World premiere of The Interview at the Boston Theater Marathon

I've been using this blog as a workspace and my new home site to announce achievement things, but since this particular achievement came out of this blog, I thought it fitting to post this here.

Yesterday, I (and my mother and sister, and my girlfriend, and her parents, and several of our close friends... so I like the attention, what of it?) watched the world premiere of THE INTERVIEW, which is the play that came out of Week Seven's exercise.

I'm not sure I have words to express this, except that it was an incredible experience. The performance was a perfect collaboration between everyone involved—the director, Bridge Rep of Boston's Olivia D'Ambrosio, and the actors, Deborah Martin and Adam Lauver. (Also I helped a little, but they did the heavy lifting required to make a script into a play.) We got some huge laughs, and I think the poignant moment at the end really hit with the audience. And then it was over, and everyone congratulated me, and I was officially a playwright.

The stated purpose of this blog was to get me writing again, and though my output has often been... let us say "sporadic"... I finally do think of myself as a writer now. A large part of that is you all—everyone who has read, "Liked," and commented on my words.

I'm excited to start work on the next piece, whatever that might be.

Perhaps Week Fifteen...?

Three-Minute Fiction, Round 11

You have until Sunday to come up with 600 words for NPR's latest round of Three-Minute Fiction:

Write a story in which a character finds an object that he or she has no intention of returning.

until 11:59 p.m. EDT on Sunday, May 12.

Russell says this prompt could inspire everything from horror stories to comedies to love stories. She says there's a lot of dramatic potential, particularly in the moment the object is found.

"Instead of using the found thing as an opportunity to prove that you're virtuous, you're a good person, you're gonna turn it in to the Amtrak lady," Russell says, "maybe you find something and the initial surprise is just, 'Wow, I've discovered ... a desire, a greediness.' "

Read the rest here, and good luck!

Jurisprudence

So it turns out that serving on a jury takes a lot out of you!

I was impaneled (I think that's the verb I want) on a two-week criminal trial recently, and in the mornings my writing was not so much. It was an intense experience—much more emotional than I would have guessed. Meaningful, though. It's difficult to describe the feeling that what you are doing at this moment is vitally important to many people. 

I mean, the entire courtroom had to stand when we walked in the room. And when we left the room. 

(More italics = increased likelihood that you will understand that this was an experience.)

Anyway, that trial was very nearly my sole focus for the past several weeks (also there was a bombing and a lockdown/manhunt), but I'm back now. 

This week, rehearsals also start for Bridge Rep of Boston's staging of THE INTERVIEW for the Boston Theater Marathon. Going to be a very exciting, very busy week! 

Housekeeping, Facebook, and thee

Just a little bit of housekeeping here at the Unwritten Word:

The About page now features the content that used on be in the Home page. 

The Home page now links to my professionalish portfolioish website: brandoncrose.com. 

And lastly, if you haven't yet "Liked" the Unwritten Word's Facebook page, I will offer you my unbiased opinion: You should totally Like the Unwritten Word's Facebook page. It's a good way to receive updates about the weekly challenges and also I will sometimes post content on there that does not appear on the blog at all!

(Except, okay, that these posts do then appear within the Facebook page widget, which resides in the right column of the blog. Whatever. Don't be a nerd.)

That's all I got, except to brag that I spent this fine Saturday morn submitting revised versions of Weeks One, Seven, and Fourteen to three different short-play festivals.

However else I waste this day, I can now do so with a clear conscience.

Week Fifteen: Functions of the brain, like sleep, that are innate but not understood

Soooo... the brain, basically.

This sounds like a research-heavy one, but I'm going with it anyway because the other ones I have queued up are too awful to contemplate. I'm choosing perplexing over terrible this week; I hope that's okay.

I think originally I wanted to write about ESP and telekinesis and I thought the brain's LATENT ABILITIES might be a good psuedo-scientific way into those. 

You know, I could always just write a story about someone who keeps forgetting stuff. Forgetting is also innate to the brain. You can't tell me it's not!

Anyway... time to get brainy.

Reflections on Week Fourteen

[Read the completed play here.]

So the final result is not quite dreams mixed with everyday life. I don't know if I'm clever enough to pull that off in a way that is both deep and compelling. Instead, what I decided to focus on was the idea of something that is not your life mixing so deeply with your life that it's not clear where one begins and the other ends.

Yes, folks: smart phones.

[I don't have a vendetta or anything. Mine is an artist's detached interest.]

Once I figured out the setup, my fear with this play was that it would be too slice-of-life: no story, nothing for the audience to relate to. Pretty quickly, however, my problem was the opposite: these characters wanted to banter with full abandon, and it was all I could do to hold them back.

The play didn't really come together until I realized that I had written the second half of the play before the first. I went back and tried to show how the technology had mixed with and even co-opted their lives, and took the time to work toward a more gradual build of conflict. And, though I was building up Dan's crush on Jenn, I expected what ultimately happens between Jenn and Ashley to be the climax—I didn't even see Dan and Jenn's parting moment coming until it was right there. 

It's that moment, for me, that makes this a play. Relationships will always be more interesting to me than making a statement, I guess. The best I can hope for is to express meaning through the relationship. 

And hopefully I have done that here.

Next up, Week Fifteen!

Week Fourteen: Mixed!

Week Fourteen's completed challenge can be found here!

As you'll see, I went a bit off the rails concerning the "dreams" part of the prompt, but hopefully the spirit of the thing is intact. 

Let me know what you think! I'm going to give it one more polish and then submit it to a festival by the end of the day Monday (April 15th).

Reflections tomorrow, followed by Week Fifteen!

Week Fourteen: Need your help...

Hey you!

You.

People using their smartphones in social situations. What's up with that?

No—seriously. What is up with that.

Love doing it? Hate when it happens? Think it's funny? Sad? Perfectly okay? A comment on our times?

I just need some content here. Don't trouble yourself with clever, pithy, meaningful.

Just... talk to me.

Does this make me "Amazon official"?

From writer and editor James H. Duncan:

Author Pages: I’ve used CreateSpace/Amazon to publish a collection of poetry, and I plan to use them to publish my upcoming collection of short stories, but I had no idea that they allow any author—no matter who has published the book—to create and modify an author page at Amazon.com. You can even link blogs and twitter accounts to the page. It’s like having a second website for free. Might have been common knowledge before, but it was cool news to me, and I thank Jon Fine, the director of Author and Publisher Relations for Amazon, for that great tip.

Read the rest here!

Well. I also did not know this. I've been the author of several nonfiction titles for a few years now, and never once did it occur to me to register with Amazon and claim them all as mine.

We'll just have to fix that...

How to procrastinate productively

Courtesy of Writer's Digest, ten ways you can help your book/play/screenplay/etc. that are not actually writing it:

1. Write a blog post. Reinforce your expertise while doing a little fun, informal writing.
2. Visit your online community. Take a five-minute coffee break with other writers on Facebook and Twitter. Let their good news, struggles, questions, and insights percolate through you; chime in here and there. Notice any seeds of new ideas, projects, or collaborations taking shape in your peripheral vision.
3. Make order. Sort and purge your in-box. Vacuum or do dishes or fold laundry. You can improve beauty and order around you while resetting whatever brain pretzel you may be locked in.
4. Stand up and stretch. It’s far easier to keep butt-in-chair if blood is flowing to it!
5. Do your due diligence. Enter your business expense data into QuickBooks or pay bills.
6. Get prepared. Update your to-do list.
7. Empty your mind. A quick, three-minute meditation can settle your stirred waters so you can see clearly again.
8. Manage your contacts. Add business cards and other contact information you’ve collected recently into your contact database, sorting and categorizing appropriately by type of audience (students, colleagues, newsletter subscribers, etc.).
9. Share the wealth. Visit a few favorite blogs or websites and tweet about your findings.
10. Call your mother. (But don’t open the mail while you talk; she won’t like that.)

Read the rest of the article here!

Attentive readers will note that I have just now accomplished points 1 and 9. My procrastination, you see, is doubly productive.