Purge Starts Today

Last year, a bunch of writers from the Playwright Binge, led by Mark Harvey Levine, started a Playwright Purge group. They take the challenge of trying to write something, even just a few lines, every day for 30 days. It sounds simple, I know, and a lot easier than the write a novel in 30 days plan, but it's still a fun group and a good way to try to inject a little discipline into our writing lives. I've really been struggling to find the time lately, and I think this will help. My most basic goal is to write something every day, but ideally I want to put in at least an hour.

For one day, at least, it's worked. I spent an hour this morning working on a new start to the new novel. I actually got to use the new notebook that I bought last week--I think I'm going to switch to longhand for this draft, at least for now. Just to shake things up a bit. It's funny the kinds of tricks writers use to motivate ourselves, or to shift things just a little bit. This narrative is a double first person story, so I'm actually writing each character's section in different colored ink, to try to make me more conscious of my efforts to differentiate their voices. Sounds goofy, I know, but I'm curious to see if it'll help.

Here's hoping for a productive February.

Playwriting Purge

I've signed up to do the latest Playwright Purge challenge (today is the first day). This is a group started by Mark Harvey Levine, that takes up a challenge similar to the one on the Playwrights Submission Binge (which focuses on marketing): write something every day for 30 days. (We're taking July 4th off and going until July 31st.)

You don't have to be a playwright to join up, and you don't have to write a play. I'm going to be working on rewrites to my novel. It's just a nice way to have a little bit of camaraderie and accountability (and fun) while also getting a little more work done. (This should be especially helpful in July.) There are about two dozen writers signed up so far (mostly from the Binge). Check it out.