36 Ways to Write a Play

Non-dog owners can substitute cats, or rats...but not goldfish.

Coffee.
Stay in the room.
Ignore the dog's pleas for a walk.
Delete your Facebook profile.
Throw your cell phone off the pier (the screen was cracked anyway).
Construct a fortress of solitude, only the dog is allowed in.
Write the beginning.
Write the end.
Connect the dots.
Look up name meanings on the internet and christen your characters according to their personality traits.
Coffee.
Procrastinate to create urgency.
Keep it top secret (when you talk about it, you release the steam).
Promise the dog a walk tomorrow.
Stay in the room.
Let the dishes pile up.
Pace.
Let your ego inflate until you believe that people actually care about the ridiculous little story you’re telling.
Deflate your ego enough to make it good.
Read your favorite plays.
Read your own stuff to remember what your voice sounds like.
Scour files for bits and pieces of old writing that might save you from having to come up with anything new.
Come up with something new.
Hate it.
Save everything. Even the stuff you hate.
Roll around on the floor and groan.
Coffee.
Look at what you saved, and start to like it.
Get in a fight with your characters.
Let them win.
Learn how to do that neat pen flip thing and do it to calm yourself down.
Stay. In. The. Room.
Talk to yourself.
Talk to the dog in the voices of your characters.
Read poetry.
Write gibberish until your brain can’t take it anymore and imposes order.
Do jumping jacks to combat the jitters.
Ignore the clock.
Look at the clock and get scared.
Sit in a comfy chair and tell yourself you can’t get up because the floor has turned to lava, the only words that will change it back are: “Black out. End of Play.”
Pat the dog sleeping next you. (She’s lava proof.)
Stay in the room.













Lava proof dog awaits walk...under her that's boiling lava.