We survived opening night! The show is the reason I’ve hardly blogged on here lately, and it’ll probably be that way for the next few days. In the meantime, though, here are some quick thoughts I’ve had on my playwriting.

Thus far, my dialogue tends to be mostly “It’s this way,” “No it isn’t,” “Yes it is,” “No it isn’t.” Which is repetitive and quickly monotonous. I’m not entirely sure why I write that way, but I’m trying to grow out of it. :) (I’m not always like that, of course, but it’s noticeable. Very noticeable.)

My plays also seem to be more focused on the entertainment end of things — getting laughs, mainly — which is good and quite important, but I’m yearning to write something that’s great. Great in the noble, larger than life sense of the word, something that stretches people’s souls. Part of me wonders if the emotional shallowness of my plays is because I haven’t really experienced any of the poles — I’ve never had somebody really close to me die, and I’ve never been soaringly in love. Which isn’t to say that those things are necessary to being a good writer, but I can’t help but feel that there’s something lacking.

Eventually both will happen, of course. And we’ll see if I become a better writer for it. In the meantime, though, I’ll see if there’s a way to fake it. :P

Zooming out a bit, I’m getting completely flooded with ideas for plays now. Almost every day something that happens or something someone says sticks out at me as a good prompt for a play. More than I know what to do with.

But sadly I’ve hardly been writing at all these past couple of weeks. (I blame it on getting ready for Lost and Found, but I’m sure I could have made time to write. It’s just laziness.) And we’re already a third of the way through the month and I haven’t started writing a single word of my Script Frenzy play. ~sigh~ What I need to do, seriously, is just set aside that thirty minutes a day (or even an hour) and write, write, write. No matter what. That’s the only way I’m going to write all these plays I’m dying to write. (Which reminds me, the other reason I’m still very much a beginning playwright is that I’ve hardly read any plays. And so I’m reading Wit right now and have a long list of other plays to read.)

And now it’s bedtime because lack of sleep is the other thing that seems to be hampering me. :)