Umbrella Fall/Winter 2020

Page 30

Literary

The creative process of playwriting By Lin Parkin

Peter Paylor, who is well-known in the Quinte region for his intricate wood sculptures, also serves a calling to create literary art. “I always identified as a writer first, even when I wasn’t writing,” he says. “I didn’t stop carving when I began writing plays, but I knew I was going to write for the stage from the moment I wrote my first scene.” Since 2015, Paylor has penned 18 plays that have either been produced or are ready for production. For Paylor, writing is an energizing process. “There’s a place every writer knows called “the zone.” When you’re there, it’s hard to think about anything else.”

“Characters just come floating in by themselves, fully formed. They start talking; I write it down.” He notes, “I’m lucky to know so many fine actors. I use their voices when I write. It’s really quite easy. It's the structure that’s difficult.”

“By the time I’m done, I’m done. Until I read it again, and then I want to rewrite some more. There’s an organic cycle that happens once a script is finished, and the play is produced that puts each ‘world’ to bed and sends me on to the next one.” Being self-taught, Paylor says he learns something new with every play he writes, or reads, or sees on stage. On seeing his own words brought to life on stage, he says, “It feels like what Christmas morning felt like as a kid. It’s wonderful. It’s as good as it gets. Still.” Paylor has a fluid work process, either abandoning an idea quickly or seeing it through to the end. This year much of his work has been put on pause, thanks to the pandemic. “I do have a number of unproduced plays now, what with theatres having been closed for so long.” But he says he hasn’t stopped writing, “the pile just gets bigger.”

Umbrella, Fall / Winter, 2020 - 28


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