Diversion Ahead

I have made a countdown calendar.
The no# of days left till my final deadline for my MA.
Today it sits on 43.
My fingers shake slightly as I type that. I think I'm in shock because, first of all, I am now counting my deadline down in days (how scary is that) and second of all I feel like I have so much work to do I should still be counting down in months (where did all the time go)
Such is life...right?
Writers - far more experienced and talented than me - deal with much more stressful deadlines than this on a more regular basis, in fact they deal with multiple deadlines at once.
But this one, for me, is as big as it gets. I really hope it will be the first big writing deadline of many big writing deadlines. As well as hoping it will be the first, I also hope it will be the last. The last one where I am labelled a 'student of writing', or a 'wannabe writer'.
Despite my hopes and my state of shock...I am feeling blocked.
BLOCKED!
I'm not even a proper writer yet but I get writer's block?
What is that about?
It got me thinking about that fact that a few years ago I had a man pal who I loved dearly and it turned out he loved me dearly too. In fact too much so - he wanted us to get together and I just didn't feel strongly enough about him to get into a serious relationship with him.
So for a while we just stayed friends. Not for long though. In true When Harry Met Sally style it was not possible to 'just be friends' - we would go out on nights out, have fun and then one of us would get emotional, we'd argue and then we'd talk for hours on the phone and meet up the next day and make up. I realised I was having a relationship with this man without actually having a relationship with him.
I talked to him about this and he said we needed to move forward or move apart.
We decided not to be friends anymore and - true to his word - I haven't seen him for about 3 years. Whilst there is no doubt in my mind that we had to stop our pseudo relationship somehow I'm not sure going cold turkey was the best option and I'm almost 100% sure that if I could do it over I would do anything but that.
Why am I thinking about all this?
Well, it seems the parrallel is I was having all the problems of a relationship without having an actual relationship and now I am having all the problem's of writer's block without actually being a writer.
I need to move forward or move apart from this story.
Seen as I am 43 days away from deadline it is too late to move away so I can only go forward.
If this block is a wall I am going to have to smash it down.
Ok maybe not smash it, but perhaps take it down one brick at a time.
Why am I blocked?
1) I feel like I don't really know what my play is about.
I mean, I know what it's about - I know what happens, who to and when. But I feel like I am still struggling to know why. Has this play evolved too far past what I originally wanted to say? Can I still say that? Should I be trying to say something else if the story has taken me somewhere else? Why have I come up with a story that doesn't say what I wanted to say in the first place? And how did I do that? I feel like I've been painting a sunset using green paint. Do I still say it is a sunset or is it actually just a green picture now?
2) Until I 'know' what it's about I feel like I won't know what the right form is.
And I have David Edgar to blame for this (no, not the new Burnley player)
His incredibly insightful article in the Guardian last weekend pretty much ruined my life.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/jul/11/drama-edgar-plays-theatre
Until then I thought I was telling a nice, little, interesting and dramatic story about Burnley. Then he made me see that the story is one thing, the plot is quite another.
And the plot, well the way the plot is shaped shows you what the meaning of the play is. That's great, so clever and true, I'm really glad he pointed that out while I am still in the process of writing my play. See point 1.
Oh...Crap.
3) Points 1 & 2 have - over the recent two weeks - combined forces and like some looming transformer-type monster have dwarfed every creative decision I've made till I have got to the point where I can't type a word without deleting it again.
Writing is putting words down in a shape that gives them meaning. Not putting them down, being unsure about the shape and then taking them away again. That's just typing.

I don't want to be a typist.
I want to be a writer.
I want to write this story.
I want to give it the best form it can have.
I want the meaning to resonate through each and every word.
I want to smash this wall.

If anyone out there has a sledgehammer...or a chisel...even a fork sized amount of wisdom to help me do this I would be most grateful to hear from you.

Well, gonna go and score another day off my calendar.
42 days to go now.

Gulp.

Long Time No See

Well, I haven't written anything on here for nearly 3 months...

I never promised myself I would write everyday or even every week but this gap has been a bit excessive even for a commitment-phobe like me!
I did promise myself that I would write when anything inspired me - whether it was good, bad or ugly inspiration and yet I find myself typing away again when I feel momentously uninspired.
And less than two months away from my final MA deadline is not when I can afford to be uninspired.
So, I'm trying to work out why this is so in the hope that I can overcome it.
Perhaps I should do a recap of what has been happening for the last 3 months in case it offers me a whirlwind view of my life which inspires me into action...ok it's a tall order but worth a try and at least I'll feel slightly less guilty about my absence.

Well...Burnley won at Wembley and I am not ashamed to admit that I cried - mostly tears of joy but also slightly of exhaustion too - and shortly after I went to see Oasis in Manchester something I have wanted to do for ages and I am not ashamed to say that I cried - mostly tears of joy but also slightly of exhaustion - (hhhhmmmm is there a pattern emerging here?)
Then we had a showcase as part of our MA (part of the reason for the exhaustion I think) and it was amazing (don't worry I didn't cry) and erm then I went off on holiday to Stonehenge, Cornwall and Scotland.

Thinking about it, it really was a big relief to get out of London and away from everything I'd been worrying about and working towards...in fact that may be the problem, that once I got away I didn't really want to come back.

No, that's not true, I did want to come back - I just wanted something to be different when I returned, some sign that all the things I had been struggling with were worth it...someone to say "well done", "it was all worth it", "keep going", "almost there"...
Truth is there was no sign that things had changed...there still is no sign that they will.

Well, I need to do something about it. I'm going to do what I do when I'm lost and there's no signs...I need to stop looking for that sign, choose a direction and head in it and then stop and work out a little later on if it was right or not.

It might not inspire me...but it's worth a try!