STACIE THEIS INTERVIEWS ME ON BEACH BOUND BOOKS

   What inspired me to become an author? What were my favorite books as a child? How did Cixi, The Dragon Empress come to be? All these questions and more answered on Stacie Theis' blog, Beach Bound Books.

I NEED FRIENDS FRIDAY BLOG INTERVIEW BY SARAH M. EDEN

   My lovely hostess, historical romance novelist, Sarah M. Eden, and I chat about our fantasies of being rich and famous authors, our favorite foods, continents...and oh yes, writing...on her I Need Friends Friday blog: 

RAYCHELLE MUHAMMED INTERVIEWS ME ON THE WRITER'S BLOCK

   Wow! Some days I look back on my week and realize, that was one heck of a busy week! My interviews by Raychelle Muhammed of the Writer's Block, and Stacie Theis of BeachBoundBooks were posted. Sarah Eden conducted an interview with me via an IM chat box and posted it on the I Need Friends Friday segment of her blog. I chaperoned my daughter's field trip to the Exploratorium in San Francisco, and attended the terrific SCBWI Spring Spirit Conference in Rocklin, California. I'll note some insights and impressions of the conference once I've had a chance to digest it all a little. 
   In the meantime, read about my journey to becoming an author, how Cixi, The Dragon Empress came to be, and how I've promoted my work on Raychelle Muhammed's The Writer's Block. I'll post the other interviews in upcoming days.

ANNOUNCING THE WINNERS OF THE REDWOOD WRITERS' PLAYWRITING CONTEST!

   I've been hard at work on the outline for my middle-grade novel—12 chapters and counting! I think it will be around 15 chapters or so. It's a great accomplishment for me to have gone this far on a longer work as I usually get distracted or stalled around chapter 5 or 6 and move on to other projects, which is partly the reason I've been mostly a picture book writer. However, this story has been aching to be told for about   a year now, so it's time I buckle down and write it. 
   What this has meant is that I'm quite tardy on announcing the winners of the Redwood Writers' play writing contest, of which I was one of the judges. The judges (Lennie Dean, Michael Fontaine, Linda Loveland Reid, and yours truly) met last Tuesday, April 3, to discuss our selections. Interesting process. I think every writer should be on a judging panel for some contest at one point or another. 
   a) You really get a feel for how different reading tastes and opinions can be. Plays that struck a chord with me didn't necessarily strike a chord with my fellow judges and vice versa.
   b) It gives you an insight to what it's like to be on the editor's or agent's side of the desk, combing through the myriad of submissions to find the ones that match your "list". In our case, what would make good theatre.
   c) It's a great exercise in negotiation and compromise. There were plays that we all liked and thought should be produced. There were a few that we didn't really agree on, but we discussed the merits and flaws of each play, and made the final decision based on how well it fit into our general judging criteria (more on that in a bit). And yes, we were all very mature about it, and left with limbs intact.
   So without further ado, the winners of the 2nd annual Redwood Writer's Playwriting contest are...drumroll please...

Malena Eljumaily                           Special Delivery Nancy Lockard Gallop                  There There, Now Gene Griffith                                 Gravediggers Teresa LeYung-Ryan                    Answer Me Now Elaine Maikovska                          The Play Is the Thang Amanda McTigue                          Turn The Other Harry Reid                                    GPS Elizabeth VanPatten                       Dream Girl Jean Wong                                    BFF

CONGRATULATIONS to all the playwrights! You will truly enjoy the thrill of working with a director and seeing your story come to life on stage. Theatre is a collaborative effort, so make sure you attend rehearsals if you can. Dialogue can sound very different spoken out loud than when read on paper, or even hearing it in your head. I've tweaked lines during production because they sounded awkward when spoken on stage or didn't quite ring true for that character.
   Now for the judging criteria: in selecting the winning plays, the judges looked at plot, characters, dialogue, and overall balance of program for the entire evening. This meant we tried to include plays with varying themes, lengths, and styles.   
   For those of you whose plays were not selected this year, please submit again next year, or submit your play elsewhere (read on for resources for play submissions). 

   Helpful tips to remember:

1) Ten-minute plays are NOT skits. They have a beginning, middle, and end, and character arcs.

2) Theatre is a visual medium. Something should be happening on stage. Two people merely having a conversation around the dining table is less interesting than situations where something is happening to your characters. Move them around. Give them something to do.

3) Dialogue should move the plot forward. You have only ten minutes (in this format) to tell your story. Don't focus on small, idle chit-chat leading up to the main event. Begin "in media res"—in the middle of the action.

4) Ten-minute plays are usually produced as part of a festival or evening line-up of short plays. There is no time for set or scene changes within a play. Between plays, you might have an average of one and a half minutes to change sets for the next play. Budgets are low for such productions, so plays with too many props, even if they have spectacular dialogue and an intriguing plot often don't get selected. When you're writing ten-minute plays, keep the sets simple.

5) Character arc. Yes, there's not much time for character development, but good ten-minute plays still have character arcs. Characters learn something different about another character or themselves. They make different decisions at the end of the play than they would have at the beginning. There is a change that happens.

   For other tips on writing the ten minute play, click here to check out the links I had included in an earlier post about writing the ten-minute play. 

   And if you're looking to submit a play elsewhere, here are some venues worth checking out:

The Tapas Short Plays Festival—deadline May 1st, Guerneville. No submission fee.

The Estro Genius Festival—celebrating women's voices in theatre, for women playwrights or plays by men with strong female themes and characters—deadline June 1, New York. Submission fee: $10

FireRose Productions—deadline March 31 every year, Los Angeles. Submission fee: $5

Mendocino College New Plays Festival—deadline Feb. 14 every year, Ukiah. Submissions should be sent to Jody Gehrman, jgehrman@mendocino.edu. No submission fee.

The Burryman Writers Center—a fantastic resource for places to send your writing to, not just for plays. It has a good list of play festivals.
Short+Sweet Festival—this is the largest ten-minute theatre festival in the world with venues in Sydney, Canberra, Melbourne, Australia; India; Singapore; Malaysia; New Zealand. Submission fee: $18 AUS, but your play will be considered for all 10 of their festivals. They accept submissions all year round. Note: they do get about 2000 submissions a year. 2 of my plays didn't make it in earlier years, but the 3rd time was a charm for me: my play "Playing with Knives" was produced at the Newtown Theatre in Sydney, Australia.

MONDAY MUSINGS—GREAT BEGINNINGS

   I just outlined a new middle grade novel I'm about to start which got me a lot to thinking about Beginnings. There are two points in the novel I could be starting—one takes place in school which sets up the main character's problem: being bullied in school, having a lack of self-confidence etc., and the other at home as the protagonist's family prepares the ritual for Ching Ming, an annual Chinese festival of paying respects to ancestors. Both of which will give a glimpse into the protagonist's world, and launch the conflict. 
   Agent Jill Corcoran (Hermann Agency) has a great blog post Activate Your Story about how to craft great beginnings that will hook your reader. 
   That being said, don't worry if you don't get it right the first round, or second—or third. The most important thing is to get your story down on paper, then you can play around with the beginnings. Many writers toss out their first chapter after they complete the book. Sometimes your first chapter is your last chapter. Where to begin your story is often a challenge for writers, but we don't always know if we've begun it in the right place until we finish the story.


   So, Happy First Drafting!

BOOK REVIEW—"I HAVE A RESTAURANT" BY RYAN AFROMSKY

   In his first picture book, I Have a Restaurant, author Ryan Afromsky utilizes his experience as a restaurateur to take kids on a playful inside tour of a restaurant from the arrival of the staff, set up, deliveries, food preparation to clean up at the end of the day. Kids have such a natural curiosity about how everyday things around them work, and Afromsky uses simple, kid-friendly language to provide a behind-the-scenes peek of the day-to-day operations of a restaurant.

   Complemented by Ron Noble’s charming and expressive illustrations, the author does a really good job distilling the complexities of running a restaurant into a light-hearted romp through the restaurant owner’s day. From the name of the book’s restaurant “Ryan’s Place” to the caricature-like illustrations of Ryan to the author bio. in which we find out that the author started his own restaurant, Melt Down Etc., at 26, we can assume that the main character, Ryan, is the author himself. This very personal approach gives the book a chummy, arms-around-the-shoulder feel that is appealing.

   Afromsky’s conversational tone and uncluttered prose keeps this story engaging, and children turning the page. As with most picture books, I tested this one on my kindergartner who was captivated by the story and drawn to the colorful illustrations.

   As with most Kendahl House Press books, a set of questions at the end of the book helps enhance kids’ critical thinking skills and makes this book an interactive experience for the child and the adult reader.

Reviewed for BookPleasures.com