Hi folks
We have reached the midpoint of the month - day and challenge 15 of 30!
No matter how much writing you've done or haven't done over the past two weeks, well done, everyone!
Every day you write something (no matter how good or bad you think it might be in the moment) is a better day than one where you don't write. These are just first drafts, you can go back and fix whatever you want later. For now, just let the pages flow.
Happy writing to all!
And also remember, you can ignore this prompt and write whatever you like.
Just write some pages and turn them in before Thursday, 12 noon Central Time. That's enough to satisfy the challenge.
Let’s get you that writing prompt…
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Challenge #15 - Pictures That Haunt You
Due: Thursday, November 16th, 12pm noon Central Time
(1pm Eastern Time, 11am Mountain Time, 10am Western Time for the US Time Zones)
Back in the day, when you couldn’t take pictures with a phone you carried in your pocket, and needed to take or send the film somewhere to be developed before you could see your image (if you weren’t clever enough to have your own darkroom), I saw an old sign out in front of a closed store and the idea of it caught my attention enough to take a picture of it with my old fashioned non-phone camera.
Not exactly sure what the store was when it was open and running as a business, maybe a party supply store, or a toy store, or a candy store. But the sign out in front, on a big pole up high so you could see it from a distance, coming or going, had the image little carousel/merry-go-round on it, and in front of that rendering was a carousel horse on a pole, not flat but in three dimensions.
The carousel horse had fallen into disrepair up there, and the front half of the horse had snapped in half, the head just hanging low. The whole image of the thing, a decaying carousel and horses, painted so brightly but now unattended and left to disintegrate, just appealed to my sense of metaphor.
I wasn’t even looking at the remains of the lettering that was left on the sign below. It was one of those marquee style signs, like you have at a movie theater or a fast food restaurant or a church or a hotel, so you can put up different letters with different titles or messages about sermons or visiting groups or special discounts, etc.
It wasn’t until I got the pictures back from the developer that I actually saw the word on the sign, just below the forlorn carousel horse:
Mark
That’s my brother’s name.
Which, I’ll be honest, creeped me out at the time.
And unsettles me more whenever I think about it nowadays, when my brother is struggling since the death of our mother four years ago.
A less unsettling image was one that grew and changed over the course of several weeks this summer on the side of my regular running path route by the Mississippi River.
One morning I was out running and thought, “Wow, that sunrise is making some really beautiful colors on that old cement wall in the side of the hill.”
But then I realized, hang on, the sun isn’t at the right angle to cast any kind of colored light on that surface which I was still seeing from a distance. And yet the mix of oranges and purples and reds and yellows was really beautiful and evocative of a sunrise. Turns out someone had claimed this random surface to paint a large scale art project.
This was just the first layer, sunset or sunrise colors, with dapples of shadow in it.
The next weekend as I went running by, a new layer had been painted on top of the sunrise colors.
There was a representation of a bright blue river winding across the middle of the whole colored expanse.
The next weekend, there were oversized sprouts of grass and bushes and trees at the various bends of the river mural.
The next weekend there was the profile of a woman, an oversized bird, and a pair of hands planting a new bit of greenery at different bends in the river, and a sun painted above.
The artist had also painted a question across the bottom of the mural:
“What Will Sustain Us?”
A suitable thought to contemplate as you pass by on a run or a walk or a bike ride during the day.
What images catch you by surprise, change as you revisit them, or give you something to meditate on?
Do they conjure up story or character or setting ideas for a scene for you?
If that sounds like a fun thing to play around with, go for it.
Or ignore me and write whatever you want - either way, we’re halfway there!
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If you’re not interested in this prompt, you can try 2021’s challenge #15:
Endings
Or try 2022’s challenge #15:
Fake Adaptations
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”
Don't Stress About What You're Turning In Each Day
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How to submit your work for Challenge #15
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 #15
(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 16th, 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 15 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.
*********************************
And that something can be:
Lights up.
Someone sees a billboard at the side of the road that says, “Jesus - Is He In You?”
They stop and ponder the many different ways one could interpret, or misinterpret, this no doubt well-intentioned message.
Lights down.
The End
(This was an actual billboard I saw once. I'll just leave it here.)
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)
Now Playing:
The video trailer for Threshold Theater's first virtual
play reading in the New Play Reading series (back in May/June 2021), our
reading of “Spellbound”
by Matthew A. Everett - Thanks to his mischievous friend Jeffrey, who’s
begun dabbling in witchcraft, Micah has accidentally dosed his best
friend Auggie with a love potion. Which might be fine, if Auggie wasn’t
straight, and married, or if Auggie’s wife Sarah wasn’t pregnant, or a
practicing witch. With the help of Duncan, who runs the local
metaphysical supply store, the race is on to whip up the antidote before
anyone does something they’ll regret. Now on our YouTube channel
Support Threshold Theater on Give to the Max Day, November 16th
(Or feel free to give early, any time between November 1st through 15th)
Here's the link: https://www.givemn.org/story/Kssucf
Coming Monday, November 20, 2023 at 7pm:
If you’re local in the Twin Cities in Minnesota, come and join us for Threshold Theater's
seventh live play reading in the New Play Reading series. Like all good
LGBTQ+ theater companies, we begin our new season of programming with
"Mediocre Heterosexual Sex" - which is a play by Madison Wetzell.
Location: The Black Hart of Saint Paul
- 1415 University Avenue West, St. Paul, MN - Doors at 6:30pm, Reading
begins at 7pm, Audience discussion to follow the reading -
About the
play: Four hours after her girlfriend dumps her, Erin switches her
Tinder setting to dudes because she hates herself. She quickly meets
Aaron, who is straight, conveniently nearby, and only too happy to
indulge her masochistic fantasies. To translate this deeply ambivalent
first hetero experience, Erin seeks the advice of the only straight
people she knows, a couple in a Dominant/submissive relationship. A
vexed exploration of gender, sex, power, and kink.
Coming Spring 2024:
“4Play with Threshold Theater”
Dates and venue still TBA
Featuring:
Amsterdam, by Collette Cullen
Bluetooth, by Liz Dooley
Hurry Up and Wail, by Anna Ralls
Just for Context, by Bethany Dickens Assaf
The Weird Ellen Prom Queen Trendsetters, by Elizabeth Shannon
Coming for Pride Month 2024
Monday, June 3, 2024
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!
"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
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