"Here I am again, driving down another god-forsaken stretch of road to god-knows-where in the middle of the night. It's like that most of the time, now. Night, I mean. Or at least it's night more often. I mean that I'm active more at night now, not that night is any longer than it used to be.
"'Course, it might be. I lost my watch somewhere in the fall down the well, and this piece of shit I'm driving's got no dashboard clock. It might be two in the afternoon, for all I know. But that's impossible. No, it's improbable. I've gotten a little leery of the word 'impossible' in recent...weeks? days?
"I haven't seen the sun proper in a while. I've seen daytime, but there's always clouds or a haze or a mountain range in the way. And you know what? I'm okay with that. I've gotten used to night. It's comfortable. It's quiet. I'm almost starting to prefer it, a strange nyctophilia settling into my soul. If I still have a soul. That fellow down in Hell wasn't too clear on the price of this junker.
"So I spend my days driving at night, just the stars, the road, and...wait. Is that a hitchhiker?"
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Friday, November 14, 2008
Why.
For my Tisch application, I need a statement of purpose; why I want to be a writer, and why I'm applying to their program. As I need every bit of awesome in this I can get, please feel free to critique what I post.
"I didn't always want to be a writer. This isn't something I've dreamed about since I was little, but rather something I discovered fairly recently, and while I've always loved a good story, the inclination to write one for myself didn't strike until I was 18. A friend had suggested I write something for our student-written full-length play festival, Infinite Monkeys. For months, I had nothing. No characters, no tales needing telling, until, while lying in bed, something grew; a scene that carried with it some strange admixture of emotion. It was a sensation complex beyond description, but it was one I wanted to share. I could think of no other way than to write the story that would evoke such reactions in a viewer.
So I spent four months writing. I chose a traditional structure, one might say a boring structure, as it was my first play. I didnʼt want to clutter the play with thirteen types of experimentation, so I wrote a kind of “Arthur Millerʼs Don Quixote,” which I named The Florentine, the play included in my portfolio. I enjoyed the process of writing, learning structure and pacing through experimentation, but the real joy didn't hit me until opening night.
I digress, but I still find it fascinating that, as busy and selfish as we are, people crowd into a darkened room to watch. There's a magic in a good story, a simple sort of sorcery that grants fools wisdom, cowards courage, and brings bold men to weeping...if only for a few brief hours. Watching an audience breathe together as they lived a story that came from my heart was profoundly rewarding. Yet, at that point, writing was still only a hobby.
It wasn't until after the show, when friends and strangers came up to me to tell me that their grandmother had Alzheimer's, or that their father just passed away. I saw people smiling through their tears. They couldn't articulate exactly why they smiled or cried, other than that it was right, and that it was true.
And still, at that point, writing was not my future. I would write another show or two, because friends told me not to stop, but writing wasn't a viable profession. In my mind, once college was over, I'd move on to a real job, one I could actually succeed at.
Nine months after The Florentine was staged, my grandmother passed away. My grandfather later told me that in the weeks that followed her death, he read The Florentine over and over. That he cried every time, but the tears weren't bitter. My simple story brought a measure of peace where it was needed, to a man I had no business advising.
The Talmud teaches that to save one life is to save the whole world. If, by simply telling a story truthfully, I can ease one heart, spark one laugh, bear a single measure of wisdom, every effort I spend is worth it.
Sadly, while I possess the art, my knowledge of the science is dismal. What little technical expertise I possess is from my own blind study and experimentation. I want to learn to tell a story, as best and truthfully as I can. I want to ensure that the story is never hampered by the telling, and to do that, I need to learn from writers who have gone before me. As much as I can, as fast as I can. There are tales full of truth in my head, and I simply want to tell them. All I ask is that you give me a little guidance. "
"I didn't always want to be a writer. This isn't something I've dreamed about since I was little, but rather something I discovered fairly recently, and while I've always loved a good story, the inclination to write one for myself didn't strike until I was 18. A friend had suggested I write something for our student-written full-length play festival, Infinite Monkeys. For months, I had nothing. No characters, no tales needing telling, until, while lying in bed, something grew; a scene that carried with it some strange admixture of emotion. It was a sensation complex beyond description, but it was one I wanted to share. I could think of no other way than to write the story that would evoke such reactions in a viewer.
So I spent four months writing. I chose a traditional structure, one might say a boring structure, as it was my first play. I didnʼt want to clutter the play with thirteen types of experimentation, so I wrote a kind of “Arthur Millerʼs Don Quixote,” which I named The Florentine, the play included in my portfolio. I enjoyed the process of writing, learning structure and pacing through experimentation, but the real joy didn't hit me until opening night.
I digress, but I still find it fascinating that, as busy and selfish as we are, people crowd into a darkened room to watch. There's a magic in a good story, a simple sort of sorcery that grants fools wisdom, cowards courage, and brings bold men to weeping...if only for a few brief hours. Watching an audience breathe together as they lived a story that came from my heart was profoundly rewarding. Yet, at that point, writing was still only a hobby.
It wasn't until after the show, when friends and strangers came up to me to tell me that their grandmother had Alzheimer's, or that their father just passed away. I saw people smiling through their tears. They couldn't articulate exactly why they smiled or cried, other than that it was right, and that it was true.
And still, at that point, writing was not my future. I would write another show or two, because friends told me not to stop, but writing wasn't a viable profession. In my mind, once college was over, I'd move on to a real job, one I could actually succeed at.
Nine months after The Florentine was staged, my grandmother passed away. My grandfather later told me that in the weeks that followed her death, he read The Florentine over and over. That he cried every time, but the tears weren't bitter. My simple story brought a measure of peace where it was needed, to a man I had no business advising.
The Talmud teaches that to save one life is to save the whole world. If, by simply telling a story truthfully, I can ease one heart, spark one laugh, bear a single measure of wisdom, every effort I spend is worth it.
Sadly, while I possess the art, my knowledge of the science is dismal. What little technical expertise I possess is from my own blind study and experimentation. I want to learn to tell a story, as best and truthfully as I can. I want to ensure that the story is never hampered by the telling, and to do that, I need to learn from writers who have gone before me. As much as I can, as fast as I can. There are tales full of truth in my head, and I simply want to tell them. All I ask is that you give me a little guidance. "
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)