Work Forward And Back [David’s blog on DR Thursday]

Posted on January 4, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

Writing the first draft of a play, I’ve just entered the “swimming upstream” step in the process. I’m working my way from back-to-front to make sure all the story dots connect. It’s detail work. It requires looking close-in. I used to hate this part of the process because I’d get lost. I’d forget what I was doing and prematurely rework sections. Painters ruin paintings when working too small too soon. Writers are subject to the same peril. Now, I adore this step. Life is funny.

A few years ago I realized that my change in process-love, my capacity to work in detail without getting lost, came when I stopped trying to race to the end. Now, I am in no hurry to finish. I want a full relationship with my story as it reveals itself to me. It is a child, holding my hand, guiding me to the wonders of the playground.

Working forward. Working backward. Stepping in and then stepping away, like the tides. Big brush washes first, attending to the overall composition. Structure. And then detail. It’s much like building a house. Foundations and then finishes.

I have learned from watching Kerri to use my camera to see detail. To step in and look. Seeing-as-a-relationship. To pay attention to the dew on the small pine, the reason it glistens. And then to step in further. The platitude: a single drop of dew contains an entire world. Beyond the platitude: step in and it’s possible to fall into another world. To experience the surprise available in the enormity of the minute. And bring back to the big, big world of hurry-here-hurry-there the astonishment that is found there.