My current problem with Writing
I was recently asked to give a short quote about why I write for a theatre programme. The question provoked this long essay. Needless to say it couldn’t included there- but its part of the reason I set up this blog! Things come from Things.
when i write it feels like all I am doing is writing
and therefore I can’t write about anything
(incredible self awareness)
(compulsion to document everything- like the use of punctuation and formatting- i worry that typing this is making me forget anything i was inspired to write to begin with)
Oh…
Now
i really have forgotten
No
Is that honest conscousness of hyperbole for the post
Hmmm
No
So why write a friend asked me recently
why write
if someone asked me that
someone
the people who might ask
colleauges
collaborators maybe
I would say
write because its all you can do
because you need to express something
write like the act of writing is more active than writing
its an action i would equate to a knife cutting through wet cement
(now for me that draws up images of GD WAS HERE 1997- written in stick on wet cement in urban depravity- something I’ve written about alot but never fully experienced- or experienced in the way that I’ve written about it)
(have you noticed that these bracketed sentences are a comment on the writers subscousness as he or she writes)
like a knife cutting through wet cement.
Write because you can and they can’t.
Write so people can read it.
Write so someone you love can say it.
Write to spread an idea a message or a reassurance and change the world.
Someone I lovely very dearly
probably my greatest artistic hero
wrote in her book “even in our darkest hours of desperation- writing is an act of hope”
(i may have paraphrased there- sorry rachael)
Write because writing breeds hope.
Hope.
Write to document something
as a warning
as a celebration
write so no one will let it happen again.
Write so you won’t do it again.
Write to make a public promise to yourself- or somebody else
*(but if your going to that in the theatre it really has to be about everybody else too- if not i suggest writing letters- oh here- write those too)
Write so you can breathe evenly
write so you can sleep
write in the morning to wake up
write to expel demons
write to celebrate goals
write because you have fingers and ideas and a heart
write because you have the right to tell your story
write for the theatre because you have been blessed with the gift of translation.
(is it a gift or a skill does saying blessed imply religion should i change it but i like the resonance really it doesnt mean religion to me even though that might be the popular cultural understanding of the term)
the gift of translation.
the ability to rearrange the elements of our world in a new way-
through words.
(Lots of other stuff goes in here too.
Performance
Design or beauty or aesthetic-
atmosphere
atmosphere is huge for us- but this is a piece about writing words)
the ability to rearrange the elements of our world in a new way.
through words.
words doesnt always mean character
or narrative or or or
or
or
even fiction
it can be as simple as how you lay out any selection of words on a page
(but you learnt that on the leaving cert- the example is always ee cummings)
write to rearrange your world with words.
That is what I would say
that is the kind of thing I do say
i have always written things
(when i was 8 we got a computer and i wrote a novel on it about homeless teenagers- the novel was called WAREHOUSE and i am not exaggerating when is say novel. It was a novel)
(the brackets are also for tangents)
(to protect the rhytm)
(maybe now the brackets are within the rhytm?)
(how do you spell rhytm… rrh ry rythm rhythm…)
and when i started to write for the theatre
well to write plays
well actually no
after i had written a play
and then started to write text for performance
after learning that distinction
I learned about lists.
I loved lists for a very long time.
I think i still love them.
(this is is a list.)
a list of all the feelings i felt framed by the words i feel
a list of everything that ever happened
a list of the things we gained in the ecomonic boom
a list of problems
a list of possibilities
a list of things we did
a list of confessions
a list of everything that ever happened where everything starts with ‘we’
a list of everything that you ever felt where everything starts with ‘she’
a list of behaviours you observe where everything starts with ‘he’
then people said to me
“Lists and lists and lists”
“essentially its a list”
“essentially this is a list”
“more lists”
“a list based dramaturgy”
“a list of lists”
and so on
and so forth
the word loses meaning
the list loses meaning?
i used to love that so many people were writing so many lists
all around me
before me and after me
a comadery
this is how we feel
this list is how we feel
about our world
this is how we express it
this is its flavour its tone
we have that in common
that is the same
even in the vast difference of the things we are listing
its momentous
its builds towards a cresendo
a list is nearly always in an ascending order
or trading on the randomness of the order
but either way the order is important
they’re not shopping lists
but anyway
all the talk about lists in the world of the theatre has kind of ruined them for me
even though i really love them
i really love them
i suppose my problem with writing is form
i feel like all the form available to me
stories, lists, she was unhappy, i was unhappy, they were unhappy, it was a beautiful day, day- sun- canal bank reflections- hello - how are you? - not talking eh? -not talking. -fine third person narration, first person, dialogue, beat generation, poetry, poetics, the lists i’ve made my own, the lists we’ve crafted, beautiful modernist repetition…
i feel like
i feel like
i feel like
like they are all ill fitting shoes.
you have to find the ones that fit you
even if that means that sometimes you make your point with lousy metaphors
and adjectives you would never normally use
like ill
you are carving out a space for new form
you are doing that by being frustrated
by trying something else
and sometimes the only way to do that
when you can’t write
is to write
and not only write that
write a list
about why you want to write
and why at this moment in time
at this moment
at this moment
in time
you can’t.
—