Today I went to a Women in Theater conference. Our Women in Theater professor got us in even though it's been sold out for weeks. The Artistic Director and Director panels were interesting, and the "networking lunch" was fun, even though I spent most of it talking with other Princeton undergrads...but they were ones I had never met before! Emily Mann, artistic director of the McCarter Theater made a very good and point: writing is work. Taking a walk and thinking about your writing is work. So block that time off and don't let anyone bother you. What you're doing during that time is no less important than any other work you'd be doing when it would be inappropriate for someone to interrupt you. Maybe this should have been self-evident, especially for the self-reliant writer I like to think myself, but it was still nice to be told this.
The part of the conference that just knocked the breath out of my lungs, however, was the playwrights panel. This didn't always look like it was going to be the case. It was right after lunch, and it started out slow. I was pretty disappointed, until Danai Gurira started talking about her next project. She talked about the need she felt to write her next play about Zimbabwe, even if that meant that she would no longer be able to return. And then she, and probably half the people in the room, started to tear up. Lisa Loomer, sitting next to her, mentioned something someone had once told her: don't worry about whether there will be an audience for your play, don't worry what people will think of it--whether they'll get angry or be upset or disappointed--"you have to complete your body of work."
I was so touched and inspired, and ran back to my room and made Roommate J listen to a recap of the entire thing. And then I opened the word document of The Play, and looked at it for the first time in months. Time to revisit? I think so.