...and for the rest of us

Twitter, quite obviously, is a word-based medium, so there are a lot of powerusers of the format who happen to be writers.  Susan Orlean is an absolute hoot, and #FlashFriday is a fun exercise where people tag their short pieces for others to enjoy.  I do this periodically, and have "met" people whose work I like and who are kind enough to comment on my short stories. 

So NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month, is a huge deal on Twitter.  Seems that 80% of tweeps will be writing during November, in the hopes of getting that book down on the page.  Now, I have a concept for a novel, and I am even 3 chapters in, but that's not really my thing.  So onward, NaNo's, may your words on the last day of November be "The End."

I prefer to write plays.  I tend to think in dialogue, and scene images, and I just find it really hard to tie all that together in prose form (except in supershort bits like FlashFriday).  But plays, that's exactly how my creative brain works.  So I'll be doing NaPlWriMo again this November.  Last November, I wrote Spurred Revenge, a 1 Act Wild West Noir.  I'm still pretty proud of it, and it was successfully workshopped on a local stage.  At some point I need to get back to those revisions and start submitting it to community and college theaters.

This year, for 2010, I'll be a Rebel Rhino.  Once you've successfully won NaPlWriMo, which means completing a 75 page play, start to finish, not having written any part of it previously, you are allowed to rebel.  That means that you can bend the rules a little.  You can write multiple shorter plays, monologues, or as is the case for me, write on a work that you've already started. I wrote a 10 minute play about a postapocalyptic prison and the 4 remaining inmates.  I showed it around to my trusted readers, and one said she was really taken by the concept and wanted to produce it as a 1 Act.  So back I went and wrote the 1 Act, and did a living room read of it.  Then my producer had a smash-bang-superrific concept for an Act 2, which would go BACK in time to visit why the world ended up the way it did, and would look at the bond between these inmates.  Fabulous.  We have a lead for a venue in the spring, so I really need to get this thing written so that there's time to workshop and revise if there's really any hope in getting it produced on that timetable. 

So although I have another concept that I'd love to begin from the beginning, I'm going to be responsible and rebel.  Doesn't that sound great?