“How long does it take you to write a draft of play?” she asked. Such an interesting question! How long does it take to create something? If I take a look at the play I’m currently working on, A Killing at the Cottage (AKATC), it took me 8 hours of writing to complete the first…
Seth Godin talks about the importance of “shipping”. Shipping is basically putting your “stuff” out there. It is about doing the thing that you want to do and getting it out into the world. If you are a playwright, shipping is sending out your play to producers or theatres to see if they want to…
Happy New Year! I’ve decided to start this year in April, instead of January. Why? Well, it took me a while to get ready for the New Year and I wanted to start the year off right! One of the books I read in 2018 was When by Daniel Pink. Pink suggests that choosing “when”…
Last weekend, my wife found an old contract I had made with her almost 25 years ago. It was signed August 1994. And in it, I committed to writing one page a day. That was back when I was writing fiction and short stories. I chuckled when I saw it. My contract with Deb was to show…
For almost four months I was trying to get started on my next playwriting project. It wasn’t that I didn’t have any ideas. The trouble was finding an idea that I would feel passionate enough about to overcome my inertia. What was the idea that would keep me away from the TV for hours on…
I have a bad habit of taking long breaks between writing projects. I finish one project and it takes me months to gear up and start working on the next one. Why? It’s not from lack of ideas. I’ve got more ideas than time to write them all. It seems to be more from a…
Last year, I had intended to document the journey to getting my play The Lost Years ready for the Hamilton Fringe 2017. Unfortunately, I never started the documentation and before I knew it, opening night was upon us. This year, I wanted to do the same thing, but I found I was letting procrastination get…
I’m a terrible procrastinator. Which means that I’m a really good one. Anyone who knows me, knows that I put things off. Especially writing projects. Since January, I’ve been meaning to write the next draft of my play Out to the Folks, do a quick update and polish of The Lost Years because we’re thinking…
Today is a milestone birthday. Only birthdays ending in zeros or fives seem to be milestones when your age is in the double digits. But when you get to the triple digits, every birthday is a milestone again, like the first ten years of your life. I still have a ways to go before I…
Sometimes we set a goal for ourselves and we don’t quite make it. Maybe we don’t come anywhere near reaching it. Do we give up? If it’s a worthy goal, you carry on. Or start over. Fall down three times and get up four times. It’s the getting up and retrying or starting over that…
