I'm a liiiiiittle late to the March Goals recap because I've been writing writing writing and reading reading reading! (More about the reading part coming soon!)

To recap, my goals this year include:

• read one play per day on the New Play Exchange
• submit to at least 10 opportunities per month, for a total of at least 120 submissions in 2018
• write one page per day of anything at all
• complete a new 10-minute play per month
• complete a new 1-act play per quarter
• complete a rough draft of two full-length plays

The first part of the month of March was 100% taken up with producing Playwrights Say Never Again: An Evening of Short Plays at a local event space, The Palace Theater. I've never produced anything before, and it was an overwhelming experience that I'm still processing. I intend to blog about the whole thing one of these days, but every time I sit down to do it, I start panicking until the Ian McKellen/Brene Brown/Gandalf/Molly Weasley voice inside my head says "Shhh shhh, it's okay, you can do it later." (What, do you not have an Ian McKellen in your head giving you permission to relax??)

I honestly thought I was never going to have energy to write anything for a while after that production, but I was wrong! I wrote a lot of very, very short pieces.

I also started volunteering for Code Red Playwrights, an initiative started by playwrights CJ Erlich and Rachael Carnes. The goal of this initiative is to write plays for every mass shooting in modern US history: a tall order, but one that is drawing many, many voices to the table and telling some incredibly powerful stories. I'm helping CJ and Rachael vet the plays as they come in (there are some specific rules about content and anonymity that everyone has to follow); through this role (which I'm honored to have), I've been introduced to the work of so many exemplary playwrights.

So how did I do with my goals in March?

• 31 submissions (bringing my 2018 total to 82/120 so far!!!!! a liiitle ahead of sched)
• Instead of working on one new 10-minute play, I wrote a lot of shorter plays
  • CRAZY HAPPY NOISE, TIL I WALTZ AGAIN WITH YOU, IN GOOD COMPANY, and NEIGHBORS for #theatreActionGunControl and Code Red Playwrights
  • SHAKE IT, BABY, MANTICORE!, GOAT-SUCKER, and HYENAS, all part of a fun lil experiment I'm still determining the boundaries of and hope to share more about soon
  • Started work on a three full-length projects that I wasn't expecting to dive into this year (oops), but such is life
  • Still dabbling around on my Horror Play and started work on revisions of the second act of Paradoxysm
• I read 31 play on NPX, through Code Red Playwrights, and through the Virtual Writing Workshop

What are your goals for the year? What are you doing to achieve them? Whose voice is in your head giving you permission to take a bubble bath or reread Harry Potter instead of processing a stressful yet rewarding event? Comment and let me know!