Shakespeare on a Monday?
(yes, afraid so)
Shakespeare love creating characters to tell his stories
As writers, I know, we can remain in our heads, do a great deal of thinking, plan and plot, imitate other writers we like, and spend much of our time being in love with words.
Yet to produce work, to write, to make new story, we must to use old and repeated word packages “cut to the chase,” “jump of a bridge,” and “wring out a story.”
Often feel as if I’m asking for pain, that I might cry out something like this to write.
“Light a fire under my feet!”
For those of you would have watched the movie, “Shakespeare in Love” the opening scene sets the stakes for the story, and those stakes could not be more memorable. I who do not watch much in terms of movies, who does not know the name of the latest top earning or popular movies, recall that first scene like no other movie opening.
Bill collectors surround a man, whose feet they hold over a flame. As they roast his feet, they boil with gleeful jests, promising further and far worse punishments. Eventually, we learn that the poor man owes them money! In a few short minutes, the story unfolds showing this victims of flambé of sole works as a theatre manager. A theatre that does not make money, as often stage venues fail to do in live theater staging new plays (some things never change). The villains have bound and hung is thinly booted feet over a small fire. They continue deliberately inflicting severe physical. They fry his feet until he promises them a full partnership in a new play by Shakespeare.
This poor man, the theatre manager with roasted soles, must produce a successful play to pay off the greedy loan sharks. Thus begins a story of extremely high stakes. The stakes and the pressure falls on the playwright, William Shakespeare, to complete his current work-in-progress, and insuring a BIG HIT at the box office of the Globe Theater in England. Most importantly saving the poor theater manager, a victim of sadistic businessmen who must be paid or will take a pound of flesh.
By the way, Shakespeare loved and used narrators to tell his stories. We’ll talk about that more next Monday.
“Writing a book is a bit like surfing . . . Most of the time you’re waiting. And it’s quite pleasant, sitting in the water waiting. But you are expecting that the result of a storm over the horizon, in another time zone, usually, days old, will radiate out in the form of waves. And eventually, when they show up, you turn around and ride that energy to the shore. It’s a lovely thing, feeling that momentum. If you’re lucky, it’s also about grace. As a writer, you roll up to the desk every day, and then you sit there, waiting, in the hope that something will come over the horizon. And then you turn around and ride it, in the form of a story.” Tim Winton, Australian short story writer and novelist.
Reading a lovely blog on Women’s Writing Circle Web site. Author, editor and mentor writer Susan G. Weidener created this site to support writers in the Philadelphia area.
Why this west coast writer cares about east coast writers
Inspiration for the writer’s road tends to be long and lonely.
Are you on a writer’s road?
Give someone else what you wish to receive
- Support her by buying & reading her books
- Respect her skills and experience by sharing her workshops & book launches
- Acknowledge her talent and dedication in a comment on her blog
- Give her word of mouth endorsement
- Write a good review of her book and post it to Amazon, GoodReads, Facebook, etc.
A little on Susan G. Weidener, her education, writing experience, published memoirs and her novel, I quote from the biographical note on her ‘The Power of Story’ workshop which will begin in October. Wow! Susan teaches a free four-week class beginning Oct. 19 at Lower Providence Community Library in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania.
“My goal is that by the end of those four weeks, everyone who takes this class will leave with a rough draft of their own memoir.” Susan G. Weidener
Susan G. Weidener received her BA in Literature from American University and her MS in Education from the University of Pennsylvania. She joined the staff of The Philadelphia Inquirer in 1991 and worked as a reporter in the Inquirer’s suburban bureau until 2007. Susan started the Women’s Writing Circle, a critique and support group for writers in suburban Philadelphia. She is the author of two bestselling memoirs, Again in a Heartbeat, a memoir of love, loss and dating again and its sequel, Morning at Wellington Square. Her debut novel, A Portrait of Love and Honor, based on her late husband’s memoir, takes the reader from the halls of the United States Military Academy at West Point during the Vietnam War to an inspiring love story between two people destined to meet. Susan offers writing workshops and talks on memoir and has appeared as guest speaker at universities and libraries throughout the Philadelphia region.
Lucky writers and those who want to tell their stories in Philadelphia should jump at this free four-week workshop, I would. So please share this post and help others in that region learn of her workshop this October 2015. Memoir Writing Workshop and ‘The Power of Writing.’
Leave a Reply