Tuesday, November 2, 2021

Reminder: You Can Ignore the Writing Prompts


There have been some questions in the last day or so along the lines of:

"I can't figure out how to fit a fire escape into the play that I'm writing."

To which I reply:

"That's fine. Keep writing your play the way you want to.  Ignore the prompt."

While we appreciate what good rule followers you all are, you can feel free to give yourself a break any and all of the 30 days.

If you're working on a project and you just want to use the structure of daily having to turn in pages to the challenge as a way for you to either start or complete a script, go for it. (I do that ALL the time.)

The point is to write every day, not to write to the specific thing we tell you to.

The prompt is there to help inspire you.  It's not there to get in your way.

If the prompt doesn't work for you, then write something else.

If you want to write a cheeky aside to the rule you're ignoring, like a character saying "Boy, I really wish we had a fire escape for this problem," feel free to make fun of the prompt.  But it's not required that you even acknowledge it that much.

It's not a contest.

You're not being judged.

You're not being graded.

The only thing we want everyone to do is write a little bit every day for a month.

That's the only thing we require of you.

And if you stumble one day and don't write, don't beat yourself up, just write the next day.

Don't sweat the guidelines, other than to put something in writing and then get it into our hands by 8am, via any of the routes outlined in the prompts.

Don't make it more complicated than that.

Just write.



No comments:

Post a Comment

2023 November Playwriting Challenge Final Numbers

 Hi folks I guess it shouldn’t surprise me that it’s taken me over a week to tidy things up on the November playwriting challenge this year ...