Congratulations to Jodi Drinkwater for having their following short dramatic piece chosen for publication on Blank Canvas Post. The piece that follows is a truly wonderful exploration of the complexities of striving for freedom and independence, and the endurance of compassion amidst oppression. Please read the follow conversation between us at Blank Canvas Post and Jodi Drinkwater to understand more about the writer and the context for this brilliant piece.
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Writer Spotlight: Jodi Drinkwater.
Currently residing in Santa Fe, New Mexico, surrounded by creative people and art of all varieties, Jodi Drinkwater has been writing for thirty years.
What was it that made you start writing?
When I was in primary school, due to my unrecognized mental illness, I was placed in remedial courses. In high school, my teacher realized my talent in writing, and I was introduced to poetry and literature, which opened up my world. Over time, I attended the MFA program at The Wichita State University where I received my degree with distinction. I wrote primarily poetry during this time period. After moving to Santa Fe 18 years ago, I started writing plays and received my AS in Screenwriting. I have also dabbled in short fiction and won local awards.
What experiences have you had that have shaped the writer you are today?
I grew up in Western Kansas in the Great Plains, surrounded by wheat fields and larger-than-life characters that shifted in and out of my environment, due to the fact that my mother was married eight times to people who lived on the edge of experience and existed on the fringes of society. Poverty was ubiquitous in the small town where I lived, and I saw firsthand how deprivation sculpts the behaviour of those most afflicted by it. These characters have taken form in my mind and have come to life as composites of muddled people to reveal themselves as characters in my plays. I’d like to think my background as a poet also informs my plays.
What genres are you writing at the moment? What genres do you enjoy writing?
Writing plays is especially important to me as I have these characters inside that want to express themselves. Poetry allows me to convey my musicality, my primal instinct for writing, as I grew up around live music—country, bluegrass, gospel and cowboy music culture. Fiction encourages exploration and experimentation and a deeper rendering of place and people. It also provides a space for me to alter time.
What inspires you to write? Where do you take your inspiration from?
I am inspired by place. I am most thrilled by spare settings and minimal accoutrements. I want each detail to work hard and evoke more than itself. I want to reveal the absurdity in being human, caught between angels and devils, our own desires and the need for justice and morality. I hope I bring up more questions than answers. I am also inspired by romantic love and desire, and poetry is the best platform to use passionate language to express such ecstatic emotions.
What does your writing process look like (e.g., environment, tools, setting)?
Discipline is entirely not my forte. I only write when I’m inspired. I can write through a chaotic environment, but my goal is to have an orderly space that allows for clarity of focus. Nevertheless, I write on my laptop or phone either standing at my kitchen counter or while lying in bed. I’ve learned not to need too much (outside of my equipment) to write. Technology and inspiration are my writing gods.
What do you envisage when you are writing something new? Are you writing with the intention of sharing your work, or are you simply writing to write, for example?
I know it sounds comical in our logical culture, but I try my hardest not to think while writing. I reach down into my intuition and avoid judgment or preconceived ideas. When I revise, my logical mind, my ego mind, is allowed to come forward, but I don’t give it too much leeway. I trust my intuition. Of course, I have overall goals like performance and publication, but I hold them in check during the development process. My education taught me to silence all voices during the creation process, after I came out of my MFA program with a decade’s long writers block. Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way was my bible during this period, and I finally broke through when I shifted to writing plays based on her suggestions. So I am very careful not to think while writing—ha, ha!
Why do you think community is important for writers and creative people?
Artists are dead without community. We long for a tribe of like-minded people who understand the urge to make. I was the only fine artist (before I knew it) in my family and little home town. I felt misunderstood and like an outsider. The first time I saw a fine art painting, I was in college; and the first time I visited an art museum, I had a child. Growing up without a community was very lonely; and without knowing it, I retreated more and more into my own imagination.
When I moved to Santa Fe, it was to migrate to a community of people who would understand and support me as a creative.
Where do you currently share your work?
I’ve just begun submitting my work to journals after a long hiatus from publishing. I have a weird little Substack page with a following of three people (and I’m one of them) ha, ha! Substack is a very nurturing platform for me, as it allows me to experiment and express.
Why did you submit your work to Blank Canvas Post? What drew you to our publication?
I was moved to submit to your beautiful online journal by your mission to build community, nurture creativity, and disperse light and compassion. What artist doesn’t need all of those? Your mission brings support into the solitary journey of the writer. Your openness to genres puts these words into action, and your different levels of access is democratic.
About the Piece: Child’s Play.
Regarding Child’s Play, what inspired you to write this piece?
I was given a prompt to write a short play, and the only requirement was that it had to have a bench as the centrepiece for the setting. This idea inspired me so much that I wrote several short plays based on that concept, and CHILD’S PLAY was one of them. The bench set out in the desert evoked the absurdity I wanted to encapsulate.
What is the context for this piece? What is the main feeling or message behind it?
The main problem behind this piece is understanding the role of a big god in our little lives.
What was the process of writing this piece like for you? What did this process look like?
I sat down at my laptop and asked my characters to start speaking, and I transcribed. It is a joy to get into the flow of writing, and this play took form very smoothly, because it spoke itself into existence.
Why did you choose to submit this piece specifically to Blank Canvas Post?
Your openness to genres allowed me to consider submitting a play, and my intuition told me to submit this piece.
So, without further ado, here is Child’s Play, a short dramatic piece Jodi Drinkwater.
Child’s Play, by Jodi Drinkwater.
EXT—SAME BENCH IN THE DESERT—SUNDOWN.
An eight year old boy, Mark, sits on the bench and cradles a doll in his arms like a baby. A five year old girl, Scratch, sits in front of the bench and plays in the sand with toy cars. Both kids are filthy and wear old, torn clothes.
MARK
Hey, Scratch, watch the baby a minute while I go pick ‘at flower.
This desert’s got the bes’ flowers, an I wanna pick one for my baby.
SCRATCH
(plays with her cars)
Nah. Don’ wanna watch the baby, Mark. I’s always watching the babies an’ they’s cryin’ hurts my ears. You watch the baby.
‘Sides she your girl.
MARK
(cradles the baby and rocks back and forth)
Hush now, li’l one. You hurtin’ Scratch’s ears.
You hungry li’l one? Maybe you jus’ sleepy. You go sleep now.
Sorry it’s so hot, but you jus’ hush now. Jus’ hush and go sleep.
(whispers)
Hol’ the baby, Scratch. I wanna pick ‘at flower.
SCRATCH
(waves him away, plays with her cars)
‘At flower’s no flower a tall. ‘At flower’s a weed.
An’ ‘at baby’s a awful lotta trouble.
MARK
(stroking the baby’s head)
Ah. She no trouble. She my sweet li’l baby. An’ she no trouble a
tall. Sides at’s not a weed. ‘At’s a wil’ flower.
SCRATCH
‘At’s a weed. An’ ‘at baby sure seem like trouble to me.
MARK
She the bes’ baby in the worl’. An’ ‘at’s a flower.
Mark carries baby and goes off stage comes back with a wilted, weed that barely resembles a flower.
SCRATCH
See I tol’ ya, Mark. At’s a weed.
Mark rubs the weed against the baby’s cheek.
SCRATCH
‘At weed’s gonna make her sick.
MARK
This here flower for my sweet baby.
Mark looks at weed and sees it for what it is and is disappointed. He throws it on the ground.
MARK
Sun’s goin’ down an’ bus aint here yet.
SCRATCH
I don’ care if ‘at bus never gets here.
MARK
(combing baby’s hair)
You jus’ like playin’, Scratch. My baby need to get to town so’s I can feed ‘er.
SCRATCH
No. ‘At’s not it. I like playin’ my toys, true. But ‘at’s not it.
MARK
What is it then?
Mark grooms his baby while Scratch plays with her cars throughout their conversation.
SCRATCH
I surely don’ like ‘at there bus.
MARK
Why not, Scratch?
SCRATCH
I don’ like the bus driver, ‘at’s what.
MARK
Wha’s the bus driver ever done to you, Scratch?
SCRATCH
Plenty, Mark. Plenty. I heard folks gets on that bus an’ they don’ never come back.
MARK
Aw. How you know?
SCRATCH
I heard it. Who knows where they go. Maybe out to die in this here desert. Don’ know. I heard the ol’ devil drives ‘at bus.
MARK
(scared)
Oh, Scratch ‘at’s silly. Devil don’ drive no bus. ‘Sides we’d know it if he did.
SCRATCH
How’d we know it? We know it cause those people’s gone.
MARK
What people’s gone?
SCRATCH
Janie’s mom. That’s who. Lef’ her kids, got on that bus an’ aint never come back. . . . An’ the devil drive ‘at bus.
MARK
Then what’s the ol’ devil look like?
SCRATCH
Well, like Mrs. Johnson, the bus driver.
MARK
Aha! You’re wrong. I seen a picture of him, an’ he don’ look nothin’ like Mrs. Johnson.
SCRATCH
Then what you think he look like?
MARK
He red . . . got horns, hoofed feet, an’ a pitch fork. Jus’ like the picture showed in my picture-book Bible. He easy to see.
SCRATCH
Not what I heard. . . . ‘Sides nobody look ‘ike ‘at
MARK
(rocking)
Now, Scratch, quit it. You’re makin’ the baby cry. You scarin’
my sweet baby.
SCRATCH
(indignant)
Well, I heard he takes a dis guys. Far as we know you might be the devil.
MARK
(angry and dismissive)
The devil cant be no li’l kid. A grown-up maybe, but no li’l kid.
Even he can’t do that.
SCRATCH
. . . an’ it’d be easy for ‘im to trick us. . . . He smart enough to do
it. . . . You might be trickin’ us now.
MARK
Devil wount do that to a li’l kid.
SCRATCH
Sure ‘e would. Why’s li’l kids get sick? An’ why’s they hit each
other?
Mark sits defeated holding his baby.
MARK
(whining)
But they’s angels too Scratch.
SCRATCH
Sure. They’s angels, but what they have no use with us for?
MARK
What you mean?
SCRATCH
Two poor li’l kids like us? Naw. They’s busy with the ‘portant
ones. No. Angels don’ care ‘bout the likes a us.
MARK
(sad, thoughtful)
Never knowd angels was like ‘at.
SCRATCH
What? A course they is. Same as ever’one else. Only one care
‘bout us is the ol’ devil.
MARK
(scared)
Oh.
SCRATCH
That’s why we always haf to be ready. Ready to fight ‘im.
Coyotes yelp in the distance.
MARK
Scratch. . . . ‘At’s the devil callin’ a’ter us.
SCRATCH
Don’ be silly, Mark. ‘At’s not the devil. Them’s kai oats.
MARK
Oh. Jus’ kai oats . . .sure . .. . What they doin’, Scratch?
SCRATCH
Well, they’s jus’ lookin’ for sumptin to eat.
MARK
Oh. Okay. Guess I’s hungry too.
Sure could use sumptin to eat too.
Silence.
MARK (cont’d)
Scratch? What’s kai oats like to eat? Berries?
SCRATCH
Naw Mark. Not berries they eat meat like you an’ me.
MARK
But I like berries.
SCRATCH
No. I mean you and me . . . to the kai oats . . . we’re meat.
MARK
Never thought a that. So’s they like meat . . .
(thinking)
An’ . . . we’re meat.
SCRATCH
Yep. Sure are. They’s not picky.
Mark sits thinking and getting scared. The coyotes yelp, closer.
MARK
Soun’ like they’re closer, Scratch.
SCRATCH
Yep. Sure are.
Mark holds his baby to his chest and rocks back and forth violently.
MARK
(sings in a half-whisper)
Hush baby. Don’t even say a word. That not the ol’ devil comin’
a’ter you. Don’ worry, baby. Don’ say one word. I won’ let the
devil come a’ter you. . . . So don’ worry them’s jus kai oats,
comin’ a’ter you.
(looks up surprised)
Scratch gets up and goes over to a pile of rocks, gathers them in her pockets, holds some in her hands, carries some back for Mark and piles them around him on the bench.
SCRATCH
Mark, I know you don’ like hurtin’ things, but if they’s kai oats
come over here, we gotta pertec’ our se’ves. So you throw these
here rocks at ‘em an’ make sure you hit ‘em square in the head.
Otherwise, they try to eat us. An’ I’m not ‘bout to let ‘at happen.
Mark is in shock. His eyes glazed over.
SCRATCH
You hear me Mark?
Mark picks up a stone, and rubs his thumb across it.
MARK
Scratch? What you think it’s like to be ett by kai oats?
SCRATCH
(placing her stones around her)
Well. Can’t be fun.
Mark sits depressed holding the baby close, Scratch is back to playing her cars surrounded by her stones.
MARK
Scratch?
SCRATCH
What, Mark?
MARK
What ‘bout God?
SCRATCH
What ‘bout ‘im?
MARK
I don’ know. Where is ‘e? I guess. What’s ‘e doin’ while we’re
out here in the desert waiting for the ol’ devil to drive by an’ pick
us up, an’ kai oats is yappin’ to eat us? Where you think God is?
SCRATCH
Oh, now Mark. ‘E’s busy. Busy doin’ what Gods has gotta do.
Gods is busy, you know.
MARK
(teary, wiping his nose)
I know. An’ I hate to be a bother; I really do. But why don’ God
care nothin’ ‘bout us?
SCRATCH
(feeling sorry for Mark)
Mark. I’s sorry to tell ya this, but we jus’ don’ matter so much.
Aint it time you learn’d ‘at? I aint watin’ ‘round for no god to save me, nohow. I’m gonna fight for my se’f. Always have. Always
will. Fight for you too, but it’d be nice if you he’ped me out.
The kids hear the sound of the bus coming down the road toward the bus stop. Scratch scurries around the bench and crouches down.
SCRATCH
(urgently)
Hurry, Mark. Grab you baby and get back here behin’ the bench.
Mark cradles his baby and crouches down behind the bench.
MARK
Why we hidin’, Scratch?
SCRATCH
Aint you been listenin’, Mark? The ol’ devil on ‘at bus, an’ I aint
‘bout to get on it. An’ you aint neither.
Bus stops a moment then pulls away. The kids come out from behind the bench.
SCRATCH
(wipes her brow)
Whew. ‘At was close.
MARK
Sure was, Scratch. . . . But you save me an’ my baby. You save us from the ol’ devil.
Scratch goes back to playing with her cars in the sand. Mark rocks his baby. The sun’s going down. The coyotes yelp—very close now.
MARK
(scared)
See how the sun’s goin’ down, Scratch?
SCRATCH
(glances up quickly to see the sun disappearing)
Yep. Sure is.
MARK
Sure were a close one weren’t it, Scratch? Almos’ got on ‘at bus.
SCRATCH
Yeah. Glad we outsmart the ol’ devil ag’in.
FADE OUT
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Thank you so much, Charlotte, for the first publication of one of my plays!