It is Worth It!

This post by Jennifer Flaten

When both girls got roles in the school musical, they were excited. My more reserved daughter had a lead role and my other daughter, who started out having just one speaking part (five lines), was picked for the chorus, so now she would appear in every single scene, which necessitated a total of four different costumes in addition to her “kingly” costume for her speaking part.

Prior to casting the play, the drama club only meet once a week, but after the roles were assigned the rehearsals started. At first, the girls found them fun and exciting, but as rehearsals dragged, it went from fun to work.

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The girls met for an hour after school every single day of the week, except Fridays; unless the directors thought, they needed more practice-which as opening night approached they did.

They couldn’t even escape the musical during chorus practice, because they practiced the songs from the musical there too.

During this time, they girls had to pick out their electives for 7th grade and as we discussed electives we talked about what clubs they would both join next year. Now into month two of rehearsal for the play, when I asked the girls if they were planning on joining drama in 7th grade both of them claimed they had zero interest in joining drama next year. Too much work they said.

I told them that they might feel different after they actually performed the play for an audience. Basically, both girls said “Meh” to that statement. After all, what did I know?

Guess who was right? Me (yes, mom scores one). After performing the play five times, four times for fellow students and one for the community, the girls can’t wait to join drama next year.

Finally, hearing the audiences’ laughter after a funny line, getting applause after their scene, not to mention the thunderous applause for the entire cast at the end of the show, they had tangible proof that all their hard work was worth it.

Of course, because they are cool Tweens, they will have to see what the play is next year before fully committing to joining the club again, but I would put money on them joining next year.

Don’t you think this applies to writing? All that hard work creating the characters, editing, fixing the plot holes, it can seem endless, thankless even. Maybe, you think, I don’t ever want to do this again.

Then, someone reads our work and likes it; they really, really like it. Suddenly, you can’t wait to write another story.

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