The Return of Threshold Theater's November Playwriting Challenge (Year 5)

And after our standard nine month hibernation, we're back for round five!

November is traditionally a month when all sorts of writers sign up for challenges to finish the Great American Novel or that unfinished screenplay - why shouldn’t playwrights get in on the fun?



The goal is simple: to get you to prioritize your own playwriting, even if it’s just for a little while each day, every day, for a whole month.



Even if you only manage it every other day, or a couple of days a week, that’s still progress.



If you’re like me, you can sometimes be so good at putting off your writing until another day that you can look up and find weeks have gone by without you writing a single line of dialogue.  We want to get out of that habit and replace it with a more creative habit.



And if you manage to write every single day of the month of November, then there’s an extra little prize for you at the end (read on for more details on that…)



Our challenge was created as a bit of an homage to a similar writing challenge that my friends at Red Theater in Chicago ran for several years in which I took part (so far I’ve mined the material I developed there for two full-length plays and a ten minute play).  Since they’ve sadly discontinued the event, and Threshold Theater is devoted to the development of new work and creating a community of writers for the theater, we thought, “why not revive that November playwriting challenge idea and do it here?”



How it works:



Everyone who wants to participate in the challenge can sign up on this fancy new page on the Threshold Theater website, where you “purchase” the November Playwriting Challenge for $15.

(https://www.thresholdtheatermpls.com/store/p15/5th_Annual_November_Playwriting_Challenge.html#/)

(That $15 is sort of like putting money in a pool for March Madness or an Oscar party, but this time, you're betting on yourself as a writer.)



(If the payment is a problem for you, contact us at ThresholdWritingChallenge@gmail.com - we don’t want money to be a barrier to people participating in the challenge - we’ll make something work to get you in.)


Threshold Theater will take 20% off the top, which will go towards supporting the artists in our New Play Reading Series and future productions.  The remaining 80% of the money collected from the $15 entry fees will go into the pot to create that prize at the end I mentioned before.

After purchasing the challenge with your entry fee, drop us an email at ThresholdWritingChallenge@gmail.com to let us know you’re in.

PLEASE NOTE: Since Gmail is being aggressive about curating people’s email inboxes the last year or so, if you don’t see emails from the Challenge in your inbox, and you have a gmail account, be sure to check on the “All Mail” option, which will reveal all the emails you receive, not just the ones Gmail thinks are important.  Since we have links in the challenge emails and since you either have never received emails from us before, or haven’t since last November, Gmail may not be as interested in the playwriting challenge as you are :)


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Formal Rules: 

Paid participation is only available to those residing in the United States.

Contest (aka, November Playwriting Challenge) entry period ends October 31, 2025 at 11:59pm Central Time. 

The contest will run from 12:00 a.m. (midnight) Central Time on November 1, 2025 to 12:00pm (noon) Central Time on December 1, 2025

Participants must submit work by 12:00 p.m. (noon) Central Time each day to be considered eligible for winnings on December 1, 2025. 

Winner(s) will be announced no later than December 8, 2025

Winnings will be sent out (from Threshold Theater’s Venmo account) no later than two weeks after winners are announced (December 22, 2025). 

Winnings of $600 and over will require a form W-2 to be issued by Threshold Theater. 

All payments received and sent out are in U.S. Dollars.

By paying the entrance fee and submitting the email you agree to the rules set forth from Threshold Theater and all disputes will be settled directly between Threshold Theater and participants.

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The writers who manage to write something every single day for the 30 days of November will split the money at the end.  That, of course, is an extra reward on top of the main reward, which is that you prioritized your playwriting and wrote a whole bunch of new material in November.  (And everyone, whether they write all 30 days or not, will get that “new play material” prize.) (Every year I did this challenge through Red Theater, I wrote all 30 days and ended up getting my $15 back at the end as part of my share of the kitty, so it was basically free writing encouragement :)



First rule of the challenge - it doesn’t have to be good writing, it just has to be writing.



Part of the point of the challenge is to get you to just make decisions and run with them, blast past your internal censor and just put something on the page. One participating writer has likened it to doing improv with your keyboard.



Everything you write will, by the circumstances of its creation, be a first draft.  You can always go back and “fix it” later :)



Each day you will have a writing prompt.



I will post the writing challenge here on our challenge blog

I will also email everyone participating with the text of that day’s challenge and a link to that blog post (which will come in handy later…)



(The plan is to give you two or three days’ worth of prompts in advance, so if you want to keep writing or get a head start on the next day’s work, you can.  The more writing the better.)



You can write to the prompt, or ignore it and write something completely different.  Up to you.  As long as you’re writing.



The point is just to give yourself the space and time to write something new.

Doesn’t even need to be a complete scene, you could just have the beginning and the middle and not have any idea how to end it, the rest of the idea may come to you another day down the road.



As long as you have something written, that’s a good day.



If you’re just not able to get anything going one day in November, and all you can come up with is:

“Lights up



CAROL dances across the stage and disappears



Lights down



The End”



That’s fine



(Obviously we want to avoid 30 days of that but that’s enough of a placeholder to count for the day’s writing: Lights up, Something happens on stage, Lights down, The End - that’s the baseline we all start with as our escape hatch for the day, challenge yourself to do more)



The daily check-in to keep us all honest and for me to be able to track who’s writing each day will go like this:



You’ll get the prompt for November 1st in advance of that date.  You’ll have all day on November 1st to write.

By 12 noon, Central Time, on November 2nd, you’ll share your work with us through our new Google form in one of the following ways:

This year, in order to streamline the process on our end, so we can be more responsive, we’ll be using a Google form for submissions rather than logging everything manually coming in via email response (which was manageable at 40 to 60 playwrights, but quite a bit less manageable last year with 100+ playwrights :)

You can still do all the things with the Google form that playwrights previously did with email responses.  There are three potential ways to share your work for the day:

You can attach your script pages as a pdf or Word document to the Google form.



You can also post your script online on your own blog or website (or post it as a Google doc) and then post a link to it on the Google form.



You can also copy and paste your text for the day directly into the Google form, or type directly into the Google form.

Also, there’s a place on the form where you can leave me a note if you have questions, concerns, technical difficulties or just random greetings you want to share.  Since the Google form will be doing a lot of the stuff I used to do manually (logging the day and time of receipt, the number of pages, confirming receipt, etc.), I’ll be freer to respond in a more timely fashion to other inquiries, if all goes as planned.

Whichever option you choose in order to submit your writing each day, once you submit your work through the Google form, you will receive a copy of your submission, confirming we’ve received it, to your email address.

If you’re having issues with the Google form, no worries.  Since this is our first year implementing this element in the process, we’re going to be flexible with folks, working with you to get things to work smoothly.  No need to fret about this change in the process.  We don’t want it to be a barrier to folks participating.  (For starters, when you send us an email telling us you’re in on the challenge, we’ll do a test run with you on the Google form, prior to the challenge starting, just to be sure it all works well and there aren’t any additional bugs lurking in the system that we hadn’t caught yet.)



You can always turn your writing in early, but 12 noon Central Time will be the cutoff each day, and that way no one has an unnaturally early morning to make the deadline, regardless of what time zone they might be in.

So, submit your writing of the day for November 1st no later than 12 noon Central Time on November 2nd.



Then get working on the writing for November 2nd, to be turned in by12 noon Central Time on November 3rd.

And so on...



And we’ll all go through that process daily until 12 noon, Central Time, on December 1st, for the November 30th challenge.



(And don’t panic the first couple of days when we’re all getting up and running.  We’re not going to be sticklers while we’re all fighting technology and working out the kinks on November 1, 2 and 3… Just post as you’re able and keep us in the loop by email on what’s going on if you’re having trouble, need tech support, etc. :)



Then December 1st, I’ll sit down and make a list of all the people who logged in with writing work every day of the month, and I’ll double check it with you all, to make sure I didn’t miss anybody.



And then we’ll split the collective 80 percent of the entry fees for the challenge between those prolific writers who all remain standing at the end of the month.  We'll confirm contact details at that time for the best way to get you your money.



I have always had a tremendous amount of fun doing challenges like this as a writer myself, and my aim is to make this one fun and inspiring for all of you as well.

An overview of how things turned out the past four years:

Honestly, I was expecting maybe half a dozen writers from the Twin Cities metro our first time out in 2021. Instead, we got 10 writers in Minnesota, plus 33 other writers from 20 other states, 2 from Canada, and 2 whose location was unknown. 27 of the 47 writers wrote every single day.

In 2022, due to a technical glitch, we got a late start getting the word out, but we still ended up with 12 writers in Minnesota, plus 23 other writers from 15 other states, 1 from Canada, and 4 whose location was unknown.  22 of the 40 writers wrote every single day.

In 2023, we had 57 writers, 33 of whom wrote all 30 days. 19 of the writers were from Minnesota, the rest came from 16 other states around the U.S. and the District of Columbia, plus we had another Canadian representative for the third year running.

Last year, in 2024, we had an unexpected explosion in the number of participants, from 57 to 101. By the end of November, 64 playwrights wrote all 30 days (which, yes, is more total playwrights than we had in any of the previous three years :) We had 17 writers from Minnesota, plus 84 other playwrights from 25 other states, plus the District of Columbia, with 4 of them from Canada, and 1 from Scotland! 

SPECIAL NOTE FOR OUR FRIENDS FROM OUTSIDE THE U.S.:
We are unable to process financial transactions outside of the United States.  We don’t want to leave you out, though, so if you’re still interested in participating, even though there’s no payout at the end, contact us first directly via ThresholdWritingChallenge@gmail.com and we’ll discuss how you can participate (Don’t purchase the challenge on our website and pay the entry fee)

For everyone else, playwrights in the United States of America, if you’re interested in participating, go purchase the November Playwriting Challenge on the Threshold Theater website (www.thresholdtheatermpls.com) (which will put your $15 in the prize pot) and send us an email at ThresholdWritingChallenge@gmail.com to let us know you want to take part in the challenge. 

Deadline to sign up is October 31, 2025 - 11:59pm, Central Time

(Donation needs to be entered no later than 11:59pm 10/31/25; but if you don't get around to the email part of it to notify us until later, that's fine - I just need your email address so I know where to send you the prompts with the link to the Google form every day :) 

The fun (and writing) begin November 1, 2025.



Happy writing to you all!



Matthew A. Everett
Literary Director
Threshold Theater
(He/him/his)

Deadline Amnesty for Voting (and other handy challenge tips) - 2025 Edition

Even more important than writing - VOTING in the election this year.

As I type this, I have not yet voted early, but I plan to, since it’s pretty handy to to so here in Minneapolis, Minnesota, which I and Threshold Theater call home.

A great many of you live in states where early voting is already available.  Please take advantage of it.

However, if you haven’t voted by the time November 1st rolls around, the November Playwriting Challenge is not going to be standing in your way.

Any day from November 1st through November 4th, if time spent voting prevents you from having the time you need to write, just let me know that and the noon Central Time deadline doesn’t apply to you for the day’s writing which is impacted by your going to the polls.

This will also apply the day after the election (November 5th), since I know the lines are liable to be longest on Election Day on November 4th and that could snowball through that day’s writing, due by noon Central Time on November 5th.

So, please make your voices heard and VOTE.

Even though it’s an off-year (not a president or congress person on the ballots), some states have governors up for election, and many cities have mayors and city councils on the ballot.  School boards and city and state government have an even greater impact on our day to day lives often than the federal government does.  Choose the people exercising power over you.  That’s your power.  Choose people who are going to address issues that matter to you.  I will.

Your Secretary of State’s website will have voting information for you.  For instance, here’s Minnesota’s where you can find out how to register to vote, where you can early vote or where your polling place is on Election Day, and what’s on your ballot (with handy links to the candidates' websites).

Good national resources include:

I Will Vote

Vote Save America
VSA can help you figure out how to vote
Where you can volunteer to help campaigns
How you can donate to make the biggest impact
How to build community and get grants for it
How to run for office

 

In addition to getting out there and voting, because we call can get in our own way so easily, here’s some words of reassurance on the basics of this month, handy tips gleaned from the three previous years of the challenge:

Friendly Reminders - Answers To Common Questions:
(Follow the links to read me expounding on these items :)

Don’t Stress About Writing A Full Play

Don’t Stress About Format

Don’t Stress About Sticking To The Writing Prompt

No.  Really.  I Mean It.  Don’t Stress About Sticking To The Writing Prompt

Don’t Stress About Finishing An Idea (You Can Add Later)

Don’t Stress About “Succeeding” or “Failing”

Don’t Stress About What You’re Turning In Each Day

Don’t Stress about November 27th (however you recognize the holiday weekend)

 

 

Don’t Stress about November 27th (however you recognize the holiday weekend)

This question always comes up eventually, so… about Thanksgiving (2025 edition):

Yes, there will still be a writing prompt.

However, the plan that week is to send you writing prompts in advance for the holiday weekend, so you can write ahead and bank them if you want.

The last few years, what I’ve done is sent out 
Tuesday and Wednesday’s prompts on Monday, 
Thursday and Friday’s prompts on Tuesday, 
and Saturday and Sunday’s prompts on Wednesday.

(This year the holiday weekend is stranger than usual because it’s at the very end of the month, so we don’t have the usual challenge scenario of the holiday weekend followed by a couple of “normal” weekdays again before the end of the month.  In fact, the month turns over at the end of the holiday weekend in 2025.  Sunday is November 30th, our final day of writing.  So December 1st is Monday, when the results of that final day of writing get turned in.)

And, as always, there will be an escape hatch prompt that you can copy, paste and embellish as your submission for the day, such as…

“Lights up

A turkey runs for its life across the stage.

Lights down”

So don’t stress the holiday.  There are ways around it.

 

 

Full List of Challenges for 2024

#1 - Still More Assorted Dialogue

#2 - RIP: HUGE improv theater

#3 - Nazi Dildo Lady

#4 - Asteroid

#5 - Dismantled Piano

#6 - Skyway Buddha

#7 - Treat Yourself

#8 - Museum of Broken Relationships

#9 - Site Specific Theater in Anaconda, Montana

#10 - Nurse

#11 - SISU

#12 - The Neon Sign, The Keys, The Door

#13 - License Plates and Bumper Stickers

#14 - Every Line A Question

#15 - Reunions

#16 - First Times and Regrets

#17 - The Gilded Lily

#18 - The Ending Is The Beginning

#19 - Planning, Pride, Fright or Language

#20 - Leaves, Lighter, Love

#21 - Lamp Posts, Crows and Colors

#22 - Sponge, Rhino, Tire Swing

#23 - Embarrassing Guitar

#24 - Leftovers from David

#25 - Power

#26 - Chat GPT, Gmail AI, and Off Book

#27 - …Until All You Can Remember Is A Name

#28 - Moving People Along

#29 - Aptronym

#30 - Random Things On The Path



You can also find links for all the challenges for 2021 here, 2022 here, and 2023 here.

 

 

November Playwriting Challenge 2024 final numbers and payout info :)

Hi all

Thanks, once more, for your patience, but here in the first week of February 2025 we here at Threshold Theater are finally tying up the last of the loose ends on the November Playwriting Challenge for 2024.

We started this year (well, 2024, so I guess last year at this point) with a new high of 101 playwrights signing up for the challenge.
(As a point of comparison, in our first year back in 2021, we had 49 playwrights sign up.
In 2022, there was a glitch in posting the opportunity so we had a late start getting the word out, and we had just 40 playwrights sign up.
In 2023, we had our record (at the time) of 57 playwrights sign up.)

The number of playwrights writing all 30 days of November 2024 was 64.
(2021 it was 27 playwrights, 2022 it was 22 playwrights, and 2023 it was 38 playwrights.)

The average number of playwrights overall across the whole month of November 2024 submitting work each day was 77 playwrights a day.
(2021 it was 34 playwrights, 2022 it was 27 playwrights, 2023 it was 47 playwrights.)

The high mark of playwrights submitting work in a single day in November 2024 was 88 playwrights.
(2021’s high mark was 44 playwrights submitting work in a single day, 2022’s high mark was 33 playwrights, and 2023’s high mark was 54 playwrights.)

The lowest number of playwrights submitting work during a single day in November 2024 was 68 playwrights (you’ll notice that the low ebb in 2024 was well above the high watermark of 2021 through 2023 listed in the previous paragraph)
(2021’s day with the lowest number of submissions was 29 playwrights, 2022’s low mark was only 23 playwrights submitting work in a day, and 2023’s was 42 playwrights)

In November 2024, playwrights submitted 2,288 different pieces of work, totaling 8,511 pages of dialogue, or the equivalent of 70 full-length plays at 120 pages each (or more than 2 plays a day each day of the month), with another 111 leftover pages, which is basically just a 71st full-length play in my opinion.

(2021, there were 1,004 bits of script, totaling 4,090 pages, the equivalent of 34 full-length plays of 120 pages each, plus another 10 leftover pages for a bonus 10 minute play.
2022, 808 pieces of script, 2,593 pages, the equivalent of 21 full-length plays, plus 73 leftover pages for another one-act.
2023, 1,392 script bits, 4,066 pages, the equivalent of 33 full-length plays, plus 106 leftover pages which, again, might as well just be a 34th full-length play)

So you all basically doubled the output of previous years.  A most impressive explosion of creativity for 30 days.  Well done.

As I’ve stated in previous posts and emails, the enthusiasm for the challenge in November caught us a bit by surprise.  It was a big leap forward from the previous three years.  We’ll be trying out automating submissions with a Google form in November 2025 so I’m no longer trying to manage that manually, and I can focus on a more timely response to playwright questions and crises as they arise.  Again, thank you all for the patience this year.  That, and your dogged output of new pages of dialogue, whether it was in response to prompts, or using the daily deadline to work on projects of your own, or something else completely random, it was inspiring to see (if sometimes also a bit overwhelming - but it’s the way we like to be overwhelmed, the more playwrights the better, the more new work for the theater the better.  So you keep on going and we’ll scramble behind you if we need to in order to catch up :)

Threshold Theater’s managing director has the list of contact information for who and where to mail the checks to those playwrights who wrote all 30 days of the month of November.  Checks should be out the door by mid-week this week, post office says figure 7 to 10 days to receive the mail, depending on where you’re located.  It’ll be in a plain white envelope with Threshold Theater as the return address, so keep an eye out for that and just deposit the check at your earliest convenience.

We had to follow up with a dozen folks who didn’t get back to us right away confirming their information so that slowed things down a bit (after my challenges with processing the playwriting output from November slowed things down quite a bit already :) But the payout is at last in process. The share of the money put into the kitty at the beginning of the process for each 30 day playwright turned out to be $19, so basically those folks got their $15 fee back again, plus a few bucks extra.  30 days of writing prompts and creativity for free.  Not bad.

Again, thank you all again for participating in Threshold Theater’s November Playwriting Challenge.  It was good to receive all your messages saying how useful it was to your process.  I hope you all have plenty of raw material to refine and rework over the coming year, and that you get some of it out into the wider world in response to submission calls and competitions from theaters.

We’ll be back again with a new, more streamlined and speedy process this fall, and the same daily writing prompts and daily deadlines you’ve come to expect from us.

Happy writing to you all!

Stay safe and be well.

Matthew Everett
Literary Director
Threshold Theater
(he/him/his)

Coming Up...

Spring 2025
The world premiere production of my play "Spellbound" with Threshold Theater
A play about the wrong way to use a love potion.
April 18 to May 3, 2025
At the Phoenix Theater, 2605 Hennepin Ave. Minneapolis
https://www.thresholdtheatermpls.com/
Directed by Denzel Belin
Thanks to his mischievous friend Jeffrey (David Schlosser), who’s begun dabbling in witchcraft, Micah (Zakary Morton) has accidentally dosed his best friend Auggie (Leor Benjamin) with a love potion. Which might be fine, if Auggie wasn’t straight, and married, or if Auggie’s wife Sarah (Keira Kowal Jett) wasn’t pregnant, or a practicing witch. With the help of Duncan (Xae Copeland), who runs the local metaphysical supply store, the race is on to whip up the antidote before anyone does something they’ll regret.

Now Playing:
The video recording of Threshold Theater's Pride Month new play reading of "Monster Girls at Sunshine Donuts" by Dani Herd: A vampire, a werewolf, and a Frankenstein's monster walk into a doughnut shop... Meet Louise, Tally, and Elsie: the crew behind Sunshine Doughnuts! The ghouls have fallen into a pretty pleasant spooky routine for themselves; pouring coffee, baking doughnuts, arguing over Scooby-Doo cartoons, having crushes on their regulars. Along comes an unexpected late night visitor to throw everything into question. Sometimes it really sucks how much your past can come back to bite you!  Now on our YouTube channel - https://youtu.be/sWMauIx2L94?si=V_5BPilbotR1eGll


"Write. Find a way to keep alive and write. There is nothing else to say."
- James Baldwin

"Writing is like driving a car at night. You can only see as far as the headlights, but you make the whole trip that way."
- E.L. Doctorow

Writing Challenge #30 - Random Things On The Path (Write Nov. 30)

Hi folks

Here it is.

At long last, the final challenge, #30, the finish line for both the month of November (which, by all accounts, has been a bit of a rough one for a lot of folks, myself included) and this year’s November Playwriting Challenge.

Whether you wrote just one day, or all thirty, congratulations!  You’ve got some new material to play around with and refine during the other eleven months of the year.  Well done!

For those of you who were new this year, thanks for finding us.  

For those of you who enjoyed it enough last year to come back and do it again, we were happy to see so many familiar names.  

You have more writing in hand than you did on the last day of October, and that’s the primary goal of the challenge.  The habit of writing, the creation of more plays, prioritizing your creativity just a little bit every day.

Before we get to the final challenge itself, a quick reminder about today’s writing - Challenges 28 and 29

Just a quick clarifier, to keep us track for the holiday weekend :)

The challenge work to be turned in today 11/29 by 12noon Central Time is for Challenge 28
(sent to you on Tuesday this week :)

It can also be found on the challenge blog here:
https://thresholdwritingchallenge.blogspot.com/2024/11/writing-challenge-28-moving-people.html

The challenge work you’re to be writing today to be turned in tomorrow 11/30 by the noon deadline is for Challenge 29 (also sent to you on Tuesday this week :)

It can also be found on the challenge blog here:
https://thresholdwritingchallenge.blogspot.com/2024/11/writing-challenge-29-aptronym-write-nov.html

Of course you may have already done one or both of these challenges already and turned them in early, and if so, well done!

If not, those are your marching orders for the day.

And then, of course, we come to this, the final challenge, which you’ll have tomorrow, Saturday 11/30 to work on, and then turn in the next day, Sunday, 12/1 by 12 noon Central Time.

I am, as you are all well aware, quite behind on the processing of your many emails.  Thanks for being so patient with the current process, which is clearly beyond its capacity for timely response.  We’re already in discussions and planning for how to better execute the challenge next year, whether we’re back down to around 60 or up over 100 playwrights again :)

I’ll be getting through the backlog as quickly as I can - thankfully there’s a nice holiday weekend here to help me out with that.

I’ll put together a list of all the writers who wrote all 30 days, as well as a list of writers who seem like maybe they only missed one or two, do a little research on that second batch and if I’m still coming up short, I’ll reach out to those writers to see if something got lost in the pipeline somehow and they actually hit all the challenges. (That’s happened in all years past or one or two writers, so it’s not just a this year thing.)

Once I’ve got a confirmed list of those of who wrote and turned something thing all 30 days, I’ll be reaching out to let you know what the payout is going to be (how many writers are splitting the money we accumulated at the beginning, and what everyone’s share of that is) and confirming how best to get that to you.

There’ll also be, at long last, some fun statistics on how many people were writing every day, how many pages they generated, and what the overall output was - just from what I’ve seen so far, you’re definitely going to blow past all previous years’ numbers, in part because there were just so many more of you writing this November :)

And though It’s dicey making pronouncements about anything a year out, the plan is to definitely do this again next November.  So if you found it useful, mark your calendars. And spread the word to anyone you think might be interested.  If it is indeed happening as planned, an announcement should go out in the first half of October.

One last tangent for this preface of mine…

One November, someone in my playwriting group (who shall remain nameless) was… pestering is a negative word so let’s just say enthusiastically and repeatedly suggesting… that “you should let all those writers know about the writing group and see if they might be interested in attending.”

Which wasn’t a bad idea.

But I did remind the person that the majority of the writers doing the challenge often aren’t local, and are situated in states all across the USA, or in some cases even completely different countries.  So the time zones don’t always perfectly align. (Sadly our friend who moved from Minneapolis to Norway for a graduate program isn’t going able to join us - it’s always the middle of the night for her when we meet.  Less extreme time zone differences may be workable.)

In the playwriting group’s time being fully online in 2020-2021 because of the pandemic, we had a number of playwrights and actors in different states sitting in - but sometimes it was challenging because they were either an hour ahead or behind of the Central Time zone meeting hours of 7pm to 9pm.  Still, we did make it work.  Even now, in hybrid mode, with some folks meeting in person, there’s still a number of (even local) people who prefer or need to attend via video conference on the computer.  So we have the capability of including folks wherever there’s internet connectivity.  

A handful of people did join us over the last couple of years after the challenge concluded and a few became regulars, which is fun.

Here’s a link to an overview of how the group works.

If you think you might be interested, just drop me a note.

Thanks again for participating, everybody!

Again, well done, one and all!

And now, let’s get you that final writing prompt for November 2024…

**************************

Challenge #30 - Random Things On The Path

Write Nov. 30th - or earlier if you like
Due: Sunday, December 1st, 12pm noon Central Time
(1pm Eastern Time, 11am Mountain Time, 10am Western Time for the US Time Zones)




When I go out running, I don’t listen to music or podcasts or take my phone with me.

It’s some of my only time to be out in nature, so I try to just focus on being present and taking in the details of my surroundings.  (Also, I find it’s really easy for me to get distracted by input directly into my ears, and then I don’t focus on the process of running and my pace is terrible.  That can happen when I get a scene idea in my head, too, but I don’t mind as much when my pace is off because I’m solving a writing problem :)

Even though a lot of the routes I run are the same, it’s like the whole “you never step in the same river twice” metaphor.  The path is always different, even if it’s just the weather that day.

Often though, the path is different because of what people discard around it.

One day I was running and there was a goblet in the grass by the path.  A rather significant drinking cup.  Someone doesn’t just have that on them casually when they’re out and about.  That drinking vessel is a choice someone very deliberately made and carried down onto the walking, running, biking path with them, and then left behind for some reason.

There’s a path that was created in a place that runs between two streets, and there’s been a lot of building up and either side of this path, condos and stores and restaurants, etc.  Old school train tracks near the path have made way for a future addition to the light rail connections between the suburbs and downtown.  Sometimes you’re at street level but just as often you’re below street level with things rising above you on both sides, and bridges crossing over the path, and walls built into the side of what used to maybe be a hill.

I saw a couple once in the early morning, on the other side of a gully next to the path, up against one of those walls on the hillside. Just chatting, maybe watching as the sun rose.  And I had to rethink the path - people don’t just come down here to walk their dogs or walk themselves or run or bike.  People aren’t always just passing through.  Some people are just - being here.  There are sometimes benches and gardens and stairs set up in areas where there are condos nearby.  Sometimes, like these two people, someone just decides to park themselves somewhere by the path and just watch things happen.

People definitely bring their pot to certain areas - you can get a secondhand contact high if you linger to long in any one spot, I imagine.

Someone brought a goblet.  And left it.

An abandoned very colorful but mud-splattered soccer ball was out by the trail one time.

I once saw a tennis ball in the middle of the street as I was approaching the entry to the path.  I picked it up and dropped it on the sidewalk out of the road.  Enough people walk their dogs up and down that street, some dog will get a treat.

(My fingers accidentally typed “some god” rather than dog so… not sure where that comes from or where it goes but I’ll leave it out there.  Some god will get a treat, if I leave out a tennis ball.)

There’s also a mini-dog park built on the side of a nearby condo grouping and I almost walked up the block to toss it in there, but I really wanted to start my run, so I compromised.

I swear I saw a box for a pregnancy test by the running path a couple of weeks ago.  Even if that wasn’t what it actually was (I didn’t stop to pick it up), the idea of how that got there was intriguing to me.

Random aside, also on the approach to the running path once, I saw a large orange paperclip.  The oversize plastic kind.  Very bright orange.  And it reminded me of the days when some word processing programs had intrusive “helpful” mascots like Clippy the Paper Clip which would appear when you were typing, and maybe you’d only just gotten started on something, and up pops Clippy with an opinion -“You look like you’re writing a resume” or “You look like you’re writing a cover letter, would you like some help with that?”  This is pre-AI, or perhaps early AI, mind you.  It wasn’t very sophisticated.  And I think people found it so annoying that the vendor very quickly dropped the feature from their software.  But for a while, it was everywhere.  And a sketch comedy group that came to the Minnesota Fringe Festival one year riffed on it - one of the characters was very depressed, and another of them dressed up in a big paperclip costume and popped into the scene as Clippy, chirping “You look like you’re writing a suicide note!  Would you like some help with that?”  Needless to say, it was a bit dark and wildly over the top, but still absurdly funny.

My favorite random thing recently was a wooden chair, painted white, that had been dumped in a bush.  At the entry points to the path in a place where you need to descend a short hill to get down from street level to running path level, there are decorative bushes atop the walls, either just at or below street level.  And someone, I guess, just decided to toss their chair down from the sidewalk next to the condos to land in the bushes.  And it’s been sitting there for months.  Just a random chair in a bush.  Every time I walk up to the entry point, I glance over the side to check and, yes, the chair is still there.  Once it really starts snowing, you won’t be able to see the chair as easily, it’ll blend in.  But then come spring, the snow will melt and the greenery of the bushes will return and - oh look, a white wooden chair…

What random things appear along the paths you walk every day?

Do you think about how they got there?

What stories occurred to you about people and their abandoned things?

Or might an abandoned item, come upon by a stranger (or you), get them thinking about a different time in their life?

Take any or all of that and play around with it.

Have fun with it, and take a bit swing for our final outing.

Or, like always, write whatever you want.

Just write.  Something.  For one last day in November (this year).

Again, folks, well done.

Happy writing to you all!

**************************

If you’re not interested in this prompt, you can

try 2021’s challenge #30: Magical Realism

Or try 2022’s challenge #30: Storytelling Obsessions

Or try 2023’s Challenge #30: I Don’t Believe In Ghosts, But…

Or, you know, just ignore the prompts altogether and write whatever you want - as long as you’re writing and turning it in by the deadline, that’s all that matters for the challenge :)


***********************

And because we call can get in our own way so easily, here’s some words of reassurance on the basics of this month:

Friendly Reminders - Answers To Common Questions:
(Follow the links to read me expounding on these items :)

Don’t Stress About Writing A Full Play

Don’t Stress About FormatDon’t Stress About Sticking To The Writing Prompt

No.  Really.  I Mean It.  Don’t Stress About Sticking To The Writing Prompt

Don’t Stress About Finishing An Idea (You Can Add Later)

Don’t Stress About “Succeeding” or “Failing”

Don’t Stress About What You’re Turning In Each Day

Don’t Stress About November 28th (however you recognize the holiday weekend)


******************************

How to submit your work for Challenge #30

You have options.  They are:

Save your script as a PDF or Word Doc and send as an attachment to an email sent to ThresholdWritingChallenge@gmail.com

OR

Copy and paste your script in the body of an email and send it to ThresholdWritingChallenge@gmail.com

OR

Post your script online (as a Google doc, or in a blog post, on your own personal website, etc.) - email a link to this script to ThresholdWritingChallenge@gmail.com
(If you’re going to Google doc route, just make sure to have the document public, or give permissions to our email address to open it)

When emailing us, make the subject line of your email - Challenge #30
(That just helps us sort through the email more quickly)
(Or, you know, just reply to this email if you want :)

OR

Post the link for the online document option noted above in the comments section below on this very blog post for today's challenge on our writing challenge blog



Write Nov. 30th - or earlier if you like
Again, this is: Due: Sunday, December 1st, 12pm noon Central Time
(1pm Eastern Time, 11am Mountain Time, 10am Western Time for the US Time Zones)


***************************

And, just to reassure you, no, we are not going to be sticklers about you following these directions down to the minutest detail - the important thing is that you write, and then that you share it with us, so we can keep track of who’s writing every day.

Also, no, there is no penalty for finishing and submitting early - but it also isn’t a race, so give yourself all the time up til 12 noon on Sunday to write if you need it.  When you’re done, you’re done.

Again, remember, it doesn’t need to be great, it doesn’t even need to be responding to this prompt (the prompt is just there so you’re not staring at a blank screen to start with no idea what to write about :)

Doesn't even need to be complete - you could have the beginning or the middle or the end of an idea, maybe two out of three but not all, that's still fine. This is all about getting things started, you can write more later.

You have another 11 months (until the next November writing challenge) to build on whatever you come up with today, if you want.

Just get anything on the page, even if won't make sense to anyone else, as long as it make sense to you.

It just needs to be something.


************************
 

And that something can be:



Lights up.

A ball is onstage.

A person walks onstage.

They see the ball.

They pick up the ball.

They toss it in the air and catch it.

It makes them smile.  About something.  They don’t tell us what it is, or who it is.

The person keeps tossing the ball in the air and catching it…

As they walk offstage again.

Lights down.

The End



That’s always your escape hatch, every day.

That’s your base line.

Build on it.

Have fun.

Don’t stress.

Make an impulsive decision and run with it.

Breathe.

You’ve got the day.

Just write.

And take good care of yourselves, and each other.

Matthew A. Everett
Literary Director
Threshold Theater
(he/him/his)

Coming Up...

Spring 2025
The world premiere production of my play "Spellbound" with Threshold Theater
A play about the wrong way to use a love potion.
April 18 to May 3, 2025
At the Phoenix Theater, 2605 Hennepin Ave. Minneapolis
Directed by Denzel Belin
Thanks to his mischievous friend Jeffrey (David Schlosser), who’s begun dabbling in witchcraft, Micah (Zakary Morton) has accidentally dosed his best friend Auggie (Leor Benjamin) with a love potion. Which might be fine, if Auggie wasn’t straight, and married, or if Auggie’s wife Sarah (Mallory Lewis) wasn’t pregnant, or a practicing witch. With the help of Duncan (Xae Copeland), who runs the local metaphysical supply store, the race is on to whip up the antidote before anyone does something they’ll regret.

Now Playing:
The video recording of Threshold Theater's Pride Month new play reading of "Monster Girls at Sunshine Donuts" by Dani Herd: A vampire, a werewolf, and a Frankenstein's monster walk into a doughnut shop... Meet Louise, Tally, and Elsie: the crew behind Sunshine Doughnuts! The ghouls have fallen into a pretty pleasant spooky routine for themselves; pouring coffee, baking doughnuts, arguing over Scooby-Doo cartoons, having crushes on their regulars. Along comes an unexpected late night visitor to throw everything into question. Sometimes it really sucks how much your past can come back to bite you!  Now on our YouTube channel


"Write. Find a way to keep alive and write. There is nothing else to say."
- James Baldwin

"Writing is like driving a car at night. You can only see as far as the headlights, but you make the whole trip that way."
- E.L. Doctorow

Writing Challenge #29 - Aptronym (Write Nov. 29)

Hi folks

(2 of 2)

28 down, 2 to go!

(And this prompt is one of those final two :)

We’ve nearly reached the end of November, folks.

Hang in there and keep on writing :)

If you ever get confused about which one of this bundle of prompts I’m sending your way ahead of time is the one you’re supposed to be working on, do this:

Look at the date on the calendar.
That’s the number of the challenge you should be working on that day to be turned in by noon the next day.
That’s if you’re doing them one day at a time.
If you’re cranking out a bunch of writing and turning it in ahead of time, just make sure you hit each one of them in order and get yourself all the way to the end of the holiday weekend.

This prompt is the one you would be writing Friday 11/29 to be turned in on Saturday 11/30 by noon Central Time, but just label your email for prompt 29 and you can turn it early and I’ll credit it ahead.

And of course, you can always use the mini-play at the bottom of the email and blog post as an escape hatch for the day’s writing.

Now, let’s get you the second writing prompt of the pair for the day…


******************************


Challenge #29 - Aptronym

Write Nov. 29th - or earlier if you like
Due: Saturday, November 30th, 12pm noon Central Time
(1pm Eastern Time, 11am Mountain Time, 10am Western Time for the US Time Zones)



One of your fellow challenge writers this year who’s participated in previous years introduced me to WordDaily.com - which will send you a new and interesting word for the day and give you some context for it.

The reason the playwright reached out to me, is the word that day reminded him of a couple of challenges I’d served up in the past, based around a particular type of word:

Contronyms

Homophones


That day’s word was

Aptronym

According to Word Daily, an aptronym is…

“Noun - A person’s name that is regarded as amusingly appropriate to their occupation.

Sample Sentences
“The clerk at the fish market wore a nametag reading ‘Ms. Flounder,’ which was a perfect aptronym.”
“Our class’s enthusiastic new gym teacher had the aptronym ‘Mr. Ball.'”
“My mechanic has an amazing aptronym: Carl Lifft.”

Word origin
Greek, 1920s

Why this word?
The greatest sprinting runner in history is Usain Bolt,
while Britain is home to weatherperson Sarah Blizzard,
and Lance Bass of former boy band ‘N Sync fame sang with a low register (although Bass pronounces his name like the fish, not the pitch).

But aptronyms (“apt” meaning “appropriate,” and “nym” applying to a name) aren’t just for celebrities — imagine a woodworker named David Carpenter,
or a pastry chef named Lucy Baker.

Aptronyms call back to the origination of English family names.
People tended to be named according to their ancestors or profession,
such as “Richardson” for the son of someone named Richard,
and “Smith” for a blacksmith or silversmith.”

(Thanks to Hank for this one :)

So have some fun with aptronyms in your cast of characters for today’s writing.

Or, as ever, write whatever you like.

Just write.  Something.

Just two days more to the end of our challenge marathon.


******************************

If you’re not interested in this prompt, you can

try 2021’s challenge #29: The Best of Times, The Worst of Times, and The Future

Or try 2022’s challenge #29: Messages After You’re Gone

Or try 2023’s Challenge #29: Snapshots 5 (from Threshold Theater co-founder and Managing Director David Schlosser)

Or, you know, just ignore the prompts altogether and write whatever you want - as long as you’re writing and turning it in by the deadline, that’s all that matters for the challenge :)


****************************

And because we call can get in our own way so easily, here’s some words of reassurance on the basics of this month:

Friendly Reminders - Answers To Common Questions:
(Follow the links to read me expounding on these items :)

Don’t Stress About Writing A Full Play

Don’t Stress About FormatDon’t Stress About Sticking To The Writing Prompt

No.  Really.  I Mean It.  Don’t Stress About Sticking To The Writing Prompt

Don’t Stress About Finishing An Idea (You Can Add Later)

Don’t Stress About “Succeeding” or “Failing”

Don’t Stress About What You’re Turning In Each Day

Don’t Stress About November 28th (however you recognize the holiday weekend)


***************************

How to submit your work for Challenge #29

You have options.  They are:

Save your script as a PDF or Word Doc and send as an attachment to an email sent to ThresholdWritingChallenge@gmail.com

OR

Copy and paste your script in the body of an email and send it to ThresholdWritingChallenge@gmail.com

OR

Post your script online (as a Google doc, or in a blog post, on your own personal website, etc.) - email a link to this script to ThresholdWritingChallenge@gmail.com
(If you’re going to Google doc route, just make sure to have the document public, or give permissions to our email address to open it)

When emailing us, make the subject line of your email - Challenge #29
(That just helps us sort through the email more quickly)
(Or, you know, just reply to this email if you want :)

OR

Post the link for the online document option noted above in the comments section below on this very blog post for today's challenge on our writing challenge blog



Write Nov. 29th - or earlier if you like
Again, this is: Due: Saturday, November 30th, 12pm noon Central Time
(1pm Eastern Time, 11am Mountain Time, 10am Western Time for the US Time Zones)



**************************

And, just to reassure you, no, we are not going to be sticklers about you following these directions down to the minutest detail - the important thing is that you write, and then that you share it with us, so we can keep track of who’s writing every day.

Also, no, there is no penalty for finishing and submitting early - but it also isn’t a race, so give yourself all the time up til 12 noon on Saturday to write if you need it.  When you’re done, you’re done.

Again, remember, it doesn’t need to be great, it doesn’t even need to be responding to this prompt (the prompt is just there so you’re not staring at a blank screen to start with no idea what to write about :)

Doesn't even need to be complete - you could have the beginning or the middle or the end of an idea, maybe two out of three but not all, that's still fine. This is all about getting things started, you can write more later.

You have one more day to build on whatever you come up with today, if you want.

Just get anything on the page, even if won't make sense to anyone else, as long as it make sense to you.

It just needs to be something.


***********************
 

And that something can be:



Lights up.

Mrs. Baker offers a plate of donuts to
Mr. Smith, who is shoeing the horse for
Mr. Jock E. Rider.

Lights down.

The End



That’s always your escape hatch, every day.

That’s your base line.

Build on it.

Have fun.

Don’t stress.

Make an impulsive decision and run with it.

Breathe.

You’ve got the day.

Just write.

And take good care of yourselves, and each other.