Colm Keegan, one of our team of intrepid overnight 24 Hour Plays: Dublin writers, shared this on Facebook this evening and is happy for me to share here. An inspiration.
It was mad to spend a whole night writing, the sounds of a drunk Temple Bar floating into the room – part of me freaking, knowing that the show had sold out, knowing that the focus was gonna be mad intense – part of me saying fuckit, just do what you want, just tell a bleeding story.
So I did. I built up a tense story that hung on one single gag – one gag that came to me as if someone had whispered it into my ear. And I went with that, it felt like a huge risk, what if it wasn’t funny? But I just said fuckit, it feels right, stick with it. I literally reached the end of the script just as the deadline arrived.
I can quite modestly say it went down a fucking storm 🙂 and I coulda cartwheeled up the wall with relief and the feedback afterwards was lovely.
It felt good – really good, to be seen as someone who can write a good story. And apart from this being a whopper humblebrag, I think that’s my point. You can write whatever the fuck you want. You are human, you contain multitudes 🙂
If you’re writing spoken word, you don’t have to keep writing it, if you’re a novelist you can write a movie, if you’re a singer you can branch into rap, or fucking take up graffiti, or crochet. Who gives a fuck. Do what you want! Art is about breaking boundaries, so don’t put any boundaries on your creative desires and don’t let anyone else do it either. Growth is the most important part of your life, and it should never stop.
If someone told me that I’d ever have a play on the Abbey stage a few years ago I never would have believed it. Yeah it was a fundraiser and yeah, it wasn’t REALLY an Abbey play, but still, man, it was on that stage, it was acted by Alan Crowley, Leah Minto, Tara Flynn, and Marcus Lambe -absolute pros, it was lit and given sound by technical gurus at the top of their game, and directed by Ray Yeates in a way that I think all writers want their work handled, with consideration and a fair and critical eye.
Seriously – Whopper thanks to everyone who worked on ‘The Process’ and heartfelt thanks to everyone involved in the 24 Hour Plays – I’m so grateful to have been a part of it. It was an inspiration and an education.