SHOULD WRITERS BE PROLIFIC?

How important is a huge body of work?
By Shoshana Greenberg (Lyricist/Bookwriter)

Sometimes I get a burst of energy and think, "I want to write and write and write and write and write and..." and if I'm lucky I write for about an hour. Then I'm sad because it seems I'll never be the prolific writer I'm supposed to be. I love the idea of amassing a huge body of work, and I don't want to ever stop writing, but as a writer, at this point, I'm not sure I'm the type to churn out tons of material. Am I still a writer if I'm not writing all the time? How many songs, musicals, plays, blog posts do I need?

I feel like the student Calvin from the Sideways Stories from Wayside School story. Bebe can draw 200 pictures in an hour, while Calvin can only draw one. Consequently, he doesn't think he is good at art and instead of drawing helps Bebe draw even more pictures each class period, believing he is doing the world a greater service by bringing it more art. Their teacher, Mrs. Jewls, corrects him by saying:

"No, no! That isn’t how you measure art. It isn’t how many pictures you have, but how good the pictures are. Why, a person could spend their whole life drawing just one picture of a cat. In that time, I’m sure Bebe could draw a million cats... but if that one picture is better than each of Bebe’s two million, then that person has produced more art than Bebe."

I love this story and I know what the teacher says is true, but I still feel this pressure to be prolific and continuously produce work at a fast rate--that that is what makes a good writer. I don't know where this comes from. My teachers would encourage us to write all the time because writing is like a muscle you have to keep in shape, but they also encouraged us to go slowly and find our way through our writing. Maybe it just comes from comparing myself to others. Many writers seem to be workaholics--writing constantly, producing work constantly. It makes sense that the more one has written the more chances one has to get something produced or published, but if I try to work this way I just become frustrated.

Recently, I started rewatching the TV series My So-Called Life, a show deeply meaningful to me, and I felt a little sad. Would I ever be able to write something this meaningful to people? If I could only accomplish one thing in my life it would be to write something that affects as many people (especially young women) on such a visceral level as that show did. Then I realized that I've never thought of Winnie Holzman, the writer and creator of My So-Called Life, as prolific, although I'm sure she writes as often as she can and has created many wonderful television shows, films, and musicals. She's mainly known for two major works, but these works are monumental and, basically, eternal: My So-Called Life, which at only 19 episodes is still talked about as one of the best shows on TV after more than 15 years off the air, and the musical Wicked (for which she wrote the book), which is one of the most successful and beloved musicals from the past decade.

Perhaps the answer is just to keep pushing myself to write but not worry about always writing. Not to worry about rate of production or the number songs or musicals or plays I have, but to worry instead about the stories I have to tell and what I have to say through those stories and words. I think (and hope) that that is more important than output and a body of work, that that is the way to create something meaningful, monumental, and eternal.

SHOSHANA GREENBERG writes musicals, plays, and prose.  http://about.me/shoshanagreenberg
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Comments

[Goutham]

What is it that makes musicals stand out from other forms of thaerte? Well, the music! I love the narrative trope we as audiences buy into to allow characters to, through song, delve into their deepest, brightest, darkest, and most passionate desires and questions in ways so few people ever could with mere words. I love music that stirs up emotions in me as strongly as any monologue.And to be honest? I like happy plays, thaerte to warm my soul. And happy plays are so often also musicals, whether they're Wind In The Willows, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Joseph, or any number of others. Plays filled with bright eyed feelings that my friends, coworkers heck, even strangers can share with each other, chipperly singing along, years after leaving our seats.