For the last few weeks, I’ve been scrambling to finish a draft of my current play to submit to the RBC Tarragon playwriting contest. First prize is $3000 and a year’s worth of dramaturgical feedback from Tarragon’s Literary Manager. It’s the second part of the prize that really excites me. Even if I don’t win,…
When I turned forty, I realized that I needed to get started on some of those things that I was going to do “one of these days”. Middle age was officially about to start and I hadn’t really made much of a concerted effort to get things done. The thing I picked? Run a marathon.…
I’ve been meaning to review the book Great by Choice by Jim Collins and Morten T. Hansen for some time. I read it last year. Okay, I listened to it. But it was the unabridged version and it was excellently read by Jim Collins. I loved, loved, loved this book. I loved it so much…
Although I had intended to write a blog a week for 2012, life has thrown a few curves my way and I just found that I haven’t been motivated to do it. The first four months of 2012 have been pretty tough – but that will be a later blog post. It’s funny because I…
My previous blog entry was all about how great 2011 was. A couple of hours after posting that blog, I found out my father had suffered a massive heart attack and got ready to go Montreal and visit him in the hospital. Three days later, we were planning his funeral. Here’s his obituary notice: GRUNER,…
2011 was a pretty good year for me. I wrote more in 2011 and developed as a writer. And I lost weight. I would have to say that I mostly met my resolutions for the year 2011. I couldn’t believe how quickly the year passed by. I spent a good portion of the year procrastinating…
I’ve been intending to start writing my next play for a few weeks, now. But the siren call of the TV or dirty dishes keeps luring me away. I have a deadline to produce a first draft in about a month, so I really have to get moving on it! I also have to submit…
They say you should write about what you know. And what are you more knowledgeable about than the events that you have experienced? Alas, you tread dangerous ground writing about things that friends and acquaintances may recognize. After one of my performances of my play Cast Away, someone came up to me and asked, “Which…
I started this blog with the best of intentions to chronicle my journey as a playwright. But the darn thing is that I’m a lazy bugger and I sometimes find it challenging enough just to get in my quota for writing, let alone writing about my writing! Even when I just kept a journal, I…
I just finished writing my sixth play. Yay! But I was troubled by a previous wish. I have been wanting to write a full length play since the beginning. Unfortunately, my plays only seem to want to be one act plays. 50 minutes or less. It’s not a bad length for a Fringe show, but…
peter gruner 