DONE AND DONE! Can’t believe that I finished writing 31 plays in 31 days! At times frustrating, but because there was a definitive goal, I had to push through and I feel like I’m a better writer for it. But it did take a little out of me, as I’ve had to decompress after it. But luckily, with me going back to school, “decompress” time is over and happy to be back to the grind!
I learned a lot from this experience as has been written about in my previous posts for the different plays I’ve blogged about. So, not to re-hash too much about, here are some of them at the top of my head.
- Write when you feel comfortable. At the beginning, I thought I had to be disciplined enough to wake up at 6am everyday and finish the first draft of the play by 8am. It worked for a week, then got burnt out. At the end, I got pretty comfortable writing at just about every part of the day. Instead about worrying when in the day, I focused on when I felt like writing – when a story just felt the need to be birthed and out it came. Sorry for any visual that this might’ve conjured up.
- More than outlining. I was coming into this project with a TV Writer’s mentality of having to break every script down to the point where I can quickly write out and “put the flesh” on the armature I’ve built with the outline. In a way, I truly believed that this was the most efficient way to write a script. If this works for hollywood, then it has to be the best way! By Play 9, I figured out that this isn’t the way I needed to write plays for this project. There just wasn’t enough time to break a story the way I wanted to and how I’ve broken other scripts in the past. Instead, I trusted myself. I trusted my instincts and my characters enough to believe that what I was writing down would lead to satisfying payoff. I was right 95% of the time 🙂
- Know when something isn’t working. Play 31 is a prime example of this. I had a busy schedule on August 31 so I knew I had to write #31 the night prior. I wrote a play called AARDVARK ALMERO ALBEE about a father’s need to make sure that his first child would be first in everything, including the times when she or he would be called – which explains the play’s title AARDVARK. At the end, the play didn’t resonate with me. As a playwright who cares about my work, (Lesson learned from an experience of having a mediocre work be produced) I woke up at 6am the next morning and wrote GAME, SET, UNFRIEND on my iPhone while laying in bed. Knew something wasn’t working and worked to fix it, even if it meant starting from scratch.
- More than one way to write. As stated above, I wrote a new #31 on myPhone. In bed! 6 pages to boot, which can’t be known since the Notepad app doesn’t have page numbers. Another thing I need to get back to is to handwrite my plays again. Typing this out, I just noticed that my right middle-finger pen-caused “indent” in no longer there. I remember when I wrote my first PCN script of 60 notebook pages and taking breaks to admire that “indent”. I got away from handwriting purely out of efficiency – but now I know that was a very important part of my process as I did re-write some of my dialogue when transcribing to Word format. Hope to get back to in when I start my full-length.
- I’m too stubborn to use given prompts. Okay, that kinda sounds like a douchey thing to say, but let me clarify – I DO look at all the prompts sent (THANK YOU!), but I don’t use the literal meaning of them. Example: A man, woman, and a dead body is on the floor. I take that prompt and use it as a SPARK for my imagination to fly somewhere else. So I do use them, but my stubborness comes in thinking that I NEED to use them as a starting point for me to break out of the box that the prompt put on me – which in a general way of thinking – that should be the function of a prompt! Again, I truly appreciate all of the prompts given. That takes time and effort to compile and publish on the site and email out.
- Grow the world. I think one of the reasons I got into grad school was because I’m so driven to write plays about my culture because I sometimes feel our stories are invisible to the general public. Even though I still stand by that, going through 31 Plays, I’ve started to come around to the feeling that I wanted to write stories that included all people of color. One way to do this is by using ethnic sounding names. For instance, take the names: Monica, Chandler, Ross, Phoebe, Joey, and I’m blanking on Jennifer Aniston’s character. But I see/hear those names, I can visually cast them. Now take the names: Suresh, Akram, Kiyomi, Marcello, Amadi, Heinrich, Esperanza, Paolo, etc. It’s nice to see how even though a story’s premise need not be necessarily focused on race or culture, just using these names adds another texture to the story.
- Be open to ALL sources for story ideas. One of my fears going into this project was, how the hell am I going to come up with 31 different stories? Again, major props to Tracy and everyone for the prompts, but as I said, I can get a little stubborn with them – and that’s JUST ME! With that said, I did use at least one as a spark, but a majority of my plays came from either a running list of play ideas I’ve had storied on my phone, a genre I’ve always wanted to write (#21 is a Western), and things that popped up in the news. #31 was written after hearing the news that Andy Roddick was retiring. I just combined that with an idea about a conversation about someone being unfriended. #2 centered around the Chick-Fil-A controversy. Other plays have been sparked by general overheard conversations (#29).
- Don’t be PERFECT! Quickly to rehash what I’ve written during a previous post about having the case of blocks, what stopped me from finishing a play was because I would edit a line before I’d move on to the next line. Really? How far did I expect to get in finding a story with this method of writing. I kinda refer this to our family dog, Shadow, as we take him out on his walks. OMG! He has to sniff every single thing before moving on! I’m yelling at him, “Go #1 or #2, it’s cold out here and I wanna go home!” Same thing with writing – I’m stopping every sentence looking for the perfect retort or turn of phrase instead of concentrating on where will this story eventually lead me. Go there and THEN go back. I am happy that from play 9 on, I’ve started doing this and probably the best advise to complete the 31 plays. Editing will come later and SHOULD take the most time!
- Last Step before Submitting: What’s the Title? Every single one of my plays started with the filename/title of “08[day]12_CP_UNTITLED”. 1) I learned how to quickly spell “un-tit-led” after many attempts of failing. A little crude, but it’s a devise. 2) For me, the title serves serves the purpose of being the FIRST thing a player will read before the contents. Get her attention with the title and hopefully she’ll come through the door, stay a while, and get lost in the world you’ve created for her. So what is it about your title that will make her turn that handle? 3) I’ve started to get into the poetic mind-set that even though the reader takes the action of opening the door to your world because of the title, try to make the reader refer back to that title to mean more than just a title. Make it give the reader and audience member a definition of what they felt AFTER they see your work! #28 TEARDROPPED is an example of this – both in the literal, figurative, and a character named meanings. Or be creatively quirkly with titles like #4: THE INFINITE LINE BETWEEN ME, LOLO, AND LOCO.
- Writing notes are IMPORTANT! I actually learned took this as a cue from an Anthony Clarvoe class with Playwright’s Foundation and even more solidified through a course I’m currently taking from Brian Thortenson’s class at SFSU. I tried to write the lessons I learned with each of these plays, just because the goal of me going to school and classes and reading and submitting is to get better. And I don’t have really the greatest memory – so it’s nice to go back to somewhere, like this blog and go back and see what worked and especially what didn’t! Constantly learning and TRYING to get better.