The Final Night

The story I’ve been writing for the last six months or so, takes place over a period of about two weeks.
More or less ‘real time’ unfolds as a big Journey is embarked upon.
Now I’m at the point where the final night has been got through, and the story ends within a few hours.
Dawn, if you want to be Pythonesquely technical about it.
I have to resist the urge to rush towards the final stage of writing ‘the end.’ Not that it will be. Instantly I’ll back up some 400 pages to chapter 10 where I’m advancing slowly, editing, revising, and throwing out garbage.
‘Iteration.’ is the word, for prose. Continually going back and forth, I guess like a sculptor chipping away at stone, keeping the image hidden within the rock in mind, as one taps here, and then there – working slowly to reveal the creature within.

I was fairly moist and disturbed over the last few days, as some of my characters, who’ve fallen in love, got thoroughly intimate. Interesting to feel the discombobulation – as if I’m a parent who’s found the kids stash of porn magazines and dildo’s. Its one thing to find well-thumbed copies of mammarily focused magazines – its another thing entirely to find that and leather straps and butt-plugs. It kind of shakes the paradigm a little.
That said, I had to let the characters do what they wanted and needed to do, despite my constant thoughts which ranged between ‘Am I writing porn here?’ and ‘Are you sure you want your character to do that; say that; lick that finger…’
But characters will do what they have to do.

Now I’m inching towards a violent ‘reveal’ and a last scene – and then my characters journey – at least this part of it – will finally be at an end.
Its been interesting to delve into an imaginary world, with its own rules and peoples. As I come towards the end of this Saga (currently I’m approaching 720 pages) parts of my mind are already storing story ideas. They’re coming fast and furious as, I suppose, parts of my creative engines begin to close down, and I focus on the human elements for the final pages.
I’m tempted to reread some Proust, being contrary by nature, an evil Mary Poppins perhaps – after working on a literally gigantic landscape and canvas for so long, its alluring to consider a story set within a massively confined area of time and space.

That at said, the story ideas are yapping at my heels, like small, fragile, and very easily crunchable dogs. Each wanting their turn at becoming flesh and visible.
The bottom line for me is of ‘how much fun’ they’ll be to write.
The one set post-WW2, and which moves from Antarctica to the heart of US power? A little difficult.
The vampire one? Work – but fun.
*sighs*
Fun always wins. It has to. Otherwise what’s the point?
I’ve learned some things, let me share one of them:

I don’t write in order to become famous, or rich, or well-known.
I write because the stories well up inside me, and demand to be told.
And if I don’t write them, nobody ever will.
That just too sad to contemplate.
So, I write.

In the past, the attitude of some folks, towards the spread of my theatre work, would puzzle me – the enmity and the envy. As if what I’m doing hasn’t meant bloody hard work on my part, and having to make hard choices between hedonism and productivity.
Its good to have had the fame, and the trappings of it, good and bad, right down to the archetypal addictions – which I managed to climb free of.
I think I’m a more self aware, acute, and less materialistic person for it.

But the attitude of those who simply want ‘to be known’ – as if this accomplishment could fix anything; use creativity as a tool to be some kind of salve on the psyche’s gaping wound amidst a desolate life…

*shudders*

The Colonial approach is useful at times – the self flagellation of Work and Discipline.

And yeah, I pretend at times that I’m not being grabbed by the scruff of the neck, and thrown onto roller coasters to ride the unknown ride of the blank page.

I juggle with the Performer mindset versus the Writer mindset – and always have. The schizophrenic urge to say ‘Look at me!’ followed instantly by the recluse muttering ‘Leave me alone, don’t look at me.’

Perhaps that’s something all theatre writer/performers have – the split personality desire to be Seen – and yet Not Seen.

Ego versus Humility.

The word ‘conflicted’ – doesn’t even begin to encompass its dimensions.

However, (and here is where the Colonial taskmaster comes in; climbs onto the shoulders like a Troll in a fairytale, and begins prodding mercilessly) so long as the sense of being driven, and all the internal conflicted clashing views, result in quality writing, then that’s all that matters.