Starting the Year Off Right

Another new year begins, and where do things stand? What was accomplished last year? What are the plans for this year? How do we know if we're getting better?

Having a strategy is the key. Here are ideas for developing some strategies. They are separated into the two basic functions a successful playwright must perform to be successful: Writing the Play and Marketing the Play.

As with many projects, the planning activities are similar, even if the goals are different.

WRITING

1. Have a goal

   What do you want to write in the upcoming year? A full-length play? Two full-length plays? Several one-acts? One must have a goal in place to work towards if one wants to know whether that goal is being achieved or not. And specific goals are easier to work toward. Having a goal of, say, "writing for one hour each day" may help with the discipline to become a better writer, but does not provide enough of a specific goal to work towards completing scripts.

2. Develop a plan

   Which of the plays among your goals should you write first? Why is that play the most important or why is it the one that needs to be written first? How will you structure your time to write those plays? Do you devote the first half of the year to one play, and the second half to another?

3. Make a to-do list

   Describe the steps required to complete the chosen play, such as research, outlining, writing, revising, readings.

4. Organize your to-do list

   Which steps should be done first? Which are ready to do now? Which require more research? Which require other parts of the play to be written first?

5. Give yourself deadlines

   Set deadlines to work toward. "Next Summer" is not a deadline. Drafting five pages of dialogue by the weekend is a deadline. Set a date for the first draft to be done, or a date when you would like to hold a reading of the script. Then stick with that date.

6. Each day, pick one "alpha task"

   Some days you can only do so much. So if you have those days, then determine, of all the tasks that could be accomplished, which is the one that, if you do accomplish it, will give you the greatest sense of satisfaction?

These will help get the script up and rolling and towards completion. Then comes the sometimes more difficult tasks of getting the script into the hands of people who can do something with it, producers, directors, and publishers.

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