Monday, April 6, 2009

move along

when all you got to keep is strong
Move along
move along like I know ya do
And even when your hope is gone
Move along, move along just to make it through
move along

move along
All American Rejects

This won't be the last time I quote lyrics. This will happen a lot. Early in my writing career I would hear a song and write a story (prior to becoming a playwright) straight from the song. It wouldn't be from the music video, but when i would hear a song, i would start to see characters in my head and the work would be born. It's still that way, although not as direct anymore.

This is less about what insprises me and more about how moving along is the best thing to do sometimes.

Yes, keep writing. Yes, write through.

These are good suggestions and often they work.

But they were not turning out anything for me as of late.

So I backed away, got sucked into homework, and suddenly, a play i thought of when I was still at the University of Iowa, after I graduated, came back to me and started to form clearly in my mind. And now I'm thinking and working on it. It wasn't the play I wanted to work on, but sometimes you don't get your choice.

So moving along in my writing life can be two things:

moving along through the rough parts. writing against the tides, the avalanche, and somewhere you will dig out through to the other side of hot writing.

and

moving along to a different play.

the work will let you know when you need to stop pushing it and pulling on it. And if you don't listen, it can be very bad for you.

Trust me on this.

2 comments:

CarrieMarie said...

i miss the days of hours-long conversations with you, listening to the stories about rock bands & songs. my favorites - slaughter and nelson. though the bon jovi ones were pretty cool, too. do you still have those notebooks?

Toni Wilson said...

hahaha! oh yeah. No, I don't still have those notebooks. That's so funny, I was writing fanfiction before i realized what it was.

I miss those days too. stupid growing up.