Angst and creativity

More bad news...the explosion yesterday was actually up north near Luton, and the wind is blowing this huge black plume of smoke southward. The fire is still burning, and they authorities are probably going to have to let it burn itself out since there's not enough equipment or men to handle a blaze of this kind. What is this going to do to the environment? I shudder to think.

I wish I had a pretty picture of a man in a dress to put up here, but this is the best I can do. (I thought about taking a picture of my "C" -worthy paper, but that would be pretty smartass, so I didn't)

I'm really down today. I think most of it is because of my grades on my writing. I want honest feedback about my work--as we all know, it's no good if the profs gush--but at the same time I really thought I had produced some good work. My site-specific piece, which I set in a tree, John said lacked that "personal passion." It's all about the death of childhood, specifically mine, so I thought it was the more powerful of the two, but apparently not. He liked my verbatim theatre piece, which isn't my words at all! I want to be able to move people with my words, not arrange other people's.

This has lead me to think more about what I want to do when I graduate. Since I'm only here for a year, now is a good time to start thinking about it. If I can't be a brilliant writer--and I don't want to inflict more mediocrity on the world--then maybe I should focus on encouraging other people to be brilliant. I know that some of us have talked about opening up our own theatre, and I still want to do that, but I've also started thinking seriously about teaching as well. At the collegiate level--with my new exposure to contemporary theatre, I could do a lot of damage to young, new minds. ("You want to be a playwright? Read Sarah Kane, THEN tell me you want to be a playwright!") If someone like me, who is passionately devoted to theatre, could start their own company and cut through all the administrative "will it sell" bullshit and just do good shows, it would contribute more to the world at large than a stack of mediocre unperformed plays.

Having said all that, I'm also still writing (at a fevered pace, I might add) on my b---h play. Having done all the reasearch, I've realised the problem is is that one room and three men is just too small, so I let it go, and now it's multiple characters and scenes, across the generations, American history, family history, social strife and a wooden box in the round. Is it any good? Who knows. But it feels better than what I've been working on. Funny how angst and creativity have been going hand in hand lately.