Welcome to NaNoWriMo

November has descended and with it comes the daunting task of writing 50,000 words by the 30th. With 1,667 words a day piled on top of homework, a midterm, and a research paper, the goal seemed even more intimidating at the end of October, but here we are, a week in today and the writing seems to be coming pretty easily.

National Novel Writing Month draws thousands of participants from all over the world each November and is in it's eleventh year. I encourage everyone to take a look at it here.

Since I haven't written anything since the summer and all I can think about are plays, I decided that this year I would do a huge collection of monologues based on people's wants. So far I've got a bearded lady in a circus, a dying mental patient, a chemistry nerd, and several morally unsound adults. It's not too late in the game for people to join and catch up with the word count. Today's goal is 10,000 I believe.

Cheers all,
Arky

EDIT: November 15th, at 5:03 AM I finished NaNoWriMo with 50,109 words. It is apparently possible to write 50,000 in two weeks rather than in a month or never.

That next giant step

Hey there everyone! It's Kristin. I'm here just to rant and rave, as all playwrights should.

To begin, I'm leaving for college in two days. That's right. In two days, I will be a free woman. (free meaning away from my parents, lol). I'm excited, but nervous at the same time. Somehow, everyone at my school has already begun to refer to me as "The Playwright," which is nerve wracking knowing that my reputation (somehow) proceeds me.

So, I thought it would be a good topic for us to talk about or write about, get your feelings out there about. (Well, two topics, actually). The first is- How do major life events have an effect on your writing? For me, I tend to write MORE during big times than anything else. Even if it's something that's not really that important, like senior prom. Something about the special-ness of the moment and time makes me want to write. And second- How do you use reputations in your writing? Do reputations ever affect the way you write or what you're writing? Personally, my characters' reputations are always at stake or in mind when I write. Not as cliche as in Grease- AKA "I'm a cool kid who can't talk to you because my rep is on the line," but it's a big part of human nature. We're always thinking about ourselves, how we look to other people-reputation is a big part of the human nature, so why not include it in our characters?

College is going to be a brand new experience for me, which I'm very happy about. New things to write about, new things to learn, new experiences in general to be had. I think most of you are seniors this year, which is also a really big step, so I just wanted to say HAVE FUN WITH YOUR SENIOR YEAR! Don't let petty high school drama or anything ruin it. Don't stress about college- what's meant to happen will happen. And for god's sakes, GET EXCITED!!! YOU'RE A SENIOR! As for the rest of you, have fun with school. It goes by way too fast!

Anyway, happy writing,
love you all!

-Kristin.

Waiting for Dorn (But We Wouldn't Mind if Godot Showed Up)

Thirteen young playwrights spent a week in New York together, writing and editing short plays to be shown at the end of the week. Most would agree that is was an amazing experience where we gained a lot of knowledge and lasting friends.
Well, we've been thinking of a way to continue our lives in playwriting and still keep in touch. Bounce ideas off one another, help each other, you know the deal. This blog was one of the ideas. So here we are, first post in a blog that will hopefully be highly successful.
Guys, those of you who want to be an author, please give me your e-mail adress somehow and I'll invite you in. This should be a lot of fun! I know it looks drab now, but I'll liven the page up. Also, the title and url can and may change. First post, quite short, nothing much to say.
I'm excited!!! Let's get this started!
Much Love,
~ Jenna