Writing Off the Page

This is something that has been suggested to me a couple of times in different ways. Writing off the page simply means, working on something 'else' while you are working, struggling or completely blocked on a project. It's an exercise about restarting the flow of creative energy, even if it's not in the exact same direction you were working.

Write about a character's childhood, even if it has nothing to do with the thing you're working on. Do laundry as your character. Paint something else entirely, maybe or maybe not using one of the colours you were working with. Listen to music that is totally contrary to your usual style or genre. (Speaking of which, Mickey Avalon's 'Jane Fonda' refuses to leave my head.)

I've come to believe this is what my one-woman show tangent was about. It's no accident that the character's name is also Charlie. It's also no accident that it begins as personal narrative (my personal narrative) and veers off into something else entirely.

I was workin' it out. Working Charlie out and playing with her voice. Working out where this character begins and where I end. Working out how to release "I" entirely. Working on following where a character wants to go, rather than where I think they should go. And allowing something not to be just one thing (i.e. personal narrative) or just the other (i.e. made-up fiction).

The voice in the OWS (one-woman show) isn't me. It's louder, more trailer-park. More dead-end Minnesota. The kind of voice that has seen more monster truck rallies than opera houses. That wears a t-shirt with no bra, sneakers with no socks and drinks beer from a can.

It was practice letting the character speak and letting me stay quiet. It showed me shades and nuance that I wasn't able to see.

In the end, Screenplay Charlie was nothing like OWS Charlie. Screenplay Charlie is quieter, more observant. She is way more likely to ask you your opinion and thoughts and philosophy, than she is to tell you hers. She's a bit evasive, although that's about protection. Internal. She's working things through in her inner landscape, not loud-talking her way through the problem of Born Agains and their strange notions of sin.

I wonder if Screenplay Charlie is influenced by the introverts in my life. There are a few. And as an extrovert, a person who finds energy in other people, I have often been baffled by these creatures who don't 'talk through' problems or conundrums. Frankly, as I sit here, I realize I don't know at all how they work through the inevitable confusions of being human.

I don't actually know how Charlie came to her conclusion. I like to think that she was already too far down the path of death to really even consider life (and love) when it landed in her lap. That 'death' had implanted itself and was growing quickly, like a tumour only not as violent an image. And love/life was only a trifle at that point, a distraction from her path.

My friend Cathy is a life coach. And she had the opportunity to work with a woman who had serious cancer. During the course of their relationship, Cathy asked her if she wanted to live. One just assumes that 'Life!' is the only option, but it isn't. And it wasn't for this woman. She went away and listened to her intuition and when she came back, she said, "You know Cathy. I want to die. I'm ready to go."

And I can imagine that Cathy, a LIFE coach for God's sake, and I went through some similar feelings. I can't do that. I can't 'let' someone die...and I certainly can't coach (write) them to do it. I believe in life...in living to the fullest.

But when someone is telling you, point blank, that they choose death, you are forced to concede.

There is a grief that happens before a death, or can happen if you are willing to see it coming. We as a culture have a great denial around death and dying. We believe that it is not okay. That it is a devastation. But really, it's just another part of living. And if people can make choices in their lives, they can make choices about its end.

"We all visit The Undertaker in the end." I wrote this in my notebook when I realized who the characters of this story were and how they were connected. And even after writing it, The Undertaker himself had to beat me over the head with the fact that he, in fact, not Charlie, is the unifying character. The hub. The centre. The heart, even, of this story.

We resist death. We resist change. We resist the idea that we (or others) may not be the people we thought. And can we keep loving them, even though they no longer fit the mold we made for them? Can we...expand...to fit the possibility of this new human (who was themselves long before we decided they were someone else)?

Choosing A can mean B disappears from the storyline...of our lives or our work. Not choosing at all is a choice. Putting your head in the sand doesn't avoid a choice, it is a choice. Doors open. Doors close. Every choice is a kind of death. 'That others may live.'