Just Making Sure I'm Still Crazy
Alright. I'm a writer. Not just this stuff, of course, or even Tuxxer, but I've written a few plays that people seem to have enjoyed reading/seeing performed.
A few years ago (Sophomore year of college, actually), I started working on a full-length play, involving the devil having his biography written by a mortal in exchange for a 'free' contract (i.e., she gets a wish without it costing her her soul). It seemed like a pretty good idea for a play at the time. I started working on it; and it was really coming along nicely. Act One practically wrote itself.
Then bad things started happening. My computer started to crash. I was getting more and more stressed. I was getting a very clear impression that God did not want me working on this script. So what did I do? I scrapped it. Pages of notes, the draft itself, every leaf of work that had gone into what could've been a decent play got deleted and/or thrown away.
About a year later, the idea hadn't left my head. I was still entertaining it. I thought to myself, why on earth would I have thought that God was against a play? It's just a script, for pete's sake, what's the harm? So, I re-drafted from memory most of my old notes, re-wrote the first act, and got to pretty much the exact same spot in the script as last time when once again my computer started to crash. And I had my car accident. The angels of paranoia once again whispered in my ear; "You shouldn't be writing this."
It's now 2005, a good four years since the idea for the plot occurred to me in the first place, and it's still just sitting in my head, not unlike a birthday present waiting to be opened. A friend even brought it up last weekend; out of the blue. "Did I ever finish that play?" he asked. Grumble, grumble, grumble.
Recently Scott Kurtz, creator of www.pvponline.com, raised an interesting point in a follow-up comment to an earlier comic strip of his. Paraphrasing, God knew he was going to write what he wrote in the first place, because all things come from him, including Scott's creativity. Right.
I'm not convinced. I'm certainly not as religious as I used to be, but I'm still a god-fearing Methodist. I talk to Him a few times a week, actually. He has yet to talk back, which is likely a good thing. Regardless: If the Almighty did supply the idea, why is it so bad to put it on paper? I don't think the play is heretical, it just raises a few interesting points.
I don't know. I haven't obsessed over it or anything, but I can still recall in pretty sharp detail the major points of the script. Picking it up for attempt #3 wouldn't be all that hard. Of course, I also can't help but look at it as a cosmic Strike Three. I've had my warnings, and so on.
Damn. It'd be a lot easier to disregard it if I could forget about it entirely (hasn't happened). Or if writing in general wasn't so important to me. If I get an idea, any kind of idea, I put it down on paper.
Blargh. Any thoughts? Comments? Ideas on where I can get a good straight jacket?
A few years ago (Sophomore year of college, actually), I started working on a full-length play, involving the devil having his biography written by a mortal in exchange for a 'free' contract (i.e., she gets a wish without it costing her her soul). It seemed like a pretty good idea for a play at the time. I started working on it; and it was really coming along nicely. Act One practically wrote itself.
Then bad things started happening. My computer started to crash. I was getting more and more stressed. I was getting a very clear impression that God did not want me working on this script. So what did I do? I scrapped it. Pages of notes, the draft itself, every leaf of work that had gone into what could've been a decent play got deleted and/or thrown away.
About a year later, the idea hadn't left my head. I was still entertaining it. I thought to myself, why on earth would I have thought that God was against a play? It's just a script, for pete's sake, what's the harm? So, I re-drafted from memory most of my old notes, re-wrote the first act, and got to pretty much the exact same spot in the script as last time when once again my computer started to crash. And I had my car accident. The angels of paranoia once again whispered in my ear; "You shouldn't be writing this."
It's now 2005, a good four years since the idea for the plot occurred to me in the first place, and it's still just sitting in my head, not unlike a birthday present waiting to be opened. A friend even brought it up last weekend; out of the blue. "Did I ever finish that play?" he asked. Grumble, grumble, grumble.
Recently Scott Kurtz, creator of www.pvponline.com, raised an interesting point in a follow-up comment to an earlier comic strip of his. Paraphrasing, God knew he was going to write what he wrote in the first place, because all things come from him, including Scott's creativity. Right.
I'm not convinced. I'm certainly not as religious as I used to be, but I'm still a god-fearing Methodist. I talk to Him a few times a week, actually. He has yet to talk back, which is likely a good thing. Regardless: If the Almighty did supply the idea, why is it so bad to put it on paper? I don't think the play is heretical, it just raises a few interesting points.
I don't know. I haven't obsessed over it or anything, but I can still recall in pretty sharp detail the major points of the script. Picking it up for attempt #3 wouldn't be all that hard. Of course, I also can't help but look at it as a cosmic Strike Three. I've had my warnings, and so on.
Damn. It'd be a lot easier to disregard it if I could forget about it entirely (hasn't happened). Or if writing in general wasn't so important to me. If I get an idea, any kind of idea, I put it down on paper.
Blargh. Any thoughts? Comments? Ideas on where I can get a good straight jacket?
posted by Casey Jones @ 2/16/2005 01:23:00 PM
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