Mercy! Mercy! That Dang Nabed PERCY!

It Keeps Getting Deeper

It Keeps Getting Deeper

When I started getting ready for my One Act Play class I’m going to do for New Horizons Writing Academy, I had no idea for the scope of what I was letting myself in for. I figured I’d write half a dozen lesson plans and that would be the extent of it. Then I got to looking at the classes some of the other instructors had set up and I stepped back and said, “Shazan!” This is nothing like some of the other classes I’ve taken on WDC. This was taking E-Schooling to a whole new level. In addition to the lessons was the need to do the class pages….These included a Home Page, a Classroom, a Student Lounge, a Group a Welcome Letter and a few other things I can‘t recall off hand. In order to prepare these pages you needed to be knowledgeable in ML-Write. You better get on the stick I told myself if you expect to be ready come May 6.

Once I got far enough along on these School pages to realize they were doable I went back to the lesson plans and research. One of the questions I asked was “What are the ten (10) things (Ingredients) that are most necessary to the cooking up of a good drama. I mean this was an introductory workshop course and there was no way in eight (8) weeks to include everything….so what were the 10 biggies. Once I had that sorted out I asked the next question….Self “How does your mind go about learning things….to which I replied, by looking at examples. Ah-Ha I said….remembering my struggles with math and my dependence on example problems to explain what was going on….What I need to do is take the 10 biggies, put them in an outline, have the students expand that outline with a story line and get through a first draft. What I need to show is how I wrote the comprehensive outline from the given on and from there went on to write the play.

As this strategy began to firm in my mind I dawned that in addition to the lesson plans, I needed to write a Dictionary of Terms, Some Rules of Thumb, A Comprehensive Outline and a Sample Play. These references needed to be linked to the lessons for easy referral. This begged the question how was I going to present the Lessons and the answer that sprang to mind was in the Memo from the Publisher the students were role playing as Romance Novel Writers, between assignments, drafted to write twenty-two One Act Plays being marketed to High School and College Drama departments.

Is this getting convoluted or what? Now I don’t expect any taking the course to write a Broadway Play but on the other hand I have no real idea for who will be taking the course. There are some writers here at WDC are more than capable of blowing my socks off. And what if one of them got on a roll and cranked out something exceptional…Stranger things have happened….I won’t be holding my breath, but if you hand someone all the right ingredients and they have a sense for what they’re doing…you just never know.

I always expect the worst and plan for success….It kept me going in an unforgiving profession for twenty-seven years and why should I stop now?
It could turn out like my contest where I got over 250 views and no takers…I dealt with that with no ill effects…As a matter of fact I am over extended already and the Winter is coming to an end….I can’t wait to get to work on the Shop apron with all that body work that has been piling up. Plus this new CPAP mask is working great….Got some deep ZZZZs last night and here it is midnight and I feel like painting the barn.

My wife is looking over at me with that squinty look into the light on my nightstand. She cooked me a great meal tonight….Think I’ll hit the sack. Oh, anyone who might be interested in the course, here is the link to the introduction "Introduction to the One Act Play"  [E]