Fredericton — Most days, Samuel Lynn, a graduate student at University of New Brunswick, can be found sitting at his desk working away at what he believes will be his first great opus.
His room is kept simple: it’s just the writer, a pen, a pad, an open laptop streaming How I Met Your Mother, an iPod containing around 7,000 Radiohead songs, a Nintendo 3DS, an Easy Bake Oven, a bowl of Reese Puffs, a pinball machine, a coffee table book of puppies under water, an Etch-A-Sketch and a couple of Pizza Pockets.
See, Lynn is writing a play: a major 3-act piece of theatre that will double as his master’s thesis in creative writing.
“It’s kind of in the early stages of a first draft,” said Lynn. “I’ve got a couple characters plotted out. I know that at least one of them dies, most likely. I’ve also got a sweet first scene, too, which I’ve rewritten a couple of times now.”
Lynn has opted to take the year off, so to devote himself full-time to the project. He is able to do this thanks to the full support of Stephanie Young, his girlfriend of 3 months.
“I think he’s going to be considered the Shakespeare of play-writing someday,” she said proudly.
However, the writing doesn’t always come easy. Even a naturally gifted writer like Lynn is occasionally prone to writer’s block. “I think that part of the problem, in terms of my motivation, is there are not enough theatre companies in this city,” Lynn lamented. “Once I finish this thing, there are only a couple hundred places I can send it to in Fredericton.”
Aside from poor theatre scene in the capital city, Lynn has also encountered several other roadblocks along the way to completing his play. “The city has set up several roadblocks on the route from the school to my house,” he said, “and I get diverted and detoured so often that by the time I get home, I’m way too tired to write anything worthwhile.”
When asked to sum up the play in just 3 words, Lynn had this to say:
“Well … I mean, it’s kind of about urban decay, and there are these 4 friends, right? And they live in this apartment together but 2 of them — no, 3 of them have a secret that they keep from the other guy, and he doesn’t … like … no … you know what it is? It’s a metaphor. It’s a metaphor for the death of childhood.”
The play, entitled [Working Title/English Thesis] will come out at some point in the next couple of years. Probably.