This is me today.  Call me Mufasa from  The Lion King  (not really).   I haven’t cut my hair for some time and now it’s literally grown on me.  We’ve all been “masked up” for the better part of a year.  We know each other only by our eyes peeking out from above our masked faces.   There will come a time where we will all be able to comfortably take our masks off in front of family and friends (and not just in another Zoom call).   But for now, we are in the thick of this Covid fight and must carry on.   One day at a time.

Writing is that way.  One day at a time.   Patient.  Tedious work.  And every once and awhile fulfilling.   And sometimes even inspiring.  Writing is also about unmasking ideas/feelings.  A good writer has to dig deep inside his own personal experiences  and those he witnesses in others.  Writing is giving voices to those who are often not heard from – the shy, the shunned, the abused, the cripple, the loser…  I love this quote by French writer Voltaire:   “Writing is the painting of the voice.”

I haven’t “painted” a new script for some time.  Aside from two short plays (AFTER ALEX and THAT”S HOW IT GOES SOMETIMES), I currently seem caught up in re-writing three of my scripts – one play and two screenplays:  ANIMAL, BREAK AWAY and LET IT SHINE.   In the last two years, each of these scripts have been re-written three times each.   I get tired of repeating these same titles…and I also get tired of saying writing is re-writing.  It doesn’t seem to end.  But know this:   You cannot please every critic.   At some point you have to set your babies down and send them out into the world to be judged.  Thankfully – mercifully – I’m coming to the end of this re-writing process.

After my latest re-write of ANIMAL, this play is now competing in the following festivals:

Playwrights First is a New York based Playwriting Contest.  The Voaden Prize is run out of the Drama Department at Queens University.   And The Bloomington Playwrights Project awards the Woodward/Newman Award for best play in Bloomington, Indiana.  Husband and wife team Joanne Woodward and Paul Newman began this prize.

Last month I finished the latest draft of BREAK AWAY and will be submitting it to a bunch of Screenwriting competitions/festival in the coming weeks which include the following:

And finally, I am tweaking/re-writing parts of my screenplay LET IT SHINE one more time before I send her out in the world which can be a cruel place for rejection.   I had a meeting with screenplay consultant David Wappel,  who loved the script and was somewhat surprised it hasn’t done as well in contests.  He feels, because of the times we are living in (both the rocky political landscape, and the uncertainly of the pandemic), that LET IS SHINE will find a place to shine this year to counter the kind of negativity that is out there.  Let’s hope.  SHINE is a sweet, coming of age story about bullying and kindness and finding the courage to rise up and help those in need.

After SHINE, I will begin a new screenplay.  I have talked about how my focus has been hampered during this pandemic.  It’s so easy to beat one’s self up.  It’s a challenge to be authentic in these times as we are all walking around with masks…almost like we are hiding ourselves from each other – fear of the other.   A lot of what holds me back from starting a new project is that fear of unmasking untapped stories, ideas, characters.  Writing needs to be bold, fearless, otherwise, why do it?  I’ll leave you a quote from Hemingway, who says it best regarding the art of writing…and what it costs: