Just keep writing.

Playwriting 411 has been wonderful! Monday we read our scripts that we wrote over the weekend and did a class critique. Because the class is so small, it's easy to feel comfortable enough to share your work (even if you think it's far from your best). Then Dr. Miller passed out newspapers. Everyone had to take two sections, and find an article from each that you could combine and use for inspiration as a plot. We worked for about ten minutes and then we wrote our ideas, and a potential title on the board, and we discussed the pros, cons, staging ability, and potential for each of the ideas. Then we each wrote a few lines between our potential protagonist and antagonists. Our assignment for Wednesday was to come back with three ideas for plays, and names for protagonists and antagonists. If we wanted, our newspaper inspired piece could be one of them. Dr. Miller shared his class motto "It doesn't matter if whatever you think of is brilliant, that's nice, but what's important is that you're thinking. A lot of times artistic excellence comes from complete and utter bull. No one has to know." It's actually a nice little thought to keep in the back of your head. It really does help to just write everything down and then work later to sift through and pick out what's worthwhile. Wednesday we brought in our ideas. We shared them, and all three of us kept our newspaper ideas, but we all had modifications. We did a question-answer type discussion about each potential play, then we picked our favorite and worked through a few writing exercises to help develop our ideas. It was nice, and fairly helpful. For Monday, we need a 3-10 page script.