Stage

Vogel:

There. You see.
That's the ticket.
Present tense.
Active Voice.
A strong lead.
Begin, you see, in the thick of it.

Let the headlines scream.
Hitler Invades Poland.
Disease Spreads.
Word ends.
That's what I say.
The chamber loaded -- from the beginning.
The pistol cocked -- at the outset
The barrel in the mouth - off the top.
You see.
Catches the attention, doesn't it?
That's the key to being read.
Catastrophe.
Disaster.
Oh, yes. That's what I tell the young people.
Forget sensitivity.
Search out the drama that lurks
In the long, dull grasses of the everyday.
It's always there. Somewhere. There.
Event. Action. Story.

Teddy:

Because the freelancer is a trouble shooter, really.
An adventurer.
A writer of fortune
Someone who goes whenever the call comes
Someone who goes wherever the need arises.
His white scarf streaming from the cockpit.
His face black with oil,
His fuselage riddled with machine-gun fire.
Oh, yes.
It's headline writing one minute. Speeches the next.
Once,
I got the call to do
a corporate annual report for a parsnip company.
You smile?
Oh, go ahead.
Write about your broken heart.
Your shattered dreams.
Your loneliness.
Your despair.
Write about the cold, black emptiness
That sits,
Like a derelict theatre,
Like an abandoned hall,
Like a boarded-up gallery
in the ruins of your soul.
Anyone can do that.
Anyone can ....

(He searches for most appalling word he can think of)

Reminisce.

But what really separates the men from the boys
Is when you have to pay the rent by writing
Five thousand words on...

(He lunges for reference books. He reads from dictionary. Counts words on fingers as he does.)

"Parsnip. A biennial, umbelliferous plant used as a culinary vegetable."

Ten. Ten words down. Only four thousand, nine hundred, and ninety more to go.

Teddy:

Cost cutting measures?
Me?
(Shouts in direction of telephone)
Get a grip, darling. I am not a cost.
I'm a fucking freelancer writer.
You hardly pay me as it is.