Writer’s Block: Makram Ayache

All Lit Up: Describe your perfect writing day.

Makram Ayache: I don’t know if there’s a perfect writing day. When I’m in the middle of a writing period, I get the same feeling I used to get in high school when I needed to study for a final exam. A nagging, unending anxiety that you don’t want to neglect and you care deeply about. Impossible to divorce from.

Typically, I wake up at 10am. I know, it’s shamefully late to start your day at 10am, but I like to stay up until 2am, when the world is quiet and I have time to be with myself. On this perfect day, it’s 10am, the apartment is quiet, the sun is sunning, and the coffee is brewing. Not actually brewing, as I drink instant coffee. I know, shameful to any real coffee connoisseurs out there. I only need it for the caffeine and, honestly, the Nescafe rich brew isn’t that bad.

I start by reading something, usually a non-fiction book about politics, or Buddhism, or some pop arm chair psychology that makes me feel much more competent on these subjects than I actually am. But there’s a comfort in starting the writing day with reading. It reminds me that all writing is an on-going conversation.

I’m a soft start kind of writer. I like to convince myself that everything I’ll write for the day will be a first draft. I usually write one scene. That’s about all the brain energy I have for a day. So typically, if I’m writing a play that I’ve broken down to 27 scenes, I give myself 27 writing days to finish it.

I spend all day casually writing the scene. All day is usually from 11-2. And once it’s done, I don’t put it away. After that, I make lunch. The same ham and turkey sandwich with a side of raw vegetables that I’ve been eating for 12 years. I love ritual and routine.

After lunch, I come back to my writing, and I just think. I procrastinate, which is actually part of the writing process. I mull over ideas, I reread old scenes, I fight off the self doubt and the imposter syndrome. I look at my plan for the next day of writing.

Then I walk down to the gym. A lot of writing happens on that walk, I email myself a conversation I have between two characters or an idea I’m inspired by. I’m certain something about walking generates ideas. I workout, and come home, and make dinner. If I’m feeling particularly inspired, I write another scene. Now I’m ahead! It’s always thrilling to be ahead.

Eventually, it’s midnight and my night’s just starting. I read a fiction book, or play a video game, or watch a good movie. Even though my laptop is off, and I don’t actually write anything, I think that’s where most of my writing happens. The night brings up all the questions, anxieties, and curiosities that were too scared to surface throughout the day. I pull up my notes app and write more ideas, conversations, and inspirations.

These become the fuel for tomorrow. 

All Lit Up: Why do you write?

Makram Ayache: I know it feels stilted to say this, but I write because my heart is too full and too heavy too often. They called me “too sensitive” and an “over thinker” all my life. I think they still do. I don’t even know who “they” are anymore, but I’ve internalized these personifications of how I feel and think through the world.

I write because I over feel and over think and I need it to go somewhere. I write because I think there is a great responsibility and gift in being able to transform oversensitivity and overthinking into art. I want to shape my ideas and I hope, in doing that, I give voice and clarity to the sublime truth of something you’re feeling too. Maybe we’re all over too sensitive and over thinkers, but some of us can’t contain it as well as others. I write so we can blurt it out all together.

I write because my dad told me about Mahmoud Darwish when I was a kid and then he said the pen is more powerful than the sword. I write because my dad was a poet, essayist, and orator who turned taxi driver and donair store owner in Canada. I think writing and art making ran in the family and I was just blessed with a chance to run with it, strengthen it, make something of it. I write because I have worlds that are playful, whimsical, and energized living into my mind and I want to see what happens to them if they’re explored by you. There are too many reasons to keep listing here. I can’t imagine not writing.

All Lit Up: What are you working on now?

Makram Ayache: I’m working on several new plays, a musical, and a graphic novel. “My Prince, My Prophet” is a love story, about a queer Arab and a queer Black man, making sense of their connection. “Small Gods the Musical” is a coming of age queer comedy Musical about five senior high schoolers dealing with first loves, break ups, big life decisions—oh and they work at a mall! “The Ballad of Rumi and Shams” is a queer fantasy Middle Eastern epic, in the style of Black Panther, BONE, or X-men comics. It’s gotta be my favorite project on the go right now. It’s teaching me about the scope of my cultural and spiritual traditions and allowing me to reimagine them in exciting and adventurous new ways. Finally, I just finished an adaptation of Shakespeare’s The Tempest, called “A Witch in Algiers,” which focuses on the named-but-never-seen witch, Sycorax, the mother of Caliban, which is having a production by Shakespeare in the Ruff in Toronto this summer.

All Lit Up: What’s the toughest part about being a writer?

Makram Ayache: I think the industry is really challenging. Creating art in a capitalistic framework is absurd. It’s not supposed to be about money, prestige, and the unending upward bend of your artistic trajectory. Art and writing is sublime, we have an opportunity to channel something deep within us. Some call that the divine, others God, others think it’s just our subconscious. I haven’t really decided what it means to me yet, but I do know that it’s something outside the reach of my ordinary existence. It is truly sublime. 

That’s where art comes from. But the mechanics of it could be appropriated to fit a commercial industry where your insatiable growth and success become the markers of accomplishment. I’ve seen some truly remarkable works that have been hidden in the undergrowth of society, in the quiet parts of capitalism where nothing comes and nothing goes. I’ve seen, heard, read, and made art that will never fit into capitalism’s framework.

I hope we can imagine ways of writing that get to share in the breadth and fullness of our humanity without stifling creativity in the pursuit of profit.

All Lit Up: If you had to describe your writing style in just a few words, what would they be?

Makram Ayache: Magic, politics, sublime, character driven, and sensual.

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Makram Ayache is a queer Arab Canadian playwright, director, and performer. He was born in Lebanon, raised in rural Alberta, and now lives between Edmonton and Toronto. His work explores representations of queer Arab voices and aims to bridge political struggles to the intimate experiences of the people impacted by them. His work is produced across Canada and aimed at creating emotional experiences that bring about lasting and nourishing social change. Ayache is the winner of the 2020 Tom Hendry RBC Emerging Playwright Award and the winner of the 2021/2022 Betty Mitchell Award for Outstanding New Play. Find more at makramayache.com