On Writing, Theater, and Blood-curdling Screams

A Memoir

Long before I wrote, before I actually penned stories, I entertained my five siblings with tall tales. In grade school I wrote the typical dumb crap grade school kids write. Once in a while a teacher suggested I submit to some kid magazine. “‘Jack and Jill’ prints stories like this,” she’d say. “Their address is on the back page.” I was never certain if teachers really liked my moronic tales or were patronizing me. “Let’s boost the shy loner kid who rarely says a word in class, who never raises her hand.” I didn’t bother to check out any kid magazines but continued writing, continued with what I viewed as my little hobby. I didn’t see myself as a Real Writer.

I wrote. A lot. And rarely showed a soul, much less submitted anything. By high school my hobby’d grown from writing quaint little tales to multi-level sagas. The stories, the characters, the worlds were occasionally inspired by real life events and observations, but most popped into and lived in my head. I didn’t always write them down but they were there. Always. It was my passion. And my curse.

Sophomore year I discovered theater. Shy little old me. I blame Mr. B who made me read Portia in Merchant of Venice during 5th period English. As we filed out of class, Mr. B told me I had a strong voice and to “come by the theater after school, Palmisano. I’m directing our fall play, The Hitchhiker.” At 2:45 I swung by the auditorium, not to audition — heavens, no! I was way too shy to get on a stage. I went to lust for Jack L, a kid I had a serious crush on. Mr. B saw me walk in and motioned that I come down front. “Pronto!” He shoved a script in my hand and said to join Jack on stage. “Read Female Hitchhiker!” he barked. Gulp.

Author and Bratty Brother Sam, Fort Lauderdale, FL

The cast list was posted Friday; I spotted my name seven rows down. Female Hitchhiker. She was the play’s 4th or 5th most important character. Opening night my scream got the entire audience to jump. Sam, my brother (see above photo) told me it was the best moment in the play. I suspect it was because it woke him. Or maybe he was trying to curry favor after ruining my chances at becoming a concert pianist. Another story for another day. That night I discovered something —aside from the fact that I had a terrific scream— when one acts in a play, one forgets she’s a shy, stupid, self-conscious dope with a lame hobby like writing shit no one wanted to read. On stage, a dope is transformed into a tough, mouthy, punk whose screams would send chills down one’s back. Theater became my newest passion. And I didn’t perceive a downside.

M&M Theater’s A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO THE FORUM, author far right looking angelic.

Despite my newly discovered love of theater, I remained obsessed with crafting stories; some I wrote down and others stayed in my head. Theater was in my blood, it turned out and that led to writing plays —mostly one-acts but a couple full length. I never did anything with those either. After high school I joined Essex Players. My first role was Panacea, a courtesan (polite word for prostitute), in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. Being slightly toasted at an after rehearsal celebration, I mentioned my little hobby to Jean True who was producing Forum. Jean asked to read one of my plays. Advice the 1st: one does not refuse a producer who asks for a script. Advice the 2nd: one does not EVER refuse Jean True (those of you who knew her get this).

The following summer Essex Players performed a staged reading of my one-act play, Just a Slightly Tainted Love Song. A stupid title, really. Inspired by Paul Williams’s “Just an Old Fashioned Love Song,” made popular by Three Dog Night. JaSTLS was indeed a love story with Adam and Eve as protagonists. No, not the biblical A&E though my couple did fall. And sin. A lot. Let’s be honest, don’t our best characters do a lot of sinning?

Photo Top Left: Essex Players' A Nite at the Theater (L-R: Author, Jean True, Pete Harrington). Top right: Finishing Touches; bottom right: Sleuth; bottom left: Hot L Baltimore

June 1990 I met the love of my life. What made Bill that? A too long story with a long list of reasons. One of them —probably reason #11— is that he not only supported my “little hobby,” but Bill loved and admired writer me. So much so that he insisted I own up to the fact that I was a serious writer who wrote serious stuff (stuff is my word, not his). I had to stop calling my writing a hobby, Bill declared. With his urging, I got serious and sent out a couple manuscripts. I received okay responses. Mostly “TBNT” (thanks but no thanks), and a few “what else you got?” I also received a handful of honors: New England Theaterworks selected “Room for Rent” to be performed during the 1-Act segment of their Annual Festival; UVM selected Hookers for a staged reading at Royall Tyler Theater; the Vermont Council on the Arts gave me a year-long Fellowship to develop Carousel Waltz. Seven Days, published “To Hades in a Yacht.”

11 August 1996 Bill and I married in Stowe, Vermont. We honeymooned and house-hunted in California’s Bay Area where we moved labor day weekend. I’d shifted from writing for the stage to crafting screenplays. Fiction was my first love, though, and once in a while I’d jot down story ideas to be developed some time in the future. As per usual, most lived in my head. By then I was a full time teacher with not a lot of time to write.

Writing was joyful, fun, fulfilling, often comforting, and I never abandoned it entirely. I guiltily stole hours in between classes, lesson planning, faculty meetings (!!!), raising two girls, overseeing Yearbook. Keeping Bill happy.

Stowe, Vermont, August 1996 ||| ||||||||||||| ||| Maui, Hawaii, Summer 2000 (?)

Summer 2012 At Bill’s urging, I took sabbatical to write full time. For almost a year I wrote non-stop; every few months I actually sent out a manuscript. I achieved some successes: Legend of Persephone was a quarter-finalist in both Francis Coppola’s and BlueCat’s screenplay competitions. And, wonder of wonder, “Persephone” made quarterfinals in Nicholl’s Academy of Arts & Sciences annual screenplay competition. I’d arrived! My ego further ballooned when I learned that a production company had picked up my screenplay for a “look-see.” And, of course, those over-blown dreams deflated when, months later, they responded with “TBNT.”

I moped awhile then, largely because of Bill, snapped out of it and resumed writing. I penciled manuscript titles into an ever expanding Submission Log, filled almost entirely with checks in the TBNT column. In the opposite column I printed “YES!” in red letters next to the few entries that succeeded, then yellow-highlighted their titles.

Kuaii, Hawaii. (Summer 2002?) | |||||||| | Chevy's San Jose, CA (Fall 2005)

Summer 2013 Bill’s Type 1 diabetes worsened. Concurrently, our granddaughter was struggling academically and her mother’d entered law school. Writing mostly took a back seat to days crammed with tutoring; nursing; chauffeuring Nat to and from her elementary school, piano lessons, guitar lessons, swimming lessons, play dates, softball, basketball, and soccer practices. Then more nursing; fighting with doctors; nursing; fighting insurance companies; nursing; fighting to stay awake. Bill remained resolute when it came to me and my writing. As sick as he was —and he was extremely sick— my husband continued to push. He nagged, telling me “steal an hour here, Babe,” “a couple there,” “submit something, for God’s sake!” “Don’t come up to the hospital until you submit that script. Print a copy of the confirmation and bring it with you.” And “bring me pages from the other one you’re working on,” he demanded. As always, Bill was my primary —usually sole— reader, critic, and nag. His focus wasn’t on his illness but me and my writing. Bill didn’t fret about making him my top priority. He already knew he was, and was selfless enough to urge me to make writing a priority.

Nothing I wrote ever went out without Bill scrutinizing it. His insights, comments, suggestions were invaluable. He was smart, thoughtful, witty, and creative, himself. He zeroed in on problems and relayed them tactfully. He never said “this is shit,” even if it was. And, trust me, a lot really was shit. He’d say, “I don’t understand what’s going on here, Babe. Do you need it?” or “can you clarify this?” “strengthen that?” “There’s something missing.” “This doesn’t feel finished.” I trusted Bill to value me and respect my words. To treat both with care. Bill believed in me so he read, critiqued, pondered, urged... Eventually, I came to believe that I WAS a writer. A Real Writer. And someday maybe even a good one.

September 2014. Bill died. What I most remember about that time are the screams. Those only I heard. Screams that gave me migraines and refused to allow me to sleep. Screams trapped in my head because I didn’t want to alarm my already alarmed family. Screams that obliterated all the stories that used to live there.

Within weeks or maybe days, though that period is so foggy I’m not sure, I stopped writing. Entirely. Somehow, I edited the last few pages of Nice Guys, a screenplay Bill and I had been working on. I typed “FINI” and went to bed. I woke the next morning and asked myself, “To whom do I give this?” “Who will care?” And, ultimately, “What’s the point?” Thus began my longest, most terrifying block since I scribbled that first word on Mom’s immaculate kitchen wall.

Six years and too many months later on a rainy day in…

Spring 2020 I emerged from the fog of that dark Writer’s Block. I joined a Writers’ Group. I opened up the journal I’d been keeping off and on and typed, “The quality of mercy is not strained.” It wasn’t until much later—today, in fact— that I remembered doing that and realized why I’d quoted Shakespeare’s Portia from The Merchant of Venice. I folded that quote into a story that had been dancing in my head for a few days called, Emasculating Shylock. I made notes for the story which I finally got around to drafting last year. In the meantime, I opened up the Nice Guys script I’d abandoned when Bill died, and started editing. I opened Roads Taken, and began editing that. I made more notes for short stories and scribbled away. Since then I’ve barely stopped. Today I am officially a Real Writer

Bill with his two favorite people. Yeah, that put me in 3rd place which is perfectly fine.

With love to William Christopher Pearson on the 27th anniversary of our beautiful, magical wedding beneath an arbor on a mountaintop in glorious Stowe, Vermont. Memoir originally published via Medium on 8/11/2023 in California, USA