Dogs and Death - Writing Fetch

  This isn't my first rodeo, it's my second!

    (In which rodeo is a metaphor for play that I've written which is being produced)

There is something so nerve wracking about writing a play that is strictly words from your own brain that you know is going to not only be shared and edited and shared again to a class, but also to eventually be performed and then made available to the world. I thought that after two terms of play writing classes I would be more used to it, but it's not much better.

I've always done creative writing. I'm a creative person in general, I paint and draw and act and sing, but something about sharing my writing just seems so much more personal. It's literally the inner machinations of my mind on paper. This play perhaps moreso than any I've written before: but jokes on you! I hid my feelings behind cute anthropomorphic dogs!

I would like to say that the three characters are based on people from my life, because that's deep and interesting, but they're really not. Or if they are, it isn't anyone specific. Perhaps they all represent parts of my mind? Is that even deeper and more interesting? I do think that if there is one of the dogs I relate to most, it's Queenie. I too, HATE to think about death. In the first drafts, she had few redeeming qualities, she wasn't nice to Sparky, she was kind to Rufus but not in any significant way. Perhaps that is reflective of how hard I am on myself, because I do not think of myself as an empathetic person. I can hardly handle my own emotions, let alone those of other people. I think that is Queenie summed up pretty well, she likes to focus on day to day, cause as soon as she looks further it is too scary to handle. I do think now that she has more redeeming qualities that she is a much more well rounded character (perhaps I should remind myself that I have some too). 

I will say, to all the people thinking after reading/watching this play that I should've killed the dog: no. (Trust me, I thought about it. But that's obvious. Obvious is boring).

It is also interesting in that I don't know if this is what I would have written had we not been in COVID times (assuming I had the same space and actor limitations), because the only reason I can rationalize these dogs being completely alone in the waiting room is that the owners cannot come in due to the pandemic. It would've been interesting to see what my other ideas were.

Also, I think I should get a pat on the back for not writing about murder or gruesome death yet again (out of the 6 plays in playwriting, 4 of them had that). Go me.