Naplwrimo 2010 Rhino Burst #2: Keeping It Simple by Travis Bedard

Rhino Bursts* are written specifically for the community by people we deem worthy of rallying Rhinos with the magic of their words. Rhino Bursts offer inspiration, advice, and that extra bit of juice we need as we focus on getting out that first draft.

Thank you, Travis, for embracing the spirit of Naplwrimo and for providing the creative spark that takes us into week 2!

 *A burst is the sound that an adult rhino makes, though it is barely audible to human ears. A baby rhino on the other hand makes a squeak.

It is awfully easy in this caffeinated 24-hour era to get caught up in the overwhelming push for every activity to be productive. To feel that every endeavor must be checked off as progress on a list, and hopefully checked off as progress on a couple of lists if we work it right. It is the business approach to art creation and a by-product of how we live our lives. Corporate-speak has become the colloquial and “personal branding” is so pervasive as to be cliché. It is easier to regiment our creation in the same way we regiment any other widget production to fit it into a system that may reward us somehow than to try and rise above the system.

Now you’ve started this ridiculous, daunting challenge and you want to check it off a couple of lists. It’s natural to want to take this momentum, this discipline and these 75 pages and turn a writing exercise into the next thing you start submitting around.

I understand the impulse. We always want to be be moving forward. We don’t want to “waste” any time. The month spent churning out these 75 pages has to be for something. What you need, what your community needs, what American theatre needs is for that writing to be for you.

Don’t hem yourself in with subject matter, or cast size or unproducability. Try something new. Experiment.

Take November and write the things that scare you.

Write politics, religion or family.

Write politics, religion AND family.

Write that autobiographical piece that starts creeping into every other show you try to start and get it out of your system.

Write a piece with no form.

Write a piece with a 50 person chorus.

Write things that would make Sarah Kane blush.

Write a hymn.

Write a Howl.
----------------

Travis Bedard is the artistic director of Cambiare Productions and a proud advocate for the performing arts in Austin, TX. He is also a contributing writer to 2amtheatre.com.