If it walks like a duck... (or living like a playwright)

I'm not normally one for New Year resolutions (I tend to set goals all year round), but then I saw a facebook post from Life Coach Andrew Poretz, that said: "Here are just a few of my big, audacious goals for 2013", followed by some very big and audacious goals.  I like big and audacious.  I was inspired.  So as I picked up my journal to write my morning pages today, I mused about what my own big and audacious goals might be.  They all coalesced into one, over-arching goal:

I want to live like a playwright.

I don't mean I want to sit in a corner, drinking, smoking and not talking to anyone for days on end as I stare at a blinking curser on a laptop. I mean I want to make decisions about how I spend my time as a playwright would. I want the choices I make and the things I do to be the sorts of things someone who is trying to have a career as a playwright would do.

 

Now, I'm not as well-versed (yet) as to what a playwright's life looks like as I am what an actor's or singer's life looks like.  But here are the specifics I have laid out for myself as a good start, and I assume I will learn more along the way as I more fully become the playwright I have started to be:

1. Write.  Every day.  Every single goddamn day.  Even if it's for 30 minutes, but pick up the pen or the laptop or iPad and WRITE.  Whatever it is, even if it isn't a play, just WRITE.

2. See plays.  One a week.  And one of those per month has to be put on by one of the smaller, play-developing type of companies with which I want to get familiar.

3. Be in a writing group. (This one is easy, it's already lined up and starts Jan 28!)

4. Write short plays.  There are tons of submission opportunities for these and a great way to get a little recognition.  Since I need something measurable and I like prompts, I am going to walk myself through Stuart Spencer's 11 exercises in The Playwright's Guidebook again. So, essentially one a month (I'll give myself the month of my wedding and honeymoon off).

5. Network. Go to one networking event per month.  A panel discussion, a reading of a new work, a class, workshop, etc.

6.  Get produced.  This is the one goal that is out of my control, so it's not the kind of goal I like to set, but since I *want* to get produced, there are steps I need to take. This means writing those short plays, reading through submission opportunities and sending my stuff out.

So there.  Those are my goals.  I am going to revisit them every 6 weeks to see how they are working for me and will report back!