Well, I did it. I am done with my short stage-play, Favorite Color. I rewrote it thrice, went back to my original draft, edited it as many times as I could stand, and finally e-mailed it off to The Words Players community theater!
This is cooler than finishing NaNoWriMo, because someone could potentially PERFORM my play!
That's pretty exciting to me. That would make my play the first thing I've ever 'published'. I don't know if it will be selected, but I know it will be considered, and that means everything to me. To have people who really know performance arts read a play that I've written is one of the greatest opportunities I've ever had.
I am very proud of my play, and I think it's beautiful. It ended up being 8 pages long (I'm pretty sure it would take about 10 minutes to perform, but that's only an estimate), and I managed to incorporate the box of crayons, just like I wanted to. And, best of all, I thoroughly enjoyed myself writing it.
I, of course, cut it very close with submitting it: The deadline is tomorrow. Procrastination will be the end of me.
I probably would have finished sooner, but it was a rough editing process. I waited until this past Thursday for my usual editors, my mom and my sister, to read my draft for me. My sister hated it - I don't think there was a single original component she deemed worthy of preserving. My mom had a million suggestions and ideas, all completely different. That was great, but overwhelming. And my dad thought it was amazing and I didn't need to change a thing about it.
This mixed bag of editing feedback almost drove me to abandon my endeavors. I wanted to hide under a blanket and cry and forget about ever writing anything ever again. I mean, come on! Less than 72 hours from the submission deadline, and I was standing on square one.
Until I realized that I would not enjoy rewriting the whole play. I would not enjoy scrapping the simple, beautiful, and surprising plot I'd been carrying around in my head for years. And I would definitely not enjoy trying to start over and inevitably running out of time and missing the deadline.
Unlike the many great writers who have worn themselves down into the dust, I am not willing to do things that make me unhappy or even downright miserable just for the sake of great writing. I write because when I was 9 years old, I wrote a story. I kept writing. I have not stopped writing since.
Why?
Because I love to write. I love to create stories. I write because it makes me happy, not because I want to be great. If I stumble upon some greatness in the process of thoroughly enjoying myself, that is not really up to me. I want to write for my own enjoyment and the enjoyment of others.
Most importantly, God made me with a heart that takes joy in writing, so I will write for Him. The play, in particular, I have given to Him. He can do with it as He wishes.
So, whether or not my play is accepted or rejected for performance sometime in October, it was worth writing. I thoroughly enjoyed myself.
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