"When I start writing, I ask myself, "What matters? Right now, this minute, what matters?"
When I ask myself that question, the answer often comes as a concrete image. If it surprises me, seems inconsequential, good. It's best if I don't know what the meaning of the image is. If you try this, begin writing whatever comes to you in response to your question, no matter how small or meaningless it might first appear to be. Describe how light plays on the rim of a glass of water, how the frayed edge of a man's jacket touches his chair. Your mind has given you this image as something that matters, as you write you may discover why."
From WRITING ALONE AND WITH OTHERS by Pat Schneider, Oxford University Press, 2003"
Here is an example:
WHAT MATTERS
is that I am here,
and he is not.
And his small brown back is turned
huddled, away, scurrying
away at dawn, trudging toward freedom.
What matters is...."
Try it. It will focus you and move you to the very core of what is happening right now in this very moment. The specificity and relevance of desire is what gives us universal images.
This is the work we began today in our Playwriting Seminar.
This morning, company members further illuminated hte lives of the characters that are creating from the found material assigned to them last session in their DEVISED WORK/DIRECTING sections. Improvs and costumes further expanded the work and today, directors were assigned specific stories for which they will serve as third eyes, helping apply the long view to the collaboration process.
The work is seeded and we are beginning the tender task of making the garden rich and ready for what will come.
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