The Jagged Lifestyle
Writing is, to borrow a turn of phrase from musician Tal Wilkenfeld, a ‘jagged lifestyle’. How can you continue creating work in the face of all the challenges?
There are plenty of challenges in being a writer - or an artist in any field - which make it a bit of a slog sometimes. Here are some ways to mitigate this.
There are plenty of pressure points. Getting paid. The notes process. Knotty story issues. Bad reviews. Lack of commissioning opportunities as the theatre industry tries to get through this extremely difficult period.
The writer’s life seems to be full of black swan events. It is hard to make predictions about what will happen, difficult to map any kind of career path.
Maybe Nassim Taleb’s advice in the book ‘The Black Swan’ is good – in the face of unpredictability the best approach is to “focus on maximum tinkering and recognizing opportunities when they present themselves.”
How best to go about the tinkering and the preparing? I guess just doing the work is the thing. Pitching ideas and trying to get projects off the ground is proactive. Working on developing your network of contacts is good. Continually working on your craft and learning is the centre of it, no matter what else is going on.
The investor Warren Buffet reads most of the day and acts seldomly. But when he has to act, he’s done the work. Leave any despair behind that you’re not ‘working’ and get ready for the next black swan event. When someone says, ‘we were thinking of you for this project’.
Another way to do the work is to get inspiration from others, mentors (living or not), people whose work excites you, and your peers.
I haven’t written any theatre for a while, something I’ve been wondering about, as I enjoy writing it a lot. But one thing that dramaturg and translator Katherine Mendelsohn said to me when I interviewed her for the Fictions Podcast has changed that overnight. I woke up writing the next day.
I’ve worked with Katherine on a number of plays, mainly at the Traverse Theatre, where she was literary manager for over a decade. During that period she worked with playwrights like Rona Munro, David Greig and Jon Fosse.
Katherine’s thoughts on developing a play are very thought provoking and go to the very centre of it. She says:
“For me it’s intelligence, wit, humour… surprise… and also loving the medium it’s for.”
It was the mention of ‘loving the form’ that did it for me. Katherine also talks about the importance of surprise.
“Surprise is a tremendously important ingredient in playwriting. The less good plays have the least surprise…writers have often said to me that sometimes it’s good when a character surprises them when they’re writing the character… that is interesting to think about. If something is very predictable to you as the creator, might it be as predictable to the audience?”
We talked about failure and risk being part of that process. An uncomfortable part of improving, but a necessary one.
“It’s really important to occasionally mess up, ask a really stupid question… It just means you are okay with what risk means. And you understand risk’s place in creation.”
Being ok with making mistakes. Loving the form. It got me thinking of what I loved about theatre. The unbounded scope of what is possible. And trying to be surprising. Which all leads to one place – having fun again.
This is just one of the ways that Katherine’s unique approach to the work help me find fresh approaches to creating work. Here’s the recording and you can find a transcription of the episode here.
Thanks for reading.