I have decided that 2016 will be The Year of Challenges where I take on one challenge a month to focus on. In most months, it might be more than one challenge. But I'm trying to manage my energy so that I sustain this Year of Challenges all the way through 2016. I'm not setting expectations of what those Challenges will result in. I leave that open to all of the positive outcomes available to me. But I do have certain short term targets I'm trying to reach.
But the First Quarter in particular will deal with rewriting scripts. January's Challenge is to rewrite something I wrote in 2015. In this case, it will be a pilot I started in October as a part of my Pilot Writing Challenge and continued with in November as a part of my Pilot Rewrite Challenge. If I'm being honest, it goes back to September with my outline. This pilot will be the one new pilot I started last year. I will have a new pilot I'm sending out to potential representatives and this pilot which I can say I am finishing up when I am asked what I am working on. I also have an idea for a new pilot that I'm mulling over to see if the idea continues to intrigue me in April or May when I actually start working on it.
The thing I have learned over the past two years of this kind of productivity is that it takes planning and dedication--every day dedication--to get nearly 3000 pages written in two years. I am constantly thinking about what I'm working on. It's a bit narcissistic, sure. But being an artist is an easily identifiable form of narcissism. You have to assume that your voice is worth being heard by the public, whether that's someone other than yourself or thousands or millions. But the size of that audience makes me want to withdraw even more and go into myself and consider what I am saying. And the thought of that takes me back to Walt Whitman's Song of Myself, which is one of my all time favorite pieces of literature. More on that in a later post.
I can't just write a play in a month or a pilot in a month. I have to have an idea. I have to think about that idea and let it roam around in my head for months or years. But I have set up these twelve challenges this year, so I have a month for writing each project. But that month must just be writing. It can't be to write my outline or start the research process. I can't go from conception to first draft in a month. I'm fast and I like to write quickly, but if I don't have an idea which has settled in my brain and started to spread itself around like a virus, then it doesn't really have much impact for me. So I have to have a plan.
And the plan for January is to rewrite something I've already written. My plan for February is to work on the play I started at the end of last year. The plan for March is to rewrite a play I wrote two years ago for a reading in April. I have my work ahead of me. While those are three goals for the first quarter of 2016, I will be teaching and I'll be looking for work. Even though I believe, according to the things I do know about the first half of the year, that I will have more things scheduled I also have set a stricter writing schedule for myself than I have the past two years. This is not because I think I'm going to get more done. But this is because I feel like taking the next step will involve more writing challenges throughout the year. It's a way for me to organize myself.
Rewriting is also a way for me to ease myself into the new year. I won't technically be writing anything new (or anything I haven't already started) until April. That also switches up the dynamic a bit for me. For the past two years, I started with a new play in February. That kind of carried me into my year. But I'm starting in January with something that's a carry over from last year. But this idea that the First Quarter is the rewrite quarter is a way to close out 2015 and really make a steady leap into 2016. Rewriting is also a re-evaluation. It's an assessment. It's a check in. In a way it preps me for writing some new stuff in the Second Quarter. It's not easy per se, but it's not just jumping into stuff.
Going into the third year of having a writing plan makes me feel good. It makes me feel like I have established a routine. Now I know that the five script writing year was not a fluke. That I actually improved on my numbers from 2014. Not that that's my goal. But I feel like I'm accomplishing more and more. And this is where my focus needs to be. I'm in a fancy pair of Adidas sweatpants and a nice hoodie from J. Crew. I'm sitting on the sofa and I'm getting to work. It's routine. It's a practice. It's consistent.
I am grateful for a third year of consistent writing.
I am grateful for every day I get to write.
I am grateful for the inspiration that continues to show up.
I am grateful for the friendships forged from writing.
I am grateful for the food I had today.
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