English is so Imprecise

I never thought I would write this about chocolate (because if you know me, I'm a Chocoholic of the First Order), but I feel indifferent, no, disinterested, no, false, no...see, English is so imprecise. There's got to be a word for what I feel in some other language, like schadenfreude in German. Maybe I need to make one up.

At any rate, 'Chocolate Cake' has evoked feelings in me that I've experienced about my work before, but the stronger versions of these feelings usually make me put the play down for a month or so and come back when I've had the space and time to work on others things, and let that one simmer on the back burner.

But this play--it feels like I'm going through the motions, sort of. Like there's no real emotion in it. Like I don't care, but do. Like maybe if I keep working on it, I will break through to it. So that's what I'm doing--keeping up on it until I know for a fact it's time to give it a break. I'll know when it is, and it's not now. Maybe when I complete all the scenes.

The characters are evolving fine, the plot is falling into place, with the exception of a few things here and there.

Actually, I'm not sure the problem is even the play itself--I think it's something else entirely. It stems from getting into graduate school and then not being able to come up with the money to pay for it--and student loans are out of the question. So you know, there's that. I feel like my work needs another step up at this point--like I'm writing in a vacuum. I know there's a cure for it. I need to just present my own work, and I am working on that. The only way my work is going to improve is to see it up on its feet, and if I can't find a theatre who will help me out, I just need to do the work myself. And I have no one to blame but myself for not getting this going sooner. There's no time like the present.

So I think my feelings of strange indifference for this play isn't about the play in general, but about my career as a playwright, which feels stalled out right now. I am doing the right things--I join the right organizations, I send my work out, I get my work rejected, I write, I write, I write--but it's been five years since I left UIowa, and I guess I expected that since I was going at such a high rate of speed as far as writing and getting published and all that that I would be much further than I am right now.

So, obviously I just need to get off my duff and do what I need to do. It's that simple.