Next week, Theatre Aquarius puts on its Reading Week. The artists in the various programs that Theatre Aquarius supports during the theatre season will get a chance to present an excerpt from the piece that they’ve been working on. My turn is on Wednesday (June 19). It’s always good to get your work in front…
It seems ridiculously long since my last blog post. Six whole days. But that’s what happens when you switch from doing a daily blog post to a weekly blog post. Listen to me. I make it sound like I’d been doing it forever when it was only for thirty days. But I’ve had time to…
Writer’s Block is the most common manifestation of Resistance. It prevents you from getting your work onto the page. It’s the terror of the blank screen. Writer’s Block has prevented many people from doing the work that they were meant to do. Many prolific writers don’t believe writer’s block exists. For the rest of us,…
Resistance can kill your integrity. That siren call prevents you from doing what you said you would do. It makes you break your word, even if it was only to yourself. We get too used to making excuses instead of following through with commitments. It’s easier to come up with a reason why you couldn’t…
Is there such a thing as talent? Does it exist? The more I think about it, the less likely I think it is. There’s definitely skill acquisition, but I think talent is a myth. I think we call people talented because we see the result of their hard work and perseverance. And because we see…
At the end of 2014, I started what I called the Genius Project. The idea was to explore the concept of putting in 10,000 hours of work and using deliberate practice towards my playwriting to achieve mastery or become a “genius” in that realm. For just over a year, I kept track of the activities…
I was going to write a post about how sticking to something and continuously working on a skill will get you further ahead than someone who has “talent” but doesn’t work at it. I got a déjà vu feeling and did a quick search. I wrote about it 8 years ago! I still think it…
In 2015, I read How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big by Scott Adams. One of the main ideas from the book was “goals are for losers and systems are for winners.” Since that time, I’ve been trying to find a system that would work for me. A system is a set…
Austin Kleon, the author of Steal Like an Artist and Show Your Work has a new book out: Keep Going. Like the other books, it’s full of great advice, easy to read, and fun to look at. His books can be consumed in a single sitting but I tried to savour the experience by reading…
A couple of years after Deb and I got married, we were living at my Grandmother’s house because my Grandfather had passed away. My aunts had made the suggestion because it would give Deb and me the ability to live rent free and my Grandmother wouldn’t have to make any major life decisions right away…
peter gruner 