It's hard to tell the story if you're not involved yourself, emotionally.
There's a catharsis in cutting down trees. But there's absolutely none of that in picking cotton. It's maddening! It's fiddly, and it pricks your fingers, and it's something that's a very hard skill if you have no alacrity for it.
It's hard to maintain a life when you do a play. You feel you have to pretend to go through a normal day, knowing that in the evening you'll be doing this.