Wednesday 18 May 2011

Brain goo

I'm a great believer in multi-tasking - not in the external world - in the mind.  I've got four or five projects on the boil at the moment, bubbling away in my brain.  I will have to set aside time for each - specific time to make them happen - but they all live happily enough up there.  I trust that my brain (my brain and my gut - which is part of the brain) will sort out how these projects will look.  I have two more Storyteller shows scheduled for October and November this year - but I'm not doing much on them bar nudging myself occasionally to think about them.  They're shaping up well.  Haven't written a word yet, but they're coming on well.  As is the fourth draft of Trolls, the edit of the second Mystery play and the production design for a show in the summer.  I know that when I come to schedule my sitting down to work these projects out in the real world the hard work is already done.  I just need to copy the brain goo up.  It will change in the process, naturally.  It's a bit messy up their, not wholey focused, but ready enough to start.
That's why I know that in a months time I'm going to write a play.  Not a story / monologue / one person thing, an honest to god play with people talking to each other.  I started it a while ago, left it, and now my brain is saying "WRITE ME SOON!  Not now - but soon - about a month - and heaven help you if you don't - for it you don't the play WILL DIE!"  Plays do that.  They die.  I've one or two assorted foetus's lying in drawers at home.  There's nothing to be done up with them, bar chopping out any vital organs (good lines / jokes etc) that can be reused elsewhere.  And that is enough of that simile - getting a bit morbid.
This is as close as I get to talking about the artistic muse.  If forced I can sit down and write a play anytime - but it is deeply inefficient and unsatisfactory.  There is a good chance you will come out with rubbish.  However, give me notice, give me time to figure out what the play will be like and when I sit down to write it it will be much easier, better and successful.
Except when it isn't.  Sometimes plays just die anyway, sodding things.  It all starts so well, you get so far and... oh... where did you go?  Another one gone.  NEXT!
Must dash now to run Teaching Gods again ready for the one off on Sunday.  Why do I spend so much time and energy for one night stands?  Insert punchline here.
Robx

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