Hello from cloudy Ireland!
It’s been an amazing few days.  I suppose I’m always amazed at how much I accomplish when I come up here to Anam Cara. But this time was even more ridiculously productive than usual.  I came here hoping to break the back of my new play, a piece that I felt might be one of the most difficult and challenging things I’ve ever undertaken to write.  But after the first day, I had written the first three scenes.  During the second day, I finished Act I. On the third day, the entire second Act came out in one huge burst. And now, having read the whole thing out loud to Sue, the muse who runs this place, I’m confident that it is working well enough for a first draft and for me to send it off to the commissioning actors, which I’ve done.

Now, I’m not writing all this to you just to boast — though I admit I am pleased with myself. I’m writing this because all this has caused me to stop and wonder why.  Why does this happen here? And why has it been even more successful this time than in the past?

The obvious answer is that here I have time and space.  I work in a lovely room with a gorgeous view of the sea.  I eat three delicious meals a day which appear without any forethought from me. It is quiet – absolutely quiet unless I cause it to be otherwise.  And here I am surrounded by creativity in its many guises: books, paintings, conversation.  But this time, something else was at work, too.  And that’s preparation.

Whenever I come here, I come with a project. I’m either already involved in something or I know what it is I want to write.  But this time I was even more prepared than that, and I didn’t even know it.  Over the past few weeks I had been thinkng non-stop about this play, sometimes noting down my thoughts, sometimes not, but always thinking. In the shower, walking down the street, making the bed, emptying the dishwasher, I was continually getting to know my characters and grappling with questions of structure, dramatic tension, theme, dialect, scene – and all without writing a word. Some decisions were made, some weren’t, but everything was thought about. But I purposefully didn’t allow myself to write any of it, not because of some great plan, but simply because I was busy doing other things and I knew that in a matter of a few weeks I would be able to get down to it.  So by putting it off and putting it off and waiting and waiting, it was all building up to the point where I thought I would explode if I didn’t get some release (ok- that’s enough with the sexual symmetry).  But honestly, it was almost painful not to be getting all this out of my head and onto paper.  So by the time I was sitting at my desk by the sea, it all came rushing out like a torrent.  And that, I realize upon reflection, is called “preparation.”  Anam Cara provided the inspiration as it always does (see pix below). But this time especially, I was prepared for it, really, painfully prepared, and so it felt like an entire full-length play was written in three days.  In reality, though, it’s taken two years.

Again, I’m not writing this as a way to brag. But it does show me that after all these years I have learned a thing or two about this crazy thing I do.  Namely, I don’t have to have my fingers on the keyboard or wrapped around a pencil to be writing. There are times when I’m really engaged with a project that it’s all writing.  It all counts and contributes to whatever it is I’m creating. And when that happens, it’s like flying.

So, as the Boy Scouts say, Be Prepared. At least for me, it seems to work better when I am.