something's always wrong

The title is true, but isn't true. I am writing. It has been tough, but I am sticking it out. And things are coming through. There's the moments of tingly excitement that come with a breakthrough and a piece falls into place, but somehow, it rings false.

And then I start to wonder things like...
Who has the wrong name?
Who isn't supposed to be in this play?
Should this character NOT be a gay man of the cloth?
Should this character have mother and God issues that are unresolved?
And what's the deal with atheism? Like, I don't have a problem with it, but how can I make this play less of an issue play and more of an actual play? I don't want it to be coming down on the side of atheism is bad or believing in God is bad, because that is not an opinion I need to concern myself with in this play. Or is it?

This is the kind of neurotic behavior and thought pattern I get into with plays. I get energy from a controversial subject, with setting the characters loose with their own issues going up against each others' wants, needs and desires, and then when they run off in contrary to me directions, I kind of freak.

Somehow, I can't seem to keep in mind that I am NOT really in control of the people of my play. They come to me, in whatever shape they are in, if they are drawn off of someone I know, a character trait, an idea, a comment I overheard someone make in the cafeteria, or something said directly to me in a small cubicle in the Scientology building on Hollywood Boulevard about how my father would have been alive still if he had had Scientology, somehow, something creates the character. And then as that character develops, they become like teenagers and go off in their own directions and become writers, drug addicts, alcoholics, doctors, lawyers, mothers, teachers, as well as any other number of things their parents did or didn't want them to become. At any rate, they become their own people. And losing this control is terrifying, because I don't know where the play is going to end up after that.

And that's okay. I've been writing and dealing with character issues like this since I was at least 12 years old. It's been over two decades' one would think I would stop having 'The Fear'. It doesn't ever go away.

And the Scientology story is best saved for another time. But it happened between my junior and senior year of high school, and it just NOW figured out a way into my play.

Everything and everyone is in danger of being in a play. You have been forewarned.