Stress

As I mentioned in my first entry, there will be times when I am stressed out of my mind. The first of those times this semester is upon us now. I have a ten-minute play due on Tuesday next week, and then I am scheduled to present the complete draft of my full-length for the first time on Thursday. I have no idea how this is going to happen. I always manage to get things done though. Last semester, I had a really rough time in October because at work we were in the middle of production on the biggest issue of the year for the journal I work on, I had to work at the box office of our theater every Friday through Sunday, and I had plays to write for both classes. And I got through that, so this should feel easy in comparison. Yeah. That’s what I keep telling myself.

I have also been feeling the pressure to take my work to the next level this semester. We’ve been starting to see everyone’s completed full-length drafts for the first time these past couple weeks, and it’s been crazy to see how far they’ve come along. In the first semester, we saw mostly isolated scenes from people’s full-lengths, and seeing the entire thing all at once really lets you see the shape the piece has taken on and how much everyone has advanced. It’s not like anyone is cutthroat or competitive (everyone has been nothing but supportive), but seeing my classmates’ work evolve like this has been showing me what is possible with my own work. I’m excited to finally see my entire draft on Thursday. I’m also scared out of my mind. Close to half of it will be brand-new stuff that the class hasn’t heard before, and some of the older scenes have not been read in class since October. I’m a nervous wreck. But I have to push the nervousness aside for a few days and, you know, actually get the finished draft written first. Then I’m allowed to nervously obsess over hearing it out loud.

So I will be doing lots of writing this weekend. I have to figure out how to end my full-length, and it’s been killing me. And I have to write a ten-minute play at some point too. But it should all be done by the next time I blog. That is both comforting and scary to think about.

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