You need to be committed!

I had a great concept for a new play.

Then my 2009 NaPl project won an award, based only on the first 15 pages submitted -- I did the first act in 2009 but have never finished the second act. I decided I would be a Rebel Rhino and work on "Brigid Kildare's Steelworks" instead of my yet-unnamed, high-concept play about the economy.

Now we're a whole week in and I have done nothing on "Brigid."  The reason? I am now looking, no glaring, at Act 1 and realizing for all the tasty goodness that does exist, that I never really committed.

It's a flare up of concept, dialogue, plot and character, but I kept back part of my heart while writing it because, well, this could be the big one -- the love of my life played out on stage -- and I'm afraid to have my heart broken.

It really is much like falling in love -- you're going along with your play, getting to know it better, memorizing its face, its body, its mind and its soul -- and at that moment, you get lazy with a piece of dialogue, or you step off the path whose destination is scary to you, because you're not ready.

It's not that there aren't plenty of other plays in the sea of your imagination.

Do you find that, too? Whatever you're creating -- that when your heart starts to beat faster because the words are undulating from your mind through the keyboard like an ethereal love song you've never heard before, when you're whole body heats up because you are, almost literally, on fire for what you're creating --

you stop.

You become careful.

You analyze.

You sabatoge what could be the most beautiful thing you've ever done -- potentially the most beautiful thing to come to our stage these many years.

I urge you to go forward, as I am. "Brigid" and I are starting over, so I can layer each word with decadent, witty meaning the audience deserves. So that, more importantly, I can run straight into the fire with choices in plot direction -- casting aside my fears, my doubts, my darlings, my own heart, to bring to life true fire on stage.

I hope in your plays, that you will commit a little arson, too.