Stop reading!  Seriously: STOP!  You’re reading this right now because you’re stuck or you’re lazy, and I’m writing this right now because I’m stuck on the perennial “What do I do with Act III?” problem and I’ve been lazy about my upcoming deadline (which is in a day and a half…maybe… and it’s been given [as far as I can tell] a go-ahead by a young, talented director for a public reading sometime in the next month… yeah, that kind of lazy).  And I am certainly not a rich, celebrated, award-winning juggernaut of a writer (have you counted how many “and’s” there have been and the long sentence that started this diatribe that YOU. SHOULD. NOT. BE. READING?).  Here are my credentials: First, I wrote 31 plays in 31 days last year, I have been living in NYC for less than a year after spending six years being one of those strange, new-age expats who live and work (and party) in Shanghai, China, I’m one year into my MFA Playwright program at the Actors Studio Drama School at Pace University (shout out, yo!) and I just got married to a lovely woman who is the Boris to my Stravinksy (Shweety Shmyg, I love you), and she wears Swarovski.  Yes, it was an intense year.

I know those credentials truly speak for themselves as you continue to read this rant written on the 34^th floor of a Shanghai apartment building overlooking a good chunk of the city, but I feel that the truth of the matter is that if you are just as lost and uncertain with your talents and thoughts as the next person who is trying to make some sense when they put the ink to the parchment.  See, I can empathize with you, and the only bit of wisdom I can possibly pass on is that no matter how many Naked Playwriting books you read (I do recommend it) or Backwards and Forwards you digest (I brought it with me to Shanghai), you are going to have to face the fact that you have to experience a bit of life before you can actually pretend to understand anything about it, write anything about it, or have anything real to say about it. 

You need to talk to people and really take in what they tell you, and not just the ones you married (i <3 u).  You need to write down an idea when it comes to you without judgment.  You need to sit in an environment that is not conducive to writing because you will learn what real focus and attention to a given task is like (and you might be able to snag some fast food freedom fries).  You need to get up in the morning and choose to write something.  You need to then actually sit down and face up to the responsibility that you put on your own shoulders (No Pain, No Gain… and No work and no play makes Jack a dull boy).  Finally, you need to understand that with great words come great responsibilities, so (**deep breath**) if you have a homework assignment for your class to come up with several new ideas- having had a whole week to take care of your assignment, but got distracted by x, y, and z life events- and you really want to have something great to show to your professor and classmates the next day, then you need to buckle down with your computer, green tea and/or controlled substance (or pen and pad, coffee and good luck charm [I have a gimp I keep locked up]) and always keep in mind the Holy Basic Criteria of a play: 1) Who are your characters? 2) What is the setting? 3) What is their relationship? 4) What are the given circumstances?

From there, you prod along for a bit of time, funneling your thoughts through your fingertips, relishing in the fact that you presented the idea to people you trust who had the talent, time and patience to test out your work (thanks, Team Sheila).  Beyond that, you seek out expertise based on research you have conducted on your own and you conduct interviews with, for example, U.S. war veterans who will do their part to help you understand the psychology of the characters who you want to jump off the page.  Easy, right?

Actually, no, not at all.  Not in the least.  But it’s what we do.

My advice: Go write something.

Jason Lasky

Jason Lasky is currently an MFA Playwriting candidate at the Actors Studio Drama School at Pace University. If all goes well, he’ll achieve some level of financial success and fulfillment from his creative endeavors before all but one of his teeth fall out and he loses ninety percent of his hair.