Still here. Still Writing.

Well, what can I say? Things have been busy and my 500 words per day have gone by the wayside.

Well, the challenge, not my words. I have been keeping up with words, just not those specific words. I'm waffling. You can tell I am getting far more comfortable with this writing thing.

The Literary Consultancy Free Reads

But not all of it has been waffle. I ignored the naysayers and negative ninnies trying to force me into their mould of banality and I submitted a play I had been working on to The National Centre for Writing last year.

And what do you know? The NCW only went and chose my play to be submitted for the Arts Council England funded TLC Free Reads. You could have knocked me down with a feather. A quill even. I was told that I had to keep it a secret...which I did....um...mostly.... for almost half a year.

Then, at the end of April 2019, I was finally given the go ahead to tell everyone. So I wrote all about it on my Acting Blog. I was happier than being told that the ladies is empty when you've been holding it in all morning.

The jesting makes it sound lighthearted, but this was a game changer for me. The recognition that my writing was worthy of being submitted for a professional review had an immense effect on the way that I see myself and my writing. This was an award for talented writers on a low income, where lack of resources was holding them back. I had a talented and published playwright read my work, assess it and give me feedback.

The little girl inside me. The prolific little writer who used to lock herself in her bedroom and write and write for the love of it, did a little cry. It might have leaked out a little into the grown up little girl too. But let's just keep that between you me and the gatepost shall we.

Prize for Outstanding Performance by an MA Creative Entrepreneurship Student

Then... yes, there's more. The very next day. Or the day after. It's all a blur now. I was a bit excited. I got a letter from the University of East Anglia informing me that I had been award the Prize for Outstanding Performance by an MA Creative Entrepreneurship student.

By this point, you could've knocked me down with a slight breeze from a butterfly's wings in the rain forests of Colombia.

Somebody asked me if my play was on the internet so they could read it. It's isn't. It isn't complete yet and I'm keeping it unpublished for the time being in case I have the opportunity to publish and/or perform it when complete.

I've also started on a second play since. I didn't want to carry on with Play One when I knew feedback was coming because I wanted to know what the feedback was before I continued. Now I have two to finish.

The Bruntwood Prize

I started on the second play with the intention of entering another Script writing competition. Not that I expect to win anything for a second time, just because I was fortunate enough to win one thing. But you've got to be in it to win it.

More importantly, having a deadline gives you a goal to aim for and motivation to keep going. So, even if you don't achieve what you set out to do, you still get further than you would have done if you didn't have an aim in the first place. That may have made more sense in my head.

I am aiming to submit something for the Bruntwood Prize in June Their blog posts, online workshops and discussions and videos are amazing. Go check them out if play writing is your thing. The resources on the website are brilliant. There have a plethora of archived pages and posts from previous years too with advice and workshops from established playwrights. I wish I had found it sooner. So I am telling you now. Go look it up.

I set myself a challenge to write 20,000 words in a month. Yeah, yeah okay , that didn't happen. But I bet neither Stephen King nor George RR Martin have the KnobCentre breathing down their neck every fortnight to make sure that they are applying for "real" jobs do they?

But I did get 19% done and that's 19% more of a play at the end of April that I didn't have at the beginning of April.