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[monologuedb]

Forget “strong female character.” Aim for: “Woman or girl with agency.” One who makes decisions, affects the story, pushes the plot. –– Chuck Wendig

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Advice on Natalie’s monologue from “Like Dreaming, Backwards”

Q. “...How did you imagine her being? For example did you imagine her still in shock, regularly talking? Also who is she talking to ? A therapist? Another friend? ...” 

A. I would say that shock is a key element, but the primary feeling she's experiencing is guilt. Irrational but paralyzing guilt. 

The play really leaves it open-ended, who those monologues (Natalie's, Yale's, and Leah's). Different directors have staged them differently - some have had those three people talking to each other, perhaps sharing a coffee at the end of the memorial service, some have staged them sitting in a circle, as though they are speaking at a grief support group, others have taken a more meta approach, deciding that they are talking directly to the actual audience, or that they are internal monologues made audible. All of these are valid approaches.

I would say that since you're just performing the monologue on its own, it's probably best to avoid meta and decide something concrete, such as, she's speaking for the first time at a grief support group meeting. Whatever you decide works best for you is fine with me.

Break a leg!

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Don’t be intimidated! I’m just a person!

So, I’ve gotten a few messages from readers lately that started, “I apologize in advance for any mistakes”, and I think I may have made a grave miscalculation. I didn’t start this tumblr thing to make people feel bad about their messages, seriously! I’ve said this many times before: I really do want to hear from readers. And if I do rant about something someone says, it doesn’t mean I hate them or even that I’m angry at them, I just kind of enjoy ranting sometimes. But obviously I’ve been a dick, because I’ve been making people feel bad, and I’m sorry about that. 

Everyone makes mistakes, even me, maybe especially me. If you’ve read a lot of my stuff, you may have picked up on some of my glaring flaws:

I am not a great driver. I got into, like, six fender benders in the two years after getting my license. I’ve gotten better at not hitting things, but I’m still a nervous driver with a white-knuckle grip on the steering wheel. I’m 33 and I can still barely parallel park. 

I have no sense of direction. Like, you could blindfold me and take me three blocks from my house, spin me in a circle, take off the blindfold, and I wouldn’t be able to find my way home without Google Maps.

I’m bad at math. I never got past Pre-Calc in high school, and in college, I took Math for Dummies. And I got a B. I sometimes get the wrong answer when adding 8+14. Seriously, not kidding. Thank the Lord for calculators.

I’m clumsy as hell. I run into stuff and fall down all the time, and have numerous unexplained bruises. I spill things on myself and others regularly. 

I don’t understand basic science concepts. Like, I seriously don’t understand why planes fly. I love technology but I don’t understand how any of it works.

I talk too loud. 

I am hopeless at Geography. Completely hopeless. If you gave me a blank map of the world, I could accurately label, like, four countries, tops. If you gave me a blank map of my own country, I could probably only label about nine states correctly. 

My website is ugly as sin by modern design standards. The only HTML I know is what I taught myself.

I took, like, ten years of Spanish, but I’m still not fluent. 

I often look at things I write and say, “This is terrible.”

I guess my point is: Yes, I sometimes make fun of people’s spelling and grammar mistakes, especially when they make the meaning unclear or the opposite of the intended meaning, but I’m not doing it to be mean, I just find those things funny because I’m a huge nerd. And you should hear how much people make fun of me for not knowing which oceans are which, or why cars need oil. We all have strengths and weaknesses, we are all smart in some ways and not-so-smart in others. Please don’t be scared to write to me, I’m just a person. A person who can’t drive, add, design, or science her way out of a paper bag.

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Your Acting Homework

I promise I don’t spell my name the way I do to be pretentious. It’s spelled “Kellie” on my birth certificate. It’s not a big deal, but I am confused how someone can misspell a name in the Internet age. My name is ALL OVER the page where you found my e-mail address... it’s on, like, every page of the script you’re e-mailing me about. But OK.

Hi Kelly, I'm curious about the season, day of the week, and state your monologue "And Turning, Stay" takes place at. I'm doing research for my drama class and can't seem to find those things. May you tell me please?

Le sigh. 

“And Turning, Stay” is the name of a play, not a monologue. Fortunately, that play has only one monologue of any significance, so I’m going to assume you’re asking about Amy’s monologue. Which is one of my most popular monologues, even though I wrote it when I was sixteen and it is frankly, not great. It’s fine that people like it, but I’ve done much better writing since then. If you like Amy’s monologue, you’ll probably love Dogface’s monologue from Scene 5 of Dogface. (Second one on the page if you click the link.) But again, I digress.

My response: 

You can't tell those things because they're not in the script, because there's no reason for them to be in the script, because they do not matter. If you just need an answer for your teacher, tell her spring, Friday, and Illinois. Or make something up, that's fine with me, too.

Character analysis is important. Script analysis is important. Given circumstances are important. I would never say that it’s not. And I guess teachers give these kinds of homework assignments because sometimes it does matter what day of the week it is, or what color the walls of the room are, or maybe it helps for an actor to contemplate what kind of flower the character would be if (s)he were fauna. 

But, here’s the thing: if the day of the week was significant, it would be in the text. If the season was significant, it would be in the text. If the state was significant, it would be in the text. If it’s not in the text, then it’s UP TO YOU - you the director if we’re talking about the play, or you the actor if you’re doing the monologue. Trust me, if it mattered, I would say it.

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I’m sorry.

Today when I posted earlier, I glanced at my recent posts and found this:

I think you’re an asshole and I’m never using your monologues for auditions again.

There is a way to treat people, and that is not it. Stop being elitist and entitled. You are privileged. GREAT!

Not everyone has the same education you do. English is not everyone’s first language, fuck you very much. The next time you want to give someone a grammar lesson, condescendingly and patronizingly, make sure you are fluent and flawless in at least two languages (grammatically). Otherwise, you can take your lesson and shove it where the sun don’t shine (and don’t bother correcting that to “where the sun doesn’t shine,” asshole)...

…That is not how you treat people who cannot English as well as you can (yes, I just Verb-ified a language). Oh, the blasphemy.

Anyways, get off that high horse.

Good Luck.

I sent this person a message to say that I’m sorry, and that I really did not mean to offend her, or anyone, least of all non-native English speakers. 

I want to apologize to anyone who was offended by my recent posts. To be clear, I have nothing but respect and admiration for anyone learning English as a second language. And even if you are fluent, I don’t want you to think I’m mocking you if you make a mistake.

When I correct someone’s spelling/grammar/punctuation/etc. I am doing it because I genuinely want the person to learn something, and hopefully not make the same mistake again. I’m not trying to hurt anyone’s feelings. But I obviously did, and for that I apologize.

I am a bit of a snob about grammar and the like. I admit it. I don’t mean to be judgmental about it, but clearly I came across that way, and I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to imply that every message you send needs to be perfect. I do think you should adjust the tone of your message depending on your audience. The text message I send to a friend is a lot more casual than the e-mail I send to a stranger asking for a favor. I don’t mean to imply that I never make mistakes. I am certainly not perfect. I was a copy editor for two years, and a writer for most of my life, so I honestly can’t keep myself from noticing these things. We all have our little pet peeves and idiosyncrasies, and this is mine. 

Bottom line - I’m sorry about all the snark. I just want you to read over your e-mails before you send them, especially if you’re sending them to someone you don’t know. I don’t think that’s too much to ask.

Do you all think I should delete that post? Or would that be “revisionist” like I’m trying to deny I ever wrote it? I want to make this better but I’m not sure how to keep from making it worse.

P.S. I definitely do not have a problem with creative use of language or with the fact that language evolves over time. Turning nouns into verbs is, like, one of my favorite things ever. 

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I have things to do besides YOUR homework...

I understand that my readership is mostly young people - primarily high school and college students - and I think that’s super. Seriously, I love that my writing appeals to young people. I wrote a lot of my most popular plays when I was in high school myself, and disgruntled over the lack of relatable characters in the plays that were considered “suitable” for students. It’s why I started writing plays in the first place - because I wasn’t seeing characters onstage who talked the way I talked, and cared about the things I cared about.

But sometimes it really bugs me when actors and students want me to do their homework for them. I have had people send me their entire homework assignment - 20+ questions asking for an analysis of the monologue and/or the play, expecting me to do it for them. And a lot of the time, they don’t even ask nicely or use proper spelling, grammar, and capitalization. I cannot stress this enough: if you are asking someone to do you a favor, ask POLITELY. Use the word PLEASE, and do your best to spell my name correctly. And unless English is your second language, there is no excuse for using non-words like “cuz”. 

I don’t charge a lot of money to download my plays, because I want you to read them. If you write to me and say, “I don’t have a credit card or PayPal and I really want to read the play,” I will e-mail it to you for free. I do this, like, twice a week. I do it happily. So expense is not the issue. But if you are too lazy to read the play, please do not write to ask me about the given circumstances of the monologue. They are in the play. 

If you read the play and still have questions, then absolutely, write to me, I would love to hear from you. I love talking about my work! That’s why I put my personal e-mail address - the one I check every day - all over my website. It’s not that I don’t want to hear from my readers. I want to hear from you. What I don’t want to hear from you is, “I want to perform your monologue, but I don’t want to read the play it’s from, can you just summarize it for me / write a paragraph I can plagiarize and hand in to my English teacher / answer these seventeen questions that I could figure out myself by taking half and hour and reading the play?”

I know you’re busy, but it doesn’t take long to read a play. Especially a ten-minute play or a one-act. And if you are too busy to read the play, then why do you have time to e-mail me and then wait for me to respond? Are you really pressed for time, or do you just think your time is somehow more valuable than mine?

Here is an example of a message you should NEVER write to someone if you want them to HELP you: 

I know what you’re thinking. “Kellie, if you don’t have time to answer questions for lazy readers, why do you have time to write this ranty post and screen-cap your conversation and edit out the girl’s identifying info and put it on your tumblr?” 

The short answer is, “It’s not really about the time. It’s about respect.” 

It’s about taking two minutes to make sure your message is polite and spelled correctly. I’m not asking for perfection. I’m just asking that you make an effort. Demonstrate some respect for the English language, folks. Writers like myself tend to appreciate that kind of thing. I’m not going to be a bitch if your e-mail has a typo - nobody’s perfect, including me. And if English is not your first language, don’t worry! English is probably one of the hardest languages to master, and I applaud your effort! Lord knows, if I wrote someone an e-mail in Spanish it would be a disaster. And if you’re not a native speaker, it’s okay to let me know that in your message. I will do my best to make sure you have all the help you need understanding the monologue you’re performing and the play it’s from.

To be clear: 

I am glad you want to do my monologue. I’m glad you like what I wrote!

I am glad you decided to get in touch with me. I want to hear from you!

It’s okay to ask me to send you the play for free if there’s something that interferes with you being able to pay me for the play. I want you to read the play, even if you can’t pay for it.

I would appreciate it if you keep in mind that I am: a.) a writer who cares about grammar, spelling, punctuation, capitalization, and the English language in general, and b.) a stranger who you are asking for a favor.

Anytime you ask for someone’s help, it’s a good idea to use the word “please” somewhere in your request. “Thank you” also goes a long way!

Please keep in mind that you are asking a stranger for a favor, not texting your mom to let her know that volleyball practice is running long - and adjust your tone accordingly. Typos are one thing, text-speak is quite another. Seriously, text-speak makes me want to cry myself to sleep at night.

If I let you know that you’ve made a mistake in your message to me, I’m really not doing it to be a bitch. I’m trying to help you avoid alienating the next person you write an e-mail to, whether it be a teacher, a stranger, or a potential employer. I may be snarky and sarcastic sometimes, but I genuinely do want to help you.

Finally: If you tell me that you are too busy to read the play, I am going to tell you that I am too busy to help you avoid doing your work. Even if I’m not. Because if you are going to use “too busy” as code for “too lazy” ... then so am I.

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Conversation with a Would-Be Dogface Performer

To: kellsbells@gmail.com From: Kim

Can I perform DogFace and does DogFace 1 and DogFace 2 go together? 

From: me To: Kim

Hi Kim! Thanks for writing, but I don't understand your question. 

First of all, what do you mean by “Dogface 1 and 2″? Are you talking about two different monologues? Two scenes? My play, Dogface, doesn't have a sequel, I can say that with certainty. 

Once we establish whether you're asking to perform a monologue, a scene, or the entire play, we can discuss whether you have my permission to perform it. I would need to know whether or not you will be paid for the performance, etc. You may find the answer you seek here: http://notmyshoes.net/monologues/faq.html#kp

Thanks, Kellie Powell notmyshoes.net

To: me From: Kim

No I will not be payed for the performance.

There is two monologue called Dogface and I'm wondering if they go together or not.

To: Kim From: me

My play Dogface contains several monologues. If you're talking about the two monologues found on the Monologue Database ( http://notmyshoes.net/monologues/dogface.html ) - the first monologue is at the very beginning of the play, and the second monologue is in the second-to-last scene. So, they "go together" in that they are from the same play, but they do not follow one after the other, consecutively - there are several scenes in between. There's nothing to prevent you from performing them one after the other, if you're so inclined, but, in the first one, she's talking to the audience, and in the second one, she's talking to Ethan, a character on stage with her. 

If you found them somewhere *other* than the MDB, you'll have to give me more information. I've never labeled any monologues "Dogface 1" and "Dogface 2". Maybe you could send me the text you're referencing, or a link?  

BTW, the past tense of the verb "to pay" is paid - unless you're talking about boats. See: http://writingexplained.org/payed-or-paid-difference for details. And, “There is two monologue” is incorrect, the proper way to start that sentence would be, “There are two monologues”.

Thanks, Kellie Powell notmyshoes.net 

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City of Strangers

By Joe Brofcak

PENELOPE:

Hello? ...Hello? Yes, Mr. Carter? Hello, this is Penelope Webber - How are you? That's why I'm calling, Mr. Carter. My landlord is extremely upset. There's a problem with - my check bounced, again - and - yes, fine, I'll hold...

(She busies herself with checking the locks.)

Yes, I'm here. Hmm-mm. Yes, I sent that in last month. What? Yes, I filled that out, also. Huh. So, what's my problem? I'm about to be evicted because my husband's pension is locked up in red tape. I can't work, I have nowhere to go, and all I want is what my husband worked to death to make sure I had.

Yes, I know it's not your fault. Forgive the outburst. Yes. No, I'm afraid it's not possible for us to meet. I can't. I'm unable to leave my home - remember? I have a medical condition. That's none of your business. Look, isn't there a way to resolve this over the phone? Or online? Well, I think in this day and age your online infrastructure - right. Okay. Can you send someone to my home? Isn't there a system in place for sick people, who can't - ? ... But that's three months away! My landlord won't wait that long.

Please, Mr. Carter. I can't leave my apartment... can you blame me? All those people, pressing into me, staring and watching. People are dangerous. Anyone could turn out to be a killer, and they don't even know you, but they hate you, hate what they think you stand for, and want nothing more than to wipe that smile away forever. Forever, and - what?

But. I can't. I can't.

(He says goodbye, and she realizes that he has hung up.)

I have to.

Penelope, a young widow whose fire fighter husband died on 9/11, has suffered from agoraphobia ever since. When there are problems with here husband's pension, she is faced with the prospect of having to venture into the outside world for the first time in years. In this monologue she is on the phone, struggling to explain her situation with a heartless bureaucrat.

This monologue is from the short play City of Strangers by Joe Brofcak. If you would like to read the entire play, you can purchase and download an electronic copy (PDF) of the script for $7.00. This monologue brought to you by The Monologue Database and These Aren’t My Shoes Productions.

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Q. What inspired you to write “Like Dreaming, Backwards”?

A. I’ve struggled with depression nearly all my life. I’ve been in counseling, off and on, since I was about six years old. I lost a family member to suicide when I was about twelve, and it had a profound effect on me. I’ve been hospitalized for depression twice - once when I was nineteen, and again when I was 22. I’m better lately, and, thankfully, I’ve never suffered from psychosis symptoms (hallucinations) like Nell does. 

I used to have a recurring dream when I was younger, about going to see a new therapist, and when I told the therapist about my suicidal feelings, instead of launching into the usual speech about all the reasons I shouldn’t kill myself, she would try to talk me into suicide. She would say stuff like, “Either kill yourself, or stop wasting my time,” and, “There’s no cure for what’s wrong with you.” I used to wake up and be pissed off at my brain for doing that to me. (Seriously, I would wake up and be like, “Damn brain! WTF was that?!? Why you gotta hate?”* And shake my head and be all, “That was fucked up.” And then go to sixth grade, and take my social studies test, or whatever.) But when you are depressed, you cannot always trust your own brain. Your brain is not always your friend. Nell’s messengers say a lot of those kinds of things to her.

Having lived with it for so long, I didn’t always realize how much stigma and shame surround mental illness, or think about the way that shame might prevent someone from seeking treatment. When I was a senior in college, a student hung himself in his dorm room. I didn't know him personally, I had never met him. I learned about his death because I worked at the student paper. The editors decided not to acknowledge the death in the newspaper in any way, supposedly out of respect for the family. Which is a fine decision, except, another student that same semester was murdered, and the paper covered her death in great detail over the course of several months. Why was a murder considered news but a suicide was considered a shameful secret that needed to be hidden away and ignored? His death haunted me, even though we had never met. It really made me think about the stigma surrounding mental illness, and I wondered, how is anyone supposed to find the courage to get help, if suicide and depression are something that they and their family members have to be ashamed of? I think this is when the Yale monologue started to write itself in my mind.

But I didn’t put anything on paper until about a year later, when I was living in Binghamton, New York, and KNOW Theatre was holding their annual Playwrights Festival. Every year, they choose three works of art and ask playwrights to write and submit one-act plays inspired by one of the selections. One of the selections that year was "Draconic Apparition" by Orazio Salati. 

The photo doesn’t really do the painting justice - it’s much more powerful in person - but, maybe you can get some idea. 

The painting immediately made me think about despair. When I tried to describe it, the only word that came to mind was “nightmare-scape”. It’s not just that all the figures look like they’re in pain, it’s that, despite there being a crowd of figures, they all seem so desperately alone. I wanted to show the pain and loneliness of struggling with a mental illness, but I wasn’t sure I could get the message across with a thirty minute monologue. Somehow, the painting led me to the idea of giving voice to Nell’s hallucinations. I created the three "messengers", and I also added three monologues from those she left behind - her mother, her best friend, and the stranger (Yale), and ideally this hints at the idea that there could be countless people left behind that you’re not hearing from, but who are still out there. 

I hope this is helpful (and not incredibly depressing). 

Break a leg!

* Footnote: I did not really talk like this in sixth grade. I also don’t really talk like that now. But I do swear a lot.

[monologuedb]

Hello! I'm searching everywhere for age appropriate (high school) comedic monologues from published plays that haven't been overdone. I haven't had much luck and I was thinking you could help me out? thanks :)

Yikes. That’s a tall order, for so many reasons.

Good comedic monologues are hard to find, period. It’s hard to cram enough context into a short monologue for it to make sense and actually be funny. Humor results from confounding expectations (a joke requires a set up and a punchline), and creating expectations means some amount of exposition becomes necessary, and it’s really hard to write exposition that isn’t boring. Like, the best writers I know struggle with it. 

And then there’s “age appropriate”. What a loaded term. I mean, virtually everything I wrote when I was a high school student is universally considered too “adult” for high school students to perform. There’s what life is actually like for high school students, and then there’s what’s considered “appropriate” for high school students, and those things are so completely antithetical that it makes my head hurt. If you take all the sex and drugs and swearing and violence out of something to make it “appropriate”, what’s left that’s actually real or interesting? Sorry to rant, I just fucking hate censorship. 

And then there’s “overdone”. I mean. What makes something “overdone”? Is Shakespeare “overdone”? Something that’s overdone at your high school might be completely obscure somewhere else. A monologue that the Speech Team judges in Illinois have seen twenty times this weekend might be completely unheard of in New Jersey. I can give you several different links that different “industry professionals” have made of monologues they never want to see again, but there’s no guarantee that the same monologues will be on any two lists. The only way to guarantee that the person judging your monologue has never seen it before is to choose something completely unpublished, which has never been seen by anyone, anywhere. And if I give you a monologue that I think is obscure today, it might become “overdone” within a year, just by virtue of me recommending it publicly on the Internet.

But alas, I’ll do my best:

The Absence of Gray Matter by Josh Weckesser (this is a stand-alone monologue, not from a play).

Several choices from Kennedy’s Children by Robert Patrick (full script online, I personally really like Carla’s monologue that starts “I threw myself, at fifteen, with a sense of mission so strong it would have made Joan of Arc’s look like a whim, I threw myself into Manhattan’s lap —head first.”)

Marvel Ann’s monologue from Psycho Beach Party by Charles Busch (this one definitely is in at least one Monologue Anthology)One of Vincent’s monologues from Remedial English by Evan Smith (written for a male but I think a female could get away with it)

Several choices from Catholic Schoolgirls by Casey Kurtti 

Several options from The Dianalogues by Laurel Haines

I wish I could help more, but honestly? I don’t write comedy. (Well, I wrote one comedy, but it’s terrible. A drama is allowed to make you laugh, but anything that makes you cry is pretty much considered not a comedy. I mostly want to make people cry.) Maybe someone else has more (better) suggestions for you?

[monologuedb]

Yes, I am Dogface.

Q. What inspired you to write Dogface, and what, if any, life experiences/ observations led you to create the character Dogface?

A. The character Dogface is a character based very closely on myself. Many (if not all) of my protagonists are barely-fictionalized versions of myself, and Dogface in particular is, basically, me. The first scene is better described as memoir than fiction. That opening monologue is a near-factual account of what actually happened to me when I was seven years old. (I won’t say it’s entirely factual, it is what I remember, and human memory is notoriously inaccurate.)

Other scenes also have autobiographical elements (for a while my only friend was a teacher, I ate lunch in her office to avoid being bullied in the cafeteria, I eventually made friends but always felt like "the ugly one"), but play a lot more fast-and-loose with reality (mostly I took the worst things that happened in my entire life and wrote each scenes as though six of them happened in the same month, that kind of thing). 

However, the scene "Coyote Ugly" (the scene with Ethan) is not (particularly) autobiographical. I'm sure I drew on my own (innumerable) experiences dealing with romantic rejection, but the details of the situation Dogface and Ethan find themselves in are not based on any first-hand experience (or at least, not any one particular first-hand experience). 

In other words, I did not lose my virginity to a close friend, who then avoided me for a week. (If you’re curious, the true story of how I lost my virginity is in one of my plays, but I’m not telling you which one, sorry.)

I hope this helps! Break a leg!

[monologuedb]

Hi, I am going to be performing Nell's monologue from like dreaming backwards and I really wanted to read the whole play to gain a further understanding of what is going on. I have been searching the web for where I can find the whole script and all that comes up is the different monologues from the characters, is this because the play is literally just the monologues or am I missing something - if you know where I can read the whole play then that would be really helpful. Thank you

Like Dreaming, Backwards is made up of four monologues and three scenes (one with each of the “visitors” (Nell’s hallucinations who’re trying to convince her to commit suicide). You can buy the PDF of the play online here for $7:

http://notmyshoes.net/likedreaming.html

...or you can buy it as a Kindle download from Amazon for $10. (You have to pay more, and I keep less of the money when you do it that way, but, c’est la vie). 

If there’s some kind of extenuating circumstances why you can’t pay to read the play, send me a message that includes your e-mail address and I’ll see what I can do. Depending on where you go to school, you may actually be able to get an e-copy from your school library. 

Break a leg!

[monologuedb]

Where in america is "Like dreaming, backwards" set in? I don't know which accent to act my monologue in.

The only line which explicitly gives a location is when Yale mentions that Nell is from Joliet. Joliet is in Illinois. I had my own alma mater, Illinois State University, in mind while writing the play, so you could say that the play is set in Illinois. But if you wanted to set it somewhere else, there is nothing explicit in the script to prevent you from doing so. Hope this helps! Break a leg!

[monologuedb]

Sometimes I think people are trying to get me to do their homework for them.

I got this question on facebook today:

Q. I was wondering if you would be able to explain the style and theme that links all of your plays please?

I had to think about this one for a minute before I could come up with an answer.

A. Thanks for writing, but I don't think I can answer your question. I don't think there is one style or one theme that links all of my plays. There are certainly recurring themes in my work - lots of unrequited love, self-esteem issues, and struggles with mental illness - but I have written lots of plays, with lots of different themes, and lots of different styles. I guess I typically write in a style that could be described as contemporary realism, but that is not always the case. One Graveyard and Like Dreaming, Backwards are highly stylized and heavily influenced by free verse performance poetry. I don't know if any of this information is useful, but if you have any more specific questions, I'll try to help. Break a leg!

Seriously, though... “Explain the style and theme that links all your plays?” How much do you want to bet that question is a direct quote from a homework assignment? 

[monologuedb]

My advice? Tell your editor to fuck off. And then go self-publish the hell out of your book. And when it’s tremendously successful, keep all the money for yourself. And laugh maniacally, ideally while stroking an imaginary moustache. That’s what I’d do. 

Reblog if you would read scifi fantasy a book about a mentally ill, bisexual black girl

My editor keeps telling me no one will

[monologuedb]

Mushy Shit

My best friend in the whole world is getting married on Saturday. I’m really happy for her, and I wholeheartedly approve of the dude she’s marrying. She’s changing her name, which I am not pleased about, but, I will (probably) get over it (eventually). 

Me: “If you change your name, you’re caving to hundreds of years of patriarchy!” Amanda: “If I don’t, aren’t I just caving to you?!?” Me: “YES! Come on! If the choices are Caving to Patriarchy and Caving to ME, YOU SHOULD OBVIOUSLY CHOOSE CAVING TO ME! That is FEMINISM 101!” 

But I digress.

She asked me if there was a monologue from one of my plays that might be appropriate for someone to read at the wedding. I pondered this carefully for a moment, then concluded: “Not really. Because the things that you want to hear at a wedding would make for really boring monologues.” I write plays about getting burned by cold bastards. I write about broken hearts and broken bones. An evening of my short plays was titled “Fuck You and Your Happy Endings!” because happy endings? They are just Not My Thing. 

But then I went home (and sobered up), and looked through my plays and I managed to find two very short pieces you could use for a reading at a wedding, if you were so inclined. So, buckle up, kids, this is As Mushy As I Get:

Kim’s Monologue From Collaboration:

...I’ve seen the best and the worst of you… and I love you. I love the way you can tell me what I’m thinking. I love the way you tell a story, drawing me in. I love you for all the times you convinced me, with a stupid joke, or even just a look… to stop taking myself so seriously and just enjoy my life. Nothing could ever make me regret the way I feel about you. That’s what I’ve been trying to say: That love is never wrong. Even when it grows in the worst conditions, with no encouragement… whether it’s based on sex or showers, or just a few intense conversations and a night at the theatre...

Ashleigh’s monologue was my confession to you. “We both came to see that play at school… You saw me alone, and came to sit by me. It was as though we were the same person… We cringed at the same things, laughed at the same scenes, you elbowed me and whispered my thoughts to me. All I wanted to do was reach those few inches and hold your hand... but I knew I couldn’t. I was trapped. And I started crying, silently, there in the dark.”

Hmmm. That one started out nice and gooey, but it got pretty angsty by the end of the first paragraph. So, no, that’s probably not going to work. 

How about Bargaining? That has a happy ending, right? Sort of? When my mom saw the play, she said, “I can’t tell if it’s optimistic about love, because they end up together, or pessimistic, because it takes him like nine hundred years to get his shit together.” And I said, “Oh, Mom. You get me.” 

So here’s Ryan’s “I’ve Got My Shit Together Now, Please Give Me Another Chance” speech from the final scene.

Ryan’s Monologue From Bargaining:

I climbed the mountain to find the secrets of the universe, to find meaning and magic, and all I could think about... was you. And how you said, "It works because you make it work. It works because you both need it to work. It works because you believe in it." Being with you... was the most meaningful thing I've ever done. It was magic, and it was every day.

For a thousand years, you've sought me out, you've shown me how much you cared. And... when you left... I realized that if I ever wanted to fix things... I would have to be the one to find you. I know that you forgive me. And I know that you would go on with your life, without me. You knew you couldn't make me come back. And you were right. But I know that you never gave up on me. I know that you never stopped loving me.

I'm going to live forever. And I don't want to spend another minute without you. You're the one. I don't mean... that you're the only person I've ever loved. I don't mean that you're the only person in the world that I could be with. But you're the one I want to be with. You're the one person, in my very long life... that I miss.

I know you have no reason to trust me again. And... I can't promise to love you forever. I can't promise that I won't change. I can't promise I won't hurt you again. All I can tell you is that I love you. You made me a promise once. I broke every promise that I ever made to you. But you've always kept the promise you made me. I think we deserve a chance to get it right.

Erich Segal wrote that love means never having to say you’re sorry. On “Weeds”, Nancy Botwin says that’s bullshit, love means you’re constantly apologizing. (I may have paraphrased that a little.) Based on this, it would seem that I agree with Nancy’s way of thinking, since Ryan can’t say “I love you” without also apologizing for spending most of his immortality jerking Hannah around. So, yeah, that’s probably not going to work for your wedding, either. But don’t worry, I have ONE MORE GUSHY thing to share. It’s the very, very short excerpt that Amanda quoted during her speech at my wedding reception! It’s only three sentences, but it brought tears to my eyes:

Rita’s Monologue From Thanksgiving in the Wilderness:

...[She] is an amazing woman! She is beautiful and smart and funny, and if you think you can find another girl like her, you can't. She is one of a kind, and any guy would be lucky to have her...

Now, obviously, there’s a reason she was only able to use three sentences, and that reason is that this love-fest comes in the middle of a monologue in which she’s yelling at the male character for mistreating her friend. See that ellipsis there at the end? The next sentence is, “And you treated her like an underaged Staind groupie at last call!” But hearing Amanda quote me, to me, about me? On my wedding day? Damn right I cried. It was by far the nicest thing I had ever written for someone else to say about me.

What I’ve learned from this experience? Is that fuck it, I’m not great at writing the kind of thing that you’d read at a wedding. But somebody else can write those things, I’m sure plenty of people are out there working on that. I’m going to work on writing the world’s best monologue about a woman’s platonic love for her best friend. Because that’s something I think is important, and it’s something no one else seems to have succeeded in writing, to my satisfaction. It will be a little like Sherlock’s best man speech in The Sign of Three, but with slightly less murder (probably), and the bromance will be between two female people. It’ll be revolutionary. It will pass the Bechdel Test and everything. I promise.