Notebook on the Subway

I'm scribbling on subways.

Starting a new play.  I don't know what it will be -- I'm going in without a plan.  So far, it's snatches of conversation.  They feel mundane, they feel petty, they feel like the characters are maybe gonna be a little ugly and unlikeable.

And I'm fine with that, because I'm writing.  It feels both good and weird to write without an outline -- for the past year and a half, everything I've written has had an outline -- but mostly, it feels necessary.  I'm also writing longhand, in notebooks, which I haven't done since early in grad school.  I may be risking carpel-tunnel.  C'est la vie.

I got on the subway the other day with a new notebook, rode the F train to the end of the line, then back to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  I wrote the whole way.  Then I moved from exhibit to exhibit, writing wherever I found a bench, until I got bored.  I sent K the sexiest text of his life, when I wandered through the Greek statues (and what is it about this visit that I appreciated, for the first time, the beauty of the Grecian urns?).  I saw all the reconstructions of old American rooms.  I wandered through the museum without a map...much like I'm writing without a map.   

It felt like I found corners of the Met I wouldn't have found otherwise.

I'm not sure whether I'll find places in my writing I wouldn't have found otherwise.

But I know I won't find them if I plan my visit.