PODCAST: WRITING MY WRITING DOWN
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I’m teaching a writing class at my old high school now, Idyllwild arts academy. After the first class I emailed the class my best scripts. I told them, someone at school has decided that there’s enough good stuff in my brain that it’s worth time and money imparting into your brains. So you should read my scripts and decide if I’m any good at this.
When I was in grad school for playwriting, I was very competitive internally with the other writers. For no reason, they were nice, polite, happy writers, and I’m still friends with them. But I wanted to be the best, and I knew I wasn’t, and it was frustrating. There was one time…
My writer’s group, Ellipses, meets every single Friday morning 8-10 am on Zoom. It was my week. I totally forgot. I’d uploaded a rough draft of my article earlier and forgot about it, and then I totally slept through our Zoom call, and missed my own writer’s group that I started and that I lead every Friday morning, when I was my turn to go.
Writing gives me extreme anxiety, and it never goes away. I will do anything to avoid writing… The only cure is to sit down, turn everything else off and do it. Here are the things I do to overcome anxiety and get my butt in the chair.
I’m about to go to William Goldman’s funeral, a man who mentored hundreds of screenwriters. Some of them are Tony Kilroy, Brian Koppelman, Aaron Sorkin. I’m a twenty-eight-year old nanny who works six days a week, has a terminal illness (okay that’s a little dramatic, I have a chronic illness that will become terminal in like twenty years) and barely writes anymore. All week I’ve been imagining horror scenes of how this funeral goes. What’s funny is, this is the exact thing I’d write to Bill about.
My hero, William Goldman, died earlier today. Let me tell you a story about how he befriended a sick girl who wanted to be a writer and gave her hope.
I’m a babysitter for my day job, and I gotta say, I love it. I don’t love it as much as I’d love my dream job, staff writer on a Parks & Rec/ Brooklyn 99/ Gilmore Girls type of show, but it’s definitely better than working the desk at SoulCycle or selling Rodan and Fields or something.
Hello reader. I wanted to share the current letter I’m including in my playwriting applications, for writer’s groups and development opportunities and things. I always wonder what people write in theirs so I thought I’d share mine.
Hello! I am Kathleen Jones, an expert in having a chronic illness and a flourishing career in the arts. I follow these simple rules for managing my health and career. If you just follow these guidelines too, everything in your life will be perfectly balanced and v fulfilling.
I’m participating in Love Drunk 14, an awesome event where the producers send playwrights two cool, interesting, old-timey photos and we’re to write a play about them. I’ve done this before and loved it. This time around, when it was time to get writing, I was sick as a dog with the flu staring down this deadline. I’d taken a clowning class with Theatre 68 and Pigeonholed, where the teacher, Justin Cimino, used a clowningtechnique to help actors create real, vivid characters out of thin air in like fifteen minutes.
2017 was a year of growth. I can sum it up by saying I did the work I wanted with people I respect, and I love the way it paid off.
My biggest writing accomplishment in 2016 is Pregnant Pause. I am so proud of my work on the script and with how it’s taking off from United Solo. Amie is fantastic in it, and a great partner. What a great way to start my career in New York.