Writing

Posted April 7th, 2004 by Sean Williams

I got an email from my mom about the lyrics to “How Deep Is The Ocean”, which is part of what could be a master work of emails that the two of us exchange about the use of language in songs and TV shows and movies, if it weren’t for the fact that both of us have horrible memories. Our recall is so bad, both of us, that a lot of our emails are “that part at the end? Where the guy did his thing? That was awesome…”

I’ve said many times that I’m not much of a writer, and I hold by that. This blog, as well as the internet community, has made me a better writer, but no matter how good I get at it, I’m not going to ever be a writer. It’s simply a matter of discipline. A writer is transported by the act of writing the same way I’m transported by a turn of phrase in performance. When I am acting, and within acting I’m including singing, and when I’m doing it right, I become something more than what I am when I’m not doing it. Sometimes just for a moment, sometimes for minutes at a stretch, I live beyond my means, I breathe different breath, I am plugged in to the mystic infinite. That never happens when I write.

I just finished a fifteen minute play about two gay guys that is sort of an extension of a play I wrote two years ago about six straight WASPs who’s father died. And both of these are similar to the screenplay I wrote about a telemarketer in Los Angeles and the stage play I wrote about a writer in North Carolina. They all deal with levels of deceit, which I’m really fascinated by. I was thinking about writing a play about a right wing radio host who gets treatment for his drug habit in a love-fest commie-leaning rehab, but I realized the mental exercise of coming up with the idea was enough for me.

Jascha Heifetz once said that he had no lasting legacy because he had never written, never composed. That might be true, except that I now use Heifitz as an example, so there is that legacy. (He had such perfect pitch that when he was in his seventies, he was about to start a solo piece and someone muttered something about making sure his A was 440, and he said “It’s okay, I remember…”) I disagree with Heifetz, especially when I consider someone like Spencer Tracy or Cary Grant. They never wrote, yet I get as much from their acting as I do from *any* of the previous ten Oscar winners.

All of this to say, I am an actor more than anything, but I wish I could do my part, I wish I could tilt at the windmills, especially right now. Right now, more so than any other time in my life, we need to have people who can scream with clarity against the evils that we, as Americans, are responsible for. I find that my obsession with deception is becoming less a mental exercise and more a constant drain on my life.

So, if you are a writer, if you wake up each morning wanting to put finger to keyboard or pen to paper, then right now is your time. If you write it, if you find a way to scream loud enough to be heard, I will bring my full weight to bear behind it. It isn’t much, my weight, a tiny company in New York, a tiny name attached to a somewhat larger talent, but if you do your part, I’ll do mine, and hopefully others will do theirs.