Boring

Novel writing, meditation and creating mime skits are all boring. Of the three, mime sketch writing has to be the worst. It's tedious to do, even with a mirror, because what may be clear in your head, isn't what's going on in the body. So it's a matter of refining and polishing. Even after the sketch is written, some audiences are simply bored.

I was remembering something my old (and I do mean old) teacher said about mime performing. I don't think he ever toured with Marcel as a cardholder the way Alejandro Jodorowsky did. I think Marcel offered the job to him and then for some reason it never happened. But he was adamant about the actor vs. the mime during a performance, and with this I agree. There is a difference. The actor, when starring in a play, is really "in the moment," a certain flow between text, speaking and presence. An actor can really sail through a performance. This is one of the best feelings an actor can have. But the mime has a very different mindset.

When I do mime successfully, it's almost as if I'm a puppeteer, and my body is the puppet. I'm telling the body, 'slow down here,' 'make this part specific,' 'watch the fingers.'

When I act successfully, it's more a force of the character that needs to come through. In mime, the body is the character. In acting, it's much more mental exercise and script-based.

Another boring art form is novel writing. It's tremendously dull at first. There's a few books out there, but my favorite is How to Write a Novel. If I recall, you just write a synopsis, then you write the thing in a couple of weeks and write it as if you're watching a movie until you reach 60,000 words at least. Then you go back. And when you go back (at least for me) and during this time it's the most boring thing in the world. The writing is pedestrian, unexciting, simply words on a page. Buttttttttttttttttt... after a few more polishes, more synopsis, some outlines (and I add conflict, they way I would do in a stage play), the novel/story does start to take shape. Sometimes it seems as if you'll never get there. But when it does start to take shape, like a photograph coming into view, it's a wholly different experience.