Home stretch!

Only 9 more sketches to put us over 300! that's a hell of an effort.

One day more!

Get writing!

End of month celebration!

Hooray! October approaches, and if you want to share your accomplishments and/or pain with your fellow writers, come to the Triple Crown (7th Avenue around 28th Street) on Thursday, October 2nd. About 7 PM. I'll be there and I hope you will be too!

Start small!

I just wrote five titles. Whoo!

How's everyone doing?

Ideas?

I'm stuck in a parody rut.

Where do you get your ideas from?

discuss.

Keeping it short.

Are you an over-writer? Yes, yes I am.

This isn't precisely sketch-related but it was sent by a friend and I found it fun:

One Sentence Stories.

A very sketchy observation.

I've never been a master of the silly.

But if a sketch makes you giggle when you write it, I bet it was totally worth writing.

Go Team!

I'm off in the wilds of California this week, but I look forward to catching up when I return.

Everyone's doing an amazing job of keeping up the sketchy pace. The sketch blogs are lots of fun to read and I thank everyone who's put their stuff out there.

And I encourage you who haven't signed up yet to do so. The month is still young and you can write like crazy!

Not too late. Hop aboard!

If you build it we will link.

Great idea from Anne! She started her own sketch blog (linked in the sidebar) and is publishing all her sketches there.

If you post your own sketches to your own dedicated blog or web site, send us the link or post it in the comments. We will link it in the sidebar.

Nice!

Awful! Hee hee.

Yesterday I wrote a terribly offensive sketch. It was great fun!

Try writing things that are so antithetical to your own point of view, so over the top, that it makes you giggle uncomfortably. And then turn it up to 11 and write some more.

Quantity, not Quality

You are free to set whatever standard you want for yourself, but in my mind the hardest part of writing is getting from blank page to first draft.  It's easy to improve something once you have something to improve.  Therefore, don't worry about writing 30 great sketches this month.  Don't even worry about writing 30 funny sketches.  Don't even feel like you should write 30 coherent sketches.  Just write 30 sketches.

This project is about getting you in the habit of writing, which means getting used to the idea that writing is an activity that you can do on a regular basis.  It doesn't matter if you have ideas or not.  If you perform improv you've probably realized that ideas can come to you easily, but only if you put yourself in a situation where you allow them to.

OK, stop procrastinating and write something.

If you want to post sketches

Email me with your email address and I can give you access.

Hooray!

Tick tock....

Almost midnight, when all good little boys and girls should be planning their next comedy gem!

Don't forget to sign up and keep up with the blog!

You are all awesome

MD

Blogging on the official blog.

If you want to leave comments on a particular post, please do so.

If you would like access to post sketches and such, and have registered at NationalSketchWritingMonth.com, send me your email address and your National Sketch Writing Month user name and I will add you to the blog team.

We'll see how this works. We're going for community and support, here.

Hooray!

It's ON!

Register!

Ideas!

Hey campers,

As September approaches, I was trying to come up with ways to be inspired, day in and day out. Yes, I think even the most fertile of imaginations needs ways to spark some creative work.

One thing I like to do sometimes is write a character sketch based entirely on a random name. I'm a big fan of cool names and they always inspire me. Petunia conjures up something completely different than Mary, Angelike, or Red. Make them super quirky. Make them wear a hat. Is Petunia an alcoholic, is she elderly, is she curmudgeounly? What is her favorite color?

Flip through a baby naming book or website, pick out 2 intriguing names, and discover if they're friends. Maybe Bonnie and Elbert are meant to be together; maybe Becca and Alfonso are robbing a bank.

Do you have any neat writing exercises you like to get going? Post them in the Comments section.

Laying down the law

I'm trying to come up with a minimum number of effective rules and guidelines to keep people on the right track and having an enjoyable time. So these are a start...we've got plenty of time. Feel free to comment.

1. Honor system. You report what you write. The goal is 30 sketches, 30 days.

2. For the most part, a sketch can be whatever a sketch means to you - but still have that sketch feeling, if you know what I mean. So, while there aren't restrictions on length, a 30-page screenplay isn't what we're shooting for. The sketch should be a piece that can stand on its own for better or worse, not a chapter or act in a larger work. But if it's one in a series of sketches featuring Uncle Slappy or whatever character you've created, that's fine. Like the finest minds of the Supreme Court have held, you'll know it when you see it.

3. Don't be a dick. For people who choose to share a sketch for whatever reason, no negative, dicky comments. It takes a lot of stones to put your work up in front of talented people, so respect that. If someone asks for feedback (positive or negative), again, see "don't be a dick" - you can be critical without being a dick.

Apparently I like the word "dick." My apologies.

testing 1-2-3

Hi! Can you hear me?

September will be National Sketch Writing Month! 30 Sketches, 30 Days. No Apologies.

Are you in? Do you want a different interface? Post to comments and/or email me if you want access to post. Post any suggestions, etc.