Writing in America
and not giving up on Scotland
At the beginning of this past November I was feeling quite defeated, having spent the previous two months trying and dropping out of various courses intended to give my life a stronger sense of direction and purpose (punctuated with holidays in Central America and Central Europe). But when all else fails, writing has always been there for me. An old, neglected, activity I have sidelined since departing Scotland in 2022. Ever since, I’ve been simultaneously longing for it and wishing to put it behind me, as if it were an abusive lover.
My time in Scotland, roughly consisting of the autumn of 2018 through the spring of 2022 (three and a half years I usually describe as five) was where I reached the height of my creative journey thus far. While I began writing a decade prior in the US, my creativity took flight in Scotland. I never wanted to leave and fought the realities of not making any money nor having a means of extending my legal residency as long as I possibly could following completion of the Fulbright that brought me out there.
So the past three and a half years since I left that magical place (I can’t believe it was that long ago) have been creatively uninspiring. What Dumfries might lack in reality, it makes up for in imagination. Sadly, returning to the land of industrious practicality (not Germany, but North America) I call home left me in despair and desperate to find the next destination on my creative path - which most assuredly was not here.
I resented all the posh yuppies, arrogant tech bros and bougey boomers. Even the woke folks were often too much for me. Whether someone was rich, poor, right or left didn’t matter - the USA wasn’t Scotland and so I would never approve of it. I tried fleeing to France, Germany, New Zealand and other places, but Scotland wasn’t there either.
After getting sober the summer following my departure from Scotland, I began maintaining a flat in my hometown. Always with the thought of it being a temporary arrangement. Now I’ve been here for over two years and started to think it might be alright to stay a while longer. But that culture sunk in, that endless need for practicality, industry, no greater purpose in life than to serve at the beck and call of Capitalism - it’s the American way. I tried hard to live a more practical life, reminiscing of my days in the corporate world and seeking to resume that Capitalist journey.
Well, a week in Prague gave me an interesting new perspective on that. To many of the people there, the ideologies on offer are Capitalism (a la USA) and Communism (a la USSR). Now, a week is hardly enough time to build any real cultural understanding or appreciation for a place’s nuances, but my experience made me see my home country through some of their eyes, not with the typical Western European disdain, but from the perspective of people who have suffered under communist authoritarianism while watching Americans prosper with Capitalist and Democratic freedom. I met some people who might have mistook my criticism of the Trump regime for Communist affection. I assure you, it’s not. And yes, this is a false dichotomy, Trump and Putin are not the only options on offer to the world. So I returned from Czechia still quite critical of our government, but also grateful for the democracy that remained.
Plenty of great creative works have been produced in the midst of capitalism, communism and lots of other isms. So when my feet returned to American soil at the beginning of November, I was strangely inclined to write. More so than I had been in the three and a half years since leaving Scotland. It was this new perspective that motivated me, I wanted to write something that communicated this new perspective, new question, about how to many people around the world America still represents a great freedom, a great way of life, a promising alternative to their present corrupt, authoritarian reality. With one hand, we must fight to protect and improve our democracy; it would be a tragedy to see the only democratic world power fall to authoritarianism. With the other hand, we must celebrate what we have that so many others dream of, we must continue to inspire (and welcome) all those who believe in a democratic society.
So, with newfound inspiration, I set fingers to keyboard and began work on something I knew not what. It being only a few days into the month, I thought perhaps taking the National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) challenge of completing a 50,000 word manuscript in the month of November would be an appropriate outlet for this project.
As often happens when I set out to writing with only a loose plan, my creative brain sidelines the rational one and produces a completely different story. Within a few days, I was thousands of words into a novel about a middle-class guy in America who faces his fear of poverty. I went with it, the whole Communism vs. Democracy thing could wait for another time.
Two weeks into my cranking out words, I was pleased that I had managed to stay on track and was about 25,000 words deep into this manuscript without a name. However, answering the question (what next?) for 1,700 words per day is grueling work and I was soon defeated. But after a day of moping, I decided to just finish the story, write what I could each day and be glad that I was producing something, even if I was bound for NaNoWriMo failure. This past Sunday, 30 November, I keyed in the 27,828th and final word of my draft. I could care less about not reaching 50,000, this was a monumental achievement after years of hardly writing more than the occasional 700 word blog post. And I did it in America.
The manuscript is one I look forward to working more with down the road, but I’m glad to be at a point in my writing life where I can set a lengthly manuscript like that aside rather than frantically rushing to publish it. It’s hardly a waste.
And just like that, I feel like I am back into the writing world I left so many years ago. I don’t have the same wonderful collaborators or institutions of Scotland close-by, but there are some promising things happening to defy the utilitarian social ethos with pockets of creativity here in Seattle. I’m especially motivated to return to the world of playwriting over the next year after dabbling in it prior to heading for Scotland. I love the human and collaborative nature of drama as well as how it can still defy scaling for mass production more than other media forms.
Best of all, Scotland is not behind me. It’s still right there, half a day’s journey away by air bus. I’m so grateful that despite my years away and increasingly infrequent visits, I’ve still maintained friendships with many amazing people in Scotland.
One thing I did complete in November was a free online playwriting course offered by the University of Glasgow. While having already taken a course with the same name several years ago here in Seattle, this was a welcome refresher and new perspective that contained a lot of practical advice. I also participated in a local playwrights’ open mic, the first time I’ve heard my words brought to life by others in a while. And then I read a piece in The Guardian about Alan Cumming arriving as the new Artistic Director for the Pitlochry Festival Theatre. What inspired me from that article was not only his vision for the theatre and plans for the coming season, but the way he appeared unbothered with having one foot in New York and the other in Scotland. Here was a man who didn’t have the pressing need to choose one or the other - a decision that had haunted me for so long. Of course, it’s a privilege to regularly cross the Atlantic, but even on a modest income I’ve managed to do more travel than folks who make more, I just don’t spend money on other (perhaps more normal) things like cars, gasoline, auto insurance, eating out or watching TV.
I’m now inspired to keep my home in Seattle, but make more frequent visits and nurture my connections with Scotland to the extent feasible. I would gladly give up holidays to other places in exchange for more time back in Scotland; so that’s my plan going forward. And the greatest gift is that I can write and connect with theatre people not only in both places, but around the world. It was discovering the Royal Court Theatre in London long before I moved to Scotland that inspired my interest in playwriting, and they let writers freely join their writers’ card program no matter where in the world they live.
I hope this blog post goes beyond sharing notes from my journey and inspires others who are creatively inclined but perhaps feel blocked by geography. There is hope, wherever you are!