Hi folks
I awoke today to find a whole bunch of emails from one writer and thought, “what’s up with that?”
It turns out they had accidentally been emailing all their writing not to a gmail account but to an email address ending in a misspelled “gmsil.com”. Whoops!
Thankfully they could just forward all 13 daily writing bits thus far from a sent folder with their original time stamps so I could slot them all into my tracking chart after the fact. So our stats just got bumped up by one more writer and a bunch more pages. Cool!
So I guess I should say, if you think you’ve been sending me email all this time, but haven’t heard back from me, I haven’t been ignoring you, you might have misspelled something :). I can’t respond every day but I try to do so every few days at least, so if you’ve heard nothing from me even though you’ve been submitting stuff, doublecheck :)
That said, of course, you don’t need to send stuff in. Some people aren’t. They are less interested in the payout at the end than in just writing every day. And that’s fine, too.
Just write, whether you share it with me or not.
Let’s get you that writing prompt…
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Challenge #16 - Brains
Due: Thursday, November 17th, 12pm noon Central Time
(1pm Eastern Time, 11am Mountain Time, 10am Western Time for the US Time Zones)
No, this isn’t a zombie prompt (but if you want to make it one for yourself, go ahead)
You ever have that moment when you head into another room to get something or do something, and then you get to the room and you’ve completely forgotten why you came there in the first place? And sometimes you can just stand there and look around you and the reason comes to you? But sometimes you need to go back into the other room you left in order to get your memory to kick in - ah, this was the reason this room told me to go to the other room, because we were missing X?
Another example: when my mom had her brain tumor, they had to give her steroids to reduce the pressure on her brain so basic cognitive functions could kick in again and she was more herself. She still needed physical therapy to relearn how to walk, but if you asked her, “Hey, where’s the checkbook, we need to pay some bills?” She could visualize where in the house it was and describe for you exactly where to look to find it, and sure enough, when we got home from the hospital and looked, there it was.
The reason I got the idea for this prompt: a co-worker at the more customer-service style of my two day jobs revealed an unexpected trait recently. Prior to that, I’d only heard them conversing with others about high-level, complex sociological and political issues. But apparently, they have Tourette Syndrome. We’re all wearing masks in the front-line area dealing with customers so at first it was hard to tell where the noises were coming from. But it seems when it’s a “bad day” or perhaps a stressful situation (again, they’ve been working alongside me for months and this never happened before, not sure what the trigger was), they start whistling, and then random phrases will pop out of their mouth.
(Whistle)
“Uh oh.”
(Whistle)
“Uh oh. Cats!”
(Whistle)
“Fire truck”
(Whistle)
“Your mother is a cat. Fire truck.”
(Whistle)
“Vaccines gave me autism.”
(Whistle)
“I’d like some cake, please.”
(Whistle)
“Uh oh. Cats!”
(This one, or just an exclamation of “Cats!” without an “Uh oh” first happens a lot.)
The brain is a strange and mysterious thing.
What brain-related thing, what misfiring synapses, what strange connections or nonsensical phrases might inspiring a little writing?
Try that.
Or whatever else your brain feels like writing.
(1pm Eastern Time, 11am Mountain Time, 10am Western Time for the US Time Zones)
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If you’re not interested in this prompt, you can try 2021’s challenge #16:
Poetry
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 :)
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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 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 Thanksgiving
Don’t Stress About “Succeeding” or “Failing”
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How to submit your work for Challenge #16
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 #16
(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 above in the comments
section on this very blog post for this very challenge on the writing
challenge blog below
Again, this is: Due: Thursday, November 17th, 12pm noon Central Time
(1pm Eastern Time, 11am Mountain Time, 10am Western Time for the US Time Zones)
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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 Central Time on Thursday 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 14 more days 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.
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And that something can be:
Lights up.
A person walks onstage, looks around.
They whistle.
PERSON: Uh oh. Cats.
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.
Matthew A. Everett
Literary Director
Threshold Theater
(he/him/his)
Coming Up:
Threshold Theater’s New Play Reading Series
A reading of “Leviathan” by Bethany Dickens Assaf
Saturday, November 19, 2022 - 7pm
The Black Hart of Saint Paul - 1415 University Avenue West in St. Paul
Our video recording of our third live play reading in the New Play Reading series, Sam Walsh's "The Visible," is up on our YouTube channel (available to stream through the end of November) -
Support Threshold Theater on Give to the Max Day, November 17th
(Or feel free to give early, any time between November 1st through 16th)
Here's the link: https://www.givemn.org/story/Kssucf
"Write. Find a way to keep alive and write. There is nothing else to say."
- James Baldwin
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