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Playwriting Archives
Jose Rivera's 36 assumptions about playwriting
posted by Cheshire on Thu, Jan 4, 2007
This is a really interesting list by Jose Rivera, an award-winning playwright who wrote the plays References to Salvador Dali Make Me Hot and Cloud Tectonics, among others, and who received an Oscar nomination for his screenplay of The Motorcycle Diaries (a movie I loved despite its being a biopic, which I usually hate). It's a list of 36 assumptions he makes about playwriting. There's something in every item that's meaningful to me, but this one speaks to me loudest at the moment:
"Embrace your writer's block. It's nature's way of saving trees and your reputation. Listen to it and try to understand its source. Often, writer's block happens to you because somewhere in your work you've lied to yourself and your subconscious won't let you go any further until you've gone back, erased the lie, stated the truth and started over."
(via Part of the Problem)