Monthly Archives: January 2017

The Creative Process

It’s crossed my mind that it must seem a bit arrogant for me to keep referring to “the creative process” – as though there were only one creative process at work in the Universe, and I just happen to be in tune with it.  But there really doesn’t seem to be a better way to describe the experience I’m attempting to discuss — at least not in keeping with my own artistic philosophy.  In my view, there really is a single, unified creative process.  But by no means do I claim to be in close touch with it.  I believe in this fascinating process, much the same way that I believe in God.  However, I’m about as close to the essence of this process as I am to God Himself – and believe me, that isn’t very close.

It is my belief in this process that is at the core of this blog.  In fact, I would venture to suggest that if we all understood this process better, we would come to a better understanding of the nature of God.  After all, who is God but the Creator?   By definition, He is not just “a creator” – but the Creator.  All other creators and creations are subject to His single, all-embracing Act of Creativity — that which always was, is now, and always will be: the continual creation of a highly creative Universe, in which all of us are privileged to create.

If that were not the case, then I wouldn’t be a believer.  But since I do believe in God, it really doesn’t seem to me as though there is any other way to look at it.  Besides, God or no God, the theme of creativity–with all of its processes, procedures, and protocol–simply fascinates me.  I want to learn more and more about it, as my creative life goes on.

While my oft-usage of the word “muse” is purely figurative, there does seem to be a frequent and common experience of sensing the “presence” of a powerful creative force.  Or, as I tried to describe in the previous post, I can at times sense that the arrival of this creative power is imminent.  As it happened, I did not manage to muster any motivation for my current playwriting project on Friday, even though I “felt” that something was about to “break” as early as Thursday night.  But Saturday was another story.  I began my process of writing, editing, and rewriting at about eight in the morning, and basically did not stop till midnight.  This morning, I did a few final edits, and can now announce that I’ve completed up to p.75 of this piece to my satisfaction.  The last time I made a progress report along these lines, I was only up to p.64.  I had finished the first four Scenes last Saturday.  Then a week of “nothing” went by, and I finished at least half of the fifth Scene the following Saturday.  

graham_wallas

Graham Wallas

But was that “week of nothing” really only “nothing?”  I think not.  There is a theory, most notably espoused by Graham Wallas, that once a creator is fully committed to their creation, the creative act continues constantly, even when nothing is being considered consciously.  This process of unconscious creation is known as incubation.  Then, in conjunction with a moment of illumination, the creative process is consciously resumed.   Arguably, this is what took place during the week when it seemed that nothing was accomplished.  Suddenly, much was accomplished on a single day.  

Of course, there are other theories as to why this could have come about.  But there are also many theories as to how the Universe came about in the first place.  Could God Himself conceivably have “incubated” for an eternity or so, before the illumination that instigated the Universe was initiated?   How much incubation has occurred worldwide, on a planetary level, before this most recent series of illuminations could take place?  To what kind of creations will all these “illuminations” lead?   It boggles the mind to think about it.

But think about it we will — and we must.   I would venture to suggest that we’re all going to be thinking quite creatively in the days, weeks, and months to come.  We will have to – and we will – for we always have.   We were created in His Image, and in His Image we will sustain ourselves -for we are the highly creative, divinely inspired Human Race.

The Kiss of the Muse

On Tuesday evening, I left the all-night restaurant alluded to in my most recent post, convinced that I’d somehow managed to hook up with a very talented batch of like-minded Writers.  I gave each of the six other participants a copy of my Scene One, and received from each of them a chapter of the novels they’re currently writing.

My main reservation is that I’m the only playwright in the bunch.  Also, since I’m a musical playwright, there are song lyrics as well as dialogue and stage directions strewn about my manuscript.   This differentiates me even further from the novelists in my midst.   Moreover, they all seem to be writing fantasy or science fiction–which of course is to be expected.  But my work is intended to deal with social issues such as classism, and to paint a picture not often seen of the Homeless Phenomenon in America. 

However, this doesn’t mean that their feedback will be of no value to me.  It only means that I’m afraid to receive it.   After all, our commonalities are greater than our differences.  I look forward to receiving input on plot, character development, clarity of content, and the like.  What I dread is that someone might object to some of my lyrics, without being aware of the type of music that accompanies them, since they won’t be hearing the music, but only reading the words.   This has happened before in the past, and it has put me in an awkward position.

kissofthemuse

Still, they’re all very intelligent, highly motivated people.   I’m sure that whatever happens at our next meeting, the fact that I’m finally convening with others of my ilk, and no longer hiding from the public world in stubborn isolation, is bound to reap more benefits than detriments in my creative life.

Otherwise, I’ve been busy with work and church (which in my case are very closely related, since I work at a church).   I’ve also been engrossed in some personal matters for the past few days.  So, while I did succeed in finishing Scene Four, as reported in this post, I’ve not yet begun to take a stab at Scene Five.   But I can feel it starting to simmer within me, somewhere down there. It’s a vague but very real sensation: an undeniable sense that I’m about to burst into another creative binge.   It feels as though something inside me is “percolating” — or, more accurately, incubating.  It’s almost as though I can feel the Muse approaching.  If I’m lucky, maybe she’ll kiss me, as she did the similarly exhausted Writer in the charming little picture up above.  Well — here’s hoping.

On Feeding the Soul

I’m at a Starbucks waiting for it to become 6:30pm so I can meet the other members of the Writer’s Guild I just joined.   We’re going to meet at nearby restaurant for dinner, and then begin a process of exploring each others’ work.  Each of us had to print six copies consisting of 10-20 pages of our work.  The idea is that we’ll each have two weeks to read each others’ work, then meet again, and talk about it. 

The first meeting was “Write Only.”  It mostly amounted to a lot of talking about our projects, as well as about Writing in general.   This time, the focus will be on critique.   I must admit I’m a bit scared to bare my artistic soul to six total strangers, especially after I saw the way I reacted to the earlier critique of three years past.  Hopefully, I’m in a generally better place in life these days, as well as more distanced emotionally from some of the more difficult themes I hope to address in this piece.

I did read through the first four Scenes the other night.  It was as expected: that which was good was very, very good; and that which was bad was horrid.   I couldn’t help but notice, however, that the good parts seemed to be those where the most difficult themes were presented.   This was encouraging.  Then I received a fantastic stamp of approval from one of the five people to whom I sent the four Scenes.  Included in his compliment were these words:

I have been wanting to write a proper, more in-depth email about it, but let me say when I got to the bottom of the document, I was clicking wondering why it was not going down anymore.   Then I realized I had read it all!   I wanted more.  I was immediately hooked.  Captivated.   I had planned on reading it a little at a time, but read the whole thing in one sitting.  

mark-twainI now believe I know what Mark Twain meant when he said: “I can live for two weeks off of a compliment.”  After I read those words, I instantly ascended into a state of such artistic elation that my growling stomach was placated without receiving a single bite.   Three years ago, all I was getting was mockery and ridicule.  But upon hearing the words that every Writer loves to hear, it was at least three hours before things like eating or sleeping had any appeal.  Why should I bother with feeding my stomach or resting my mind?  Somebody somewhere had just fed my soul.

Day of Rest?

I don’t know what came over me yesterday.  I started writing at around eight in the morning, wrote steadily until it was time to attend the Writer’s Guild I joined, and wrote with vigor throughout the meeting, while getting sharing feedback with the other Writers.  Encouraged, I was in a state of great confidence and enthusiasm afterwards, and  I wound up writing up to the end of p.62 in my script. This was almost the end of Scene Four. But I stopped at around midnight, since I wasn’t quite sure how to wrap it up.  This was sixteen fairly solid hours of productive work.  I don’t know what to make of it.

Somehow, the first-time connection with other writers in my community gave me such a strong feeling of welcome and belonging, I cast all my doubts and my sense of obligation aside, and thoroughly enjoyed a slow, steady process of creating the best Scene Four I could ever hoped to have created — that is, up until the very end.

angel-at-restAfter church this morning, I took a much needed nap. Then I put on the coffee, and got at it again. I vaguely sensed it was somehow wrong not to take the day off, it being Sunday, and me being the type of person who concerns himself with honoring God on the Day of Rest. But I felt that the ending was brewing deep down in my unconscious mind, issuing a Commandment to do it justice that was equally as strong as the Fourth Commandment. So I decided to have a go at it — and I did not resist.

Then something came over me. It was a mysterious burst of passion, and it enabled me to finish the Scene. I looked at it — and I saw that it was good. As I did so, I looked at the clock. It was 6:00pm exactly. This reminded me of what happened at the moment when I finished the Siddhartha Monologue, and saw that it was 4:00am exactly. Something had come over me in that night as well — also a rare burst of mysterious passion.

When the Scene was done, the passion left me – suddenly and completely, leaving not a trace. The bells on the neighborhood church struck six. Somehow I knew that I was forgiven. The true Day of Rest had begun.

Writer’s Guild

As I mentioned in a previous post, I’ve been feeling the need to find a writer’s support group in order to help motivate me to finish the musical script I’m writing.  A couple people suggested I contact the professor who teaches the undergraduate playwriting class.  He replied very cordially to the email I sent him, but told me that the class was filled up to capacity this semester, and that he also did not think he could help much with the “musical form.”  

Although his suggestion that I contact the School of Music was a logical one, I really am not in need of support on the musical level.  The music and lyrics to this show are essentially complete, and I’m pretty happy with the score.   It’s the script that continues to concern me.  

I last reported I had made it up to p.53, then reached an impasse.  Since then, I’ve made it up to p.58, which is almost to the end of Scene Four.   I could probably write a couple more pages this morning and wrap up the Scene, more-or-less sloppily.  But at this rate, without a support group to sustain my motivation, I probably won’t finish the script before the Second Coming of Christ.

guildIt occurred to me that there might be a Meet-Up writer’s group in the area.   With very little online research, I located one that happens to meet this very morning at ten.  They call themselves a Guild, and this morning’s meeting will take place exactly one block from my apartment!  So I’ll be there at ten this morning, either with the first four scenes completed, or ready to wrap them up on site.

The facilitator of the group also informed me of another writer’s group that meets at a bookstore also located fairly near my place of residence.  That group includes another playwright who prints out his scenes so that other members of the group can read the different characters.  In addition, there is another meeting of the Guild taking place at a restaurant this Tuesday evening.  While the meeting this morning is “write only,” the Tuesday night group will provide, according to the facilitator, “valuable feedback on plot and story line.”  All three of these resources could prove invaluable.

So – I think I’m on the right track if I can only relax about this thing a little bit.  The process of writing music is much more enjoyable for me.   The process of playwriting is arduous and annoying, but it will be worth it in the end if I will have produced something of value to offer to the world.

Unknowns

I feel like I’m a little too stuffy when I write in this blog.  I keep a personal journal online that is password-protected so only friends can read it.  Naturally, I’m less self-conscious when I write there.  Somehow, the idea that anybody at all from anywhere can read what I’m posting here makes me just uptight enough, that I suspect it affects my writing style for the worse.

So here’s what I wrote in my personal journal last night:

Unknowns

My depression lifted temporarily when I realized that I know exactly what to do from the bottom of p.53 forward, for several pages to come. Then I veered off and corrected that part of The Royal Rhapsody that bugged me. I hear another part that bothers me in the same section. All these annoyances have to do with a sense of something dropping out, some kind of eerie ethereal support that is created by the string section, or other instruments capable of extending tones over a number of measures.

But enough of my stuff. I noticed I felt extremely focused while working on the Rhapsody, so I might go back to that. Depression and anxiety seemed far from me. That music production process is just something that rivets me to it. With the script, even knowing what to do, I still rack my brains out over little things – tiny little mini-unknowns that crop up in the midst of the Known.

Bottom line is I’m dog tired. Not sure why. Ran really well yesterday, and obviously faster than usual with the Nanospikes. Maybe that’s a factor. Whatever, I saved a cup for the morning and I’m gonna crash out after a snack. I’ll run in the morning, and probably have a decent day tomorrow. These three day weekends sort of throw the Sunday night vibe onto Mondays. Can’t wait till morning.

10:47 p.m. – 2017-01-16

If you like that style or manner of delivery better than the way I’m writing here, feel free to let me know.  Or, if it appears to be the same style, or even a worse manner of presentation, clue me in.   I won’t be offended, though I can’t promise you I’ll be able to readily change.  We O.G’s have a tendency not to flex as easily as we did back in the Day.

A Week Off?

I have a week off.  I don’t have the wherewithal to take a “vacation” — and this is a good thing.   I’m thinking that the time will better be spent mostly staying at home, not only working on my musical, but in personal solitude and reflection.  For although I have been happy to have broken the Writer’s Block that had hindered me for three years, there has been something unhealthy about the way I’ve been proceeding.  I think it’s time I take a deeper look at this.

For one thing, I’ve been assuming that outside of food, rest, work, and exercise, the writing of this libretto is the only thing I should be doing.  In the process, I’ve all but abandoned the scoring of music that I used to do religiously, six days a week, with my  music notation software.  This has thrown me off balance.  As I’ve mentioned numerous times in this blog, the process of composing, arranging, and sequencing music with this software is therapeutic for me.  If I make it a daily practice, there’s something about it that benefits me spiritually.

So, I turned my attention to a rearrangement of my piece, The Royal Rhapsody.   The first arrangement was too empty for me; the second too overwhelming with the string section.  I think this third take strikes a more pleasant balance.   It’s more listenable, in my opinion.


I’m hoping that, as I resume the practice of scoring music for two to three hours each day, the rest of my life, including my work on the musical script, will come to a better balance.  I think I’m off to a pretty good start.  I hope you will take a few minutes to listen to the piece posted above.  It was scored and sequenced entirely with Finale software.  I’m actually rather proud of it, and I hope you enjoy my work.

Baby Steps

I’m sitting in the local pub in a highly neurotic state.  No worries – I’m not drinking, and perish the thought.  But when the clock struck 4:20 a few minutes ago, I must admit I experienced more than a vague inkling to dip into the dubious diversion of delectable desirability, duck into the nearest dark alley, and burn one.   It’s hard for me to deal with anxiety; and as I expressed quite emphatically earlier, taking a valium or a klonopin is no longer a viable option for me.

Since the previous post, I actually went back to the beginning of the script and wrote up to p.53 a second time, making adjustments – some minor, some fairly significant.  I got into the “zone” at one point and completely rewrote the intro to the female antagonist’s first song, which I call “Midnight Screams.”  I sent it to my brother and my daughter hoping for feedback, haven’t heard from either, and am feeling a bit pathetic on this whole feedback thing.  I hate it when I become “insistent” that people peruse my work.  It never works in the first place, not to mention it makes me feel like an annoying pest.

leonid_pasternak_-_the_passion_of_creationThere’s no getting around it.  I’m going to have to break out of isolation here, and present myself as best I can to the world of other artists and writers  engaged in projects of equal importance to them.   So, I more-or-less boldly wrote to the fellow who teaches the current undergraduate Playwriting class at the University, even though I could already feel the stab of rejection slicing through my heart over the Intraweb — pseudo-prophetically, as it were.  My confidence is at an all time low.

But – it was a baby step.  If that doesn’t work, I’ll see if there’s a Meet-Up group of some sort.  Either way, I’m going to have to stop bugging my friends and family members for feedback.  I need to go about this decently and properly.  Bottom line is, the idea of sitting around a table in a classroom and sharing all my crazy ideas with a bunch of other writers is scaring the living daylights out of me.  But that’s all the more reason why I’ve got to take the plunge.  You don’t learn how to swim, after all, by avoiding the water.

Opening up to p.53 and the current minor impasse.  The wheels are starting to spin.  Obviously, a twisted love song is in order, both lover and lovee a bit on the delusional side.  Welcome to the wonderful world of Musical Theatre.  Maybe if the owner of the pub steps in, she’ll let me play the piano for a free meal like she did last Saturday.  Here’s hoping.

Time to Come Out

People in general have no idea how insecure I am about this whole playwriting process.   I could gloat about how it seems as though I’m gradually developing a positive support group in the community here — and I must admit the guys at the bagel shop downstairs have been remarkably supportive.  But what is that, really?  So there’s this guy who lives upstairs who likes to come down for a bagel and has a halfway interesting project going on.  So what?

writers-workshop-returns-1862When I ran into David the other day, I asked him if he thought it would be possible to audit a playwriting seminar at the University.   He seemed to think it would work if were to email the professor who teaches the class; and then, if I didn’t hear from him for a few days, just to walk into the building and announce my desire.  When I mentioned this to Josh last night, Josh also said they would almost certainly let me do that.  He then directed me to the building – so at this point it’s only a matter of working up the fortitude.

It might be a good idea for me to print out the script first, what I’ve got anyway.  Basically, since whenever my last progress report was, I’ve written up to p.53, or about midway through Scene Four.  There’s a good chance that if I start now, I can finish Scene Four this morning.  Then maybe I can print the pages out at the library.  It would be nice to show up with hard copy in hand, willing to let somebody look at it if they like, before they decide what to do with me.

Yes – this is the obvious solution to my woes.  The writer’s block that I occasionally encounter may not be as severe as the one earlier blogged, the one that kept me at a standstill for three years.   But the impasses are painful.  They slow me down, and they need to be addressed.   It’s time for me to get off my rump as far as presenting myself to the Performing Arts community here.   It’s not that I’m not thankful for the support I’ve thus far gleaned – it sure beats wandering the streets of Berkeley trying to maintain my sanity by composing music out loud in public, after gang bangers deprived me of my laptops via strong-armed robbery, thus depriving me of my music notation software as well.

But it’s time I did things according to reasonable protocol.  It’s time to break out of my shell.  It’s time to come out.

On Identifying with Darkness

On the script, there have been a few developments. I know if Jack is reading, he’ll be interested in these internal turns of event. My friend Danielle has strongly urged me to truck through the impasses even if what I am writing is lousy – and bless her heart, that does make sense. She’s a writer herself (a good one), and so she knows the basics of hammering out the “rough draft from the heart, final draft from the mind.” But in this case, I found that it absolutely is not working to do this, for rather unexpected reasons.

What happened when I tried was that I led the characters into this really weird place where I found myself actually identifying with their darker attributes.   Then, although arguably I might have been writing something that was artistically good, it wasn’t spiritually good, and I myself had to cease from the writing process, in order to cease from personal sin.   Also, it took the script into this very strange tangent where it really ought not to have tread.  When I looked at it the next morning, it looked as though it had awkwardly morphed into an entirely different show.

This has caused me to question the extent to which I dramatically feel the inner intentions and motivations of my characters. As a result, I have decided to cease writing whenever I encounter that energy. This is causing me to transform the nature of the protagonist-antagonist dynamics in my characters and their associated conflicts. I’m bearing in mind that their conflicts pertain largely to ideological differences in worldview. Ms. Mortalis (I’m starting to hate that name) is attuned toward detecting the criminal aspects of all people – that’s her nature. She’s a suspicious person. It doesn’t mean she herself is a criminal – she’s just tuned in that way. Winston is more of an idealist who tends to see social evils while overlooking personal evils, and who exults in drawing out the good in all people. This dynamic is what causes their intrigue pertaining to each other, and is at the thrust of all their interactions.

It’s weird to be writing a show that I didn’t finish three years ago, and to be painfully determined to finish it, as opposed to picking up an entirely new project, one that I might easily finish joyfully.  But I somehow feel a moral obligation to do so.  Also, I must admit that my new friend Mary has been more than encouraging. She’s a musical theater actress – and the choir director at my church – and I’ve noticed that she grasps the kinds of themes I’m trying to convey.  The last person who put any real effort into reading this piece was the professor I mentioned earlier.  It’s pretty obvious that either he didn’t grasp what I was trying to do; or if he did, it irked him on some strange personal level — otherwise, he would not have employed character assassination in his critique.  

So, on the up-and-up, it’s nice to have at least one person in my life who is willing to read what I’m writing, and whose comments are more attuned to what it is that I’m trying to accomplish.  Also, a handful of local theater people and a couple of journalists have tuned into it, which sort of increases my sense of mandate to get it into producible form.  I guess the next step would be, once this draft is finished, to organize a sit-down read-thru and just see how it reads. I do need to get a move on.

Danielle’s advice makes sense, but I also know that she is trying to protect me from experiencing further rage toward the professor, whose involvement in those whole thing is nil from his standpoint (of course) and ought to be nil from mine. But that’s my strange personal Cross, involving the sense of failed friendship and abandonment.  I literally have to force myself not to think about him as I write.  If I do so, I become too depressed, and I can’t go on.

But I will keep at it, unlike what I may have said earlier, when I was discouraged.

A Sense of Mandate

I’m creating a blog post primarily for the purpose of justifying the fact that I just spent $2.46 on a large coffee at a cafe, rather than continue to isolate inside the darkness of my dreary abode.   If I can get out of this cafe knowing that I accomplished something other than yet another unnecessary monetary purchase, it might do my soul a bit of good.

So to continue the ongoing progress report here (if use of the word “progress” isn’t stretching the definition too far), I did accomplish something after I wrote the previous entry.  I wrote about three or four more pages of dialogue between the male protagonist and the female antagonist.  I’m not sure I can use any of it, but at least I wrote something.   I was trying to “just write” (as many have suggested.)  The reason I stopped was because my “just writing” was leading to immoral areas.   I was beginning to get off on the evil of the evil characters.  Another good reason to leave my room.   Things like that tend to happen more behind closed doors when we don’t think anybody’s watching.

In general, this playwriting process is so inherently annoying compared to the more fulfilling process of composing music; I wonder sometimes why I am even bothering.  I’m getting older; I’m not really looking forward to spending each day for the rest of my life wracking my brains out.  It’s just that at the rare moments when I feel like I have something on the ball here, the sense that I get within myself is that I know  I have something on the ball.  It’s not just a feeling anymore.  It’s not just a hope, guess, conjecture, or speculation.  It’s a certainty.   It seems to come from somewhere outside of me, beyond me.  

Then, it incurs a sense of obligation – of mandate.  I simply have to keep working on the script, for the single reason that I know it to be potentially positive and powerful.  Otherwise, hell yeah I’d give the damn thing up.   I’m pretty sick of the fact that the process awakened a buried resentment regarding a failed forty-year friendship, for example.  But if it hadn’t have aroused that particular negativity, it would have aroused some other negativity.   And it has, in fact, aroused many such negativities.

Why?  Because it’s a process that I hate.  I don’t enjoy writing theatre of any sort; I’m doing it because of this sense of divine, cosmic, or extraterrestial mandate that doesn’t permit me to stop working on a project that I love, even though it involves a process that I hate.  Now if that isn’t twisted, I don’t know what is.