers who have invested their time in me. They rock.

And would the embossed piece of paper, the extra line on my resume... would that make me feel legitimate? Or is it a slow wearing away? Is it something that I have to accept? And, if so, how do I really accept that when asked about my style or my method, the most precise answer is, "I dunno." I'm not very well read; in every class I've taken, there's been a 'basic tool' that is brand new to me and that I fall in love with. And when I sit down to write, I just start writing. I don't have a real plan, I just make stuff up that feels right. That's my method.

I'm trying to get better, but it still feels false. An example: I don't use outlines. But I've heard PLAYWRIGHTS do. So recently, I tried using an outline. It looked like this...





















Which was entertaining over coffee and raisins, but only showed me all the scenes I hadn't written, not what I needed to write. Also... I lost half the cards and most of them came untaped, so my methodology at very least was lacking.

The thing that did help me figure out the rest of the play was this...
 

Which, you know, isn't really a, um, thing. But that's what I do... oh, and try to figure out what the heck to wear.

-BGD

"I wanted to hear it out loud, feel my words in space."

Let's take a moment to talk about outlining...

Actually, let's pause and take a moment to for me to say that this is my method, there's nothing wrong with how anyone approaches their own writing. I know plenty of writers who have marvelous structure and dedication and I would be very surprised if they didn't outline. I understand that there are many virtues to it and I'm not trying to be a detractor. These are my own limited perceptions and  I know that many of the claims I make will simply be untrue... unless you are me. But I'm using this writing to help me define my process and so, let's take a moment to talk about outlining....

Or rather the way I work.

I begin (oddly enough) at what I think the beginning is as I begin. This might move, change, be eliminated, but when I conceive of a play it is almost always from the rise of the curtain. It might be a single line of dialogue, an image or a set of givens. At this point, I know very little. And so I dive in and discover. I have characters reveal themselves to me just as the audience receives them. I rarely go into the kind of writer's trance that makes me passive, but this kind of writing is less influenced by the conscious version of me and allows me to be free to question what I'm writing as I'm writing it. (I can hear my writing professors scolding me for self-editing in the generative phase...) It also allows me to be surprised. I have ideas of where I think the play will go, but I'm not sure. Often, characters will jump out and do something shocking to me.

I live for these moments.

As we go on, inklings become more solidified and I make notes and scenelets and unrelated monologues that I know will appear somewhere in the script. I take walks and think about what I've written or what is holding me back from writing more. What I want to see more of. I take showers and do the same thing. I wash dishes and do the same thing. My head gets filled with these questions constantly. I mumble to myself "Okay, so...?" like a mantra. And through spurts and stops, by re-reading messages I left on my phone's text box or the back a receipt, I piece the rest of it together.

Sometimes it's joyous, sometimes it's painful. But it is always mine.

What it gives me is a sense of spontaneity. I don't feel bound to any idea for longer than I am interested in it, I don't feel like I have to know every detail or even be able to predict at all how things will end up. Sure, in truth I ruminate much longer than an opening line or image, but I find that what I think will happen and what I end up writing about never lines up. So why invest time in an outline that will only limit me and distract me from listening to the characters?

For me, it doesn't make sense.

-BGD