Matt Cameron interview

This interview with playwright Matt Cameron (by other playwright Hannie Rayson) arrived in the Australian Writers' Guild's Storyline magazine yesterday. He's a funny man. Here is his take on winding himself up to write:

How do you get into the mood to write?
I don't bother with that. I turn on the computer. The only chance for inspiration is through doing. If I waited for inspiration to hit, I'd be an old man.

It's like when I trained as an actor, we had to do impulse work. But I never had an impulse.
I have an impulse to go see a movie in the middle of the day. That's always a strong impulse. I can get quite inspired by the thought of that.

Do you?
Sometimes.
But mostly I think you've just got to commit to remaining in the chair for the day. You've got to run your own little Guantanamo.

And another interesting bit (not so funny, but good anyway):

Do you write imagining your play being performed in a particular theatre?
I picture it more as an idea of a place. I picture darkness mostly, pierced by light. In my imagination it's never about the dimensions of the space, or whether it's proscenium or not, it's what is illuminated in the dark, what's lit within the darkness. The theatre is like the mind to me, what I picture the mind to be like: darkness on the perimeter, lit up by an idea.