"It's an insane thing, to write a play."

One day, as we all sat around our lounge, sipping cappuccinos, Michael West said to us, "It's an insane thing, to write a play." There we were, aspiring playwrights living in Ireland, about to start the unthinkable - write a play. We must have been mad, loons, all of us. Needless would Michael know that three weeks later he'd be winning the Irish Times Theatre Award for Best New Playwright. An insane thing, yes.

Sitting in my living room now, six months later and living back in New York City, I think I'm fully starting to realize the extent of those words. Being a writer, trying to create a world. It's an insane thing. I have completed two stage plays in my infant career (a one act, and a two act), and now that I am facing the reality of writing my second full length screenplay, I can't help but go back to those words. Have I lost my mind?

The only thing that is keeping me calm is - I think - the fact that I now personally know a successful writer. I spent 18 weeks with him, I drank coffees and pints with him, I talked about Simba and Hamlet with him. And now his success is becoming a reality. Michael's latest work, Freefall, is premiering at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin later this month, and I can't help but sit here in awe. I know him. I know the flesh and blood man that wrote that play, those words. If you don't know, the Abbey Theatre is the end-all, be-all of theatre in Ireland; it's the National Theatre, the hot tamale of the stage world. 

To think, Michael made an insane thing sane. He wrote a play. He did what I dream to do.  And now, all I can think is how much I want to be there to see it come to a reality, to watch that show grace the main stage of the Abbey in it's full fruition. 

Is truly is, an insane thing.

-E

Amazon's EBook Publishing Scandal

This has just been a week of discovering publishing mishaps...

Amazon, I support your policy on publishing everyone. As a writer, I really, truly do. I am also all for free speech, really, I am. But a book promoting pedophilia? That is the crime of all crimes and is something that can never be defended. Ever. End of story.

The independently published ebook in question is titled, "The Pedophile's Guide to Love and Pleasure: a Child-lover's Code of Conduct" by Phillip R. Greaves.

Here's a BBC's article... it has more info on the whole deal, all of the drama, the controversy, what have you.

-E

"Wait, you mean there isn't copy-write online?"

As a writer, I find this absolutely ridiculous:

"In 2005 a writer called Monica Gaudio wrote a great article called A Tale Of Two Tarts, which discussed (among other things) apple pie’s Americanism (or not) and its evolution from a sugarless mixture of fruit and spices, cooked in a coffin (no, not THAT sort of coffin: read the article!) to its current sweet pastried form.

Roll on five years. Ms Gaudio had pretty much forgotten about her article until a friend of hers congratulated her on her piece about apple pies which she had just read in Cooks Source Magazine (I’m itching to put an apostrophe in there: anyone else?).  Cooks’ Source (sorry, I couldn’t hold out any longer) isn’t just a website: it is also a money-making print magazine, which has a whole stable of advertisers which contribute to its finances."

Check out the full article here.

-E

OH ... and a link to the "apology" on the homepage ... www.cookssource.com

But here is a snippet incase you don't feel like reading the whole shebang:

"Last month an article, “American as Apple Pie -- Isn’t,” was placed in error in Cooks Source, without the approval of the writer, Monica Gaudio. We sincerely wish to apologize to her for this error, it was an oversight of a small, overworked staff. We have made a donation at her request, to her chosen institution, the Columbia School of Journalism. In addition, a donation to the Western New England Food Bank, is being made in her name. It should be noted that Monica was given a clear credit for using her article within the publication, and has been paid in the way that she has requested to be paid."