It started off with the Playwrights Union's annual Playwriting Challenge in February.
It actually probably started off with homework and projects and grades in school. But in the modern era of me trying to get my shit together on my own -
It started off with the Playwrights Union. Every February they do a challenge where you right a play in a month.
I wrote my first play with them about four years ago. I had 55 pages at the end of the month and a new play in May of that year. I skipped a year and two years ago wrote a play in a month that was 119 pages long. That play is now more like 85 pages long and it has had several readings and workshops over the years.
Last year, I wrote a play that was 122 pages. It was a play that I developed with another theatre company in town and by September 2015 I had a really solid play I started sending around. It got me my first job in TV and my current manager. I'm hoping it does a few more things for me before the year is up.
Then I wrote a play this year for the Playwrights Union Rewrite Challenge and that play got me into a theatre company and I'm hoping it will do a few more things for me before the year is up as well.
For two years, I also ran the PU's Pilot Writing Challenge. I wrote a Pilot last year - I spent this year revising it. And I wrote another pilot the year before that, which all of my friends loved. My manager did not.
Inspired by all of that productivity, I decided that this year would be The Year of Challenges - I would give myself various writing challenges every month this year. I made it through February. Then I got staffed. Then I had to write my episodes. Then I had other things to write. I mostly wrote something every month, but the Year did not work out the way I had planned. It worked out BETTER than I had planned.
Now as I start to wind down this year - moving into November and the holidays, I'm thinking about what my challenge will be next year. Is there a way I want to frame the year?
I know I want to work in television again. I don't have a ton of control over that. Although, I'm trying to be more social and to network more. I am attending WGA screenings and trying to join a few committee meetings for groups I identify with - gays, Latinos and Asians. It's a good way to spend the end of the year, right? Hopefully I'll get invited to a few Hollywood Holiday parties. Why not?
I'm hoping that I have the same - if not more - luck I had this year with The Year of Challenges. Meaning, I hope that I start something and then get work so that the plan gets derailed. I'm ending this year feeling like I've run out of ideas. Although, an idea did pop into my head for a new play a month ago. So the minute I think I'm done, they pull me right back in. Yes, Hollywood is the Mafia. Does that means I'm going to be a part of the Gay Mafia this year? Is that where I'm going here?
I've made a decision that next year will be The Year of TV. NO, not just watching TV, although a year of watching TV sounds glorious. It's going to be the year of writing TV. Now that can mean a lot of things. I'm hoping it means a hefty weekly fee to write for a series. But it also will mean that I'm going to write TV pilots this year. Samples, specs, scripts for sale. And since I'm a fan of the fiscal quarter - and I want to put some of that money and affluent shine on things - I'm going to write one pilot each quarter. A pilot between January 1 - March 31, April 1 - June 30, July 1 - September 30 and October 1 - December 31, 2017.
Is that ambitious? Yes. Is it crazy? Yes. Have I been ambitious and crazy before and succeeded? Yes.
So that's the plan. And we all know that we make plans and God laughs. I made a big plan for a Year of Writing Challenges and God laughed at me all the way into a TV show, a new manager, a new theatre company, SDSU and the Writers Guild of America. I'm ready for him to pee his pants next year.
My intention is to work.
My intention is expansion.
My intention is growth.
My intention is more.
I am grateful for The War of Art.
I am grateful for the restful times.
I am grateful for love and friendship.
I am grateful for life long support.
I am grateful for ideas - wherever they come from.
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