Inspiration

It's taken me a long time to get back to this because, as usual, life has been busy. But it has been good! I managed to schedule myself 55 hours last week, but haven't worked as many this week. (The problem was getting to the internet.)
I am excited that time is the issue, and not that I have nothing to write about. Because for some reason, the writing has flowed much easier the last week or two. I don't know if it's because I finished my CWG course this week, so there are no deadlines or forced subjects right now; or maybe because I just came off vacation and have been in a clearer mindset. Or maybe it's because I was recently inspired by a great story.
In New York, I saw "Phantom of the Opera." The storyline has never interested me before (I saw the Wishbone episode), but it was one of the cleaner musicals on Broadway right now and my aunts insisted I would love it. Either way, it was a Broadway play, right? It would be cool to just BE there.
I absolutely loved it. There were parts where too many people were singing different parts so we couldn't understand the lyrics, and some parts were a little cheesy. But the story was amazing...simple at a casual glance, but when you study it, the characters and their motivations are so complex and it's such a greatly told story. I thought about it for days and days afterwards and found myself catching on to things I hadn't realized the first time around. While I'm not a supporter of the composer at all (my aunt paid for it, so I can rationalize that my money didn't go to him), I was highly impressed. I want to write like that, write characters that heartbreaking and real. Today we would consider the Phantom a stalker, a psycho, bordering on abusive. And yes, he is all those things, but you found yourself rooting for him! She didn't understand, he did it for her, he was trying to show his love. But living underground, and in a cruel carnival before that, he didn't know the proper ways to go about things. And once again, his love was rejected. (It breaks my heart when Christine and Raoul sing on the rooftop, and she basically asks Raoul to show total love and devotion to the point of obsession. The Phantom doesn't understand, HE loves her like that, if that's all she wants, he will provide it. But then he does...it's because of his face. If he looked like Raoul, she would accept him. He doesn't understand that the murder was a bit of a turn-off.) It's also a classic case of the attraction to a bad boy, because Christine does harbor some feelings toward him throughout the play.
There are so many layers to the story, and I think that's what makes it strong. I think my writing needs that, more complexity, and more layers, and I'm trying to work on finding that. But I don't feel forced. Slowly, I'm writing more. I sat down the other night and wrote 3 pages within 30 minutes. It just came to me. Finally.
I have another vacation next week (no award-winning plays in this one though). Maybe that will preserve the mindset and I will be able to continue.