May Sarton on writing vs. theatre

[sun_set_bravely]

The Writer's Almanac tells me that today is her birthday, and it gives this quote from her about her time in the theatre:

"She wanted to become an actress, and she spent eight years during the Great Depression before her theater company went out of business. She said, 'After my theater failed, I never looked back. It was like a fever out of my system. The theater is an angel with feet tied to bags of gold. You can't move without money. It's much better to be a writer. You just need a room.' "

This made me smile. Obviously, it's not true for every person -- the theater is perfect for many. Me, I'm with May on this one.

Comments

[nickelchief.livejournal.com]

Funny that this quote should appear today, as I just wrote the following in an email to a friend last night:

"I've found it's very liberating to write for the page and not for the stage. When I'm done writing a paragraph, I edit it and get it just the way I like it, and it's DONE. Print it out on a piece of paper and give it to somebody to read and it's never going to be any more DONE than it is just like that, not even if Vintage prints it up with moody cover art, it's still the same thing, just words on paper. I don't have to wait for [producer] Scott Rudin and [producer] Carole Hays and Kathleen Turner and $1.4 million to align just right to complete my idea. I can print it out myself and hand it around to my friends and it's done, it's my terrible novel, and I've said what I needed to say."

[sun-set-bravely.livejournal.com]

I'm feelin' ya on that one. Sure, there's the anguish of publishing and all that nonsense, but truly, once the words are out on the page like you want them, the work is finished, and you can move on.