For me, playwriting is and has always been like making a chair. Your concerns are balance, form, timing, lights, space, music. If you don't have these essentials, you might as well be writing a theoretical essay, not a play.
I don’t have a theoretical language for music. I’m really inspired by sculpture, so I like to say, ‘you’re not making music, you’re creating a space. You’re building a room, putting some objects in it, and seeing what happens to the objects over time.’
In essay writing, I'm trying to push the form of expository writing. I'm trying to remember, trying to reckon, trying to find connections with the world, the nation and me, but I'm always trying to push the form, too, without being too obvious that I'm trying to push the form.
It was a natural thing for me to go become a musician, and then to start writing music. I don't even really remember making a decision to go into music, it was just there for me, always. If I weren't making a living at it, I'd still be writing music.
You honor your writing space by recovering, if you are an addict. You honor your writing space by becoming an anxiety expert, a real pro at mindfulness and personal calming. You honor your writing space by affirming that you matter, that your writing life matters, and that your current writing project matters. You honor your writing space by entering it with this mantra: “I am ready to work.” You enter, grow quiet, and vanish into your writing.
I always like balance. If I'm playing rock music all the time, chances are I'll start craving some lighter, poppier stuff, both to listen to and to play. I compare music to massage. If someone's been working on your back for a long time, you really want them to move down to your legs or something.
My acting has always been in the world of comedy, but in my writing, other than writing sketches, I really am drawn to the balance between comedy and drama. I like things that sort of toe that line of one minute you're in this emotional space and then all of the sudden something happens.
In writing, something is always left out: it can't be articulated in the space of an essay.
If you build your own chair, there is a lot of things that happen. You could probably buy a nice chair for less money than a chair that you built yourself, and it might even look better, but if you build that chair, you're going to take care of it and maintain it because it's your chair. If it breaks, you know how to fix it.
In my life, looking at other women who have been pregnant while writing, I always feel like it's kind of their most musical or the closest to themselves. I think for me it's such a validating moment, you know. I always knew I wanted to have kids, and I've been making music all my life.
I've always been surprised when a straight guy likes me. It's just been like my whole life has been kinda like that. I definitely felt like when I started writing music, it wasn't writing for a gay audience at all. I was just writing for me. But what I say whenever I get this question is my best friends have always been gay, I've always been, as a person, just accepted by the gay community, and celebrated and had the best nights of my life at gay clubs. Always had a fashion sense usually with drag and I don't know. That's just kind of my people. That's just kind of where I fit in.
I think you have to satisfy yourself first and foremost. There have been records I've been really, really pleased with that haven't connected with people. But I felt good about them. If you're making music, you must want to turn other people on to it, whether you're number one in the charts or number 60. I don't know, that's a commercial thing, but just the fact that other people like you... there's no point in making music, otherwise. Otherwise you might as well make it in your bedroom and leave it there.
When I used to teach writing, what I would tell my playwriting students is that while you're writing your plays, you're also writing the playwright. You're developing yourself as a persona, as a public persona. It's going to be partly exposed through the writing itself and partly created by all the paraphernalia that attaches itself to writing. But you aren't simply an invisible being or your own private being at work. You're kind of a public figure, as well.
You still had to find the music inside your language. You know, it was - that's a big part of what sort of moved me to begin writing the book. I wrote a little essay and I felt, yeah, this is a good voice. This is a good feeling. It feels like me.
I consider space to be a material. The articulation of space has come to take precedence over other concerns. I attempt to use sculptural form to make space distinct.
I've always had a fascination with making your own music but never have been skilled enough to play the instrument, so to be able to make music without the ability was awesome.
What I've wanted to do my whole life is just act. When I was younger, I loved to entertain people. I always used to make up dance routines, do little plays. I love to perform, basically. Music, as well, is a passion of mine. I've been singing my whole life. I probably annoy people because I sing all the time on the streets. And I play the drums and I play the guitar. I've been writing music since I was 13.