An Elevator Pitch Play

What can you say in one minute? Unless you have a grocery list of things in mind and you’re hyped up on some mega caffeine, most folks don’t actually say a lot in just 60 seconds.

That is why I am completely fascinated with Gi60 (Gone in 60 Seconds) from Screaming Media Productions—the world’s first international 60-second playwriting festival. It’s like Twitter for the stage.

What a fantastic challenge to write a beginning, middle and end that conveys a story to the audience and have it all done in one minute (without a second to spare). It is writing, re-writing and editing at its best. Be succinct or be eliminated from the submission pile.

If you read my post on Script Frenzy, you know how I love a good deadline. The final day to submit to Gi60 is midnight on April 30, 2011. That is over a month away and I find myself wanting to use that time to make sure there aren’t any holes in my play. After all, if an audience only has one minute to enjoy my writing, I best choose my words wisely.

When Are You Most Creative?

I was out really late last night at a concert which somehow managed to mess up my sense of which day is was–surely today was Saturday. Right?  I suddenly had the urge to paint. 

Funny, I hadn’t thought about painting all week. During the week, I think about writing. Something about Monday-Friday makes we want to edit my second novel and get my game plan together for Script Frenzy, which begins in (gasp!) a week.

But when the weekend rolls around, my creative juices take a sharp right and they want to leave the laptop behind and dig into material, ribbons, paints, jewelry findings and glitter.

The rules are wee bit different for my photography. Inspiration for that seems to come when I see it. Even when I venture out to specifically find it (like this past fall when I went leaf peeping). I drove around for hours but only stopped the car a half a dozen times to capture that look or moment in time.

Things that make you go hmmmm…

When are you most creative? Is there a particular day of the week? Time? Environment? Do you listen to music? Need a big cup of coffee? Do you schedule your creative time or do you just let it flow organically?

I shall be putting my computer aside this weekend for my paintbrushes. So I leave you with this quote from Mahatma Gandhi:

“Every moment of your life is infinitely creative and the universe is endlessly bountiful. Just put forth a clear enough request, and everything your heart desires must come to you.”

More Avenues Means More Ways To Get There

If you are writer, you probably have heard about Amanda Hocking and her self-publishing success story. If not, here it is in a nutshell: after being rejected by several publishers she decide to self-publish. She’s gained quite the readership and the dollars to prove it. Today she signed a seven-figure deal with St. Martin’s Press, part of Macmillan, to publish her “Watersong” series. Good for you Amanda!

But I had to wonder what this would mean for her self-publishing efforts? Will those cease to be? If the “Watersong” series is successful, then will St. Martin want to buy up the rights to her other books? While I don’t know the exact details of her deal, I can only assume that St. Martin’s Press will own the exclusive rights to this series thereby prohibiting her from selling it on her own via her traditional method of Amazon.  Don’t get me wrong, it still works out very well for Amanda (she’ll get that money, and they’ll get to be the brand behind her). However, it is unfortunate that she’ll only have the publisher’s avenue of selling this series of books. They will get the “world premiere.”

A very similar thing happens in theatre. Playwrights work really hard to get a theatre to produce their play and that theatre gets to call it a world premiere. If the playwright is lucky to have it produced elsewhere, it moves to being called a regional premiere. With fewer and fewer media outlets covering the arts, some publications won’t review a show if it isn’t a world premiere. While I understand that column inches are precious, this ultimately hurts the playwright.

There is a movement amongst professional new play development theatre companies to have what is called a “rolling world premiere”. The idea being that a show can have multiple premieres as the playwright will be developing that play with different theatres, that serve different patrons and will ultimately produce the highest quality of play.

I wonder why the publishing industry doesn’t adopt a similar plan? Why not let the author make it available across a multitude of platforms thereby assuring the greatest return to them?

Artists are already doing this. They sell their creative endeavors via online venues like Etsy, brick and mortar stores, craft shows, galleries and directly to consumers on the street (such as Jackson Square in New Orleans).

So why then can’t authors do the same?

The more ways that folks can access a creative product can only lead to more sales. And more sales means more pr, more marketing endeavors, and ultimately more dollars in the pocket of the person that put their heart and soul into the piece in the first place.