A look ahead to 2017

I don't even know where to start this year. I'm still hoping to get an engineering job, but I'm 53 years old and, as I've discovered, it's not easy to find any kind of job at this age. So for the purposes of this post, I'm going to assume that I won't get a job and that I'll be forced to continue living as a starving (well, maybe just hungry) writer.

Here then are my top goals for the new year:

1) Complete eight new plays

This is a pretty aggressive goal, as it means I'll have to crank out a new script every six weeks--for the entire year. But hey, if you're going to set goals, you might as well make them big.

Besides, if I never find a job, I'll have to make my living from writing--and that's going to take a whole lot more plays.

2) Publish six new plays

I'd love to publish every play I write, but my batting percentage last year was a little disappointing (only 1 in 3 plays I submitted got accepted for publication, although some of those rejected plays may still get picked up by other publishers). So I'm trying to stay reasonably realistic here, especially since I don't have a lot of control over this particular goal.

Six plays, by the way, would be twice the output of my best year to date, 2015, when I published three plays.

3) Have a successful premiere of The Purrfect Crime

As reported earlier, Palmer Ridge High School in Monument, CO is getting ready to produce the world premiere of my cat heiress comedy. Auditions are February 8-9 and the production is scheduled for March 16-18. It's my first opportunity to work with a school since 2014's Million Dollar Meatballs so I'm very excited. I know that the extremely talented students there will help make it the best play it can be.

4) Get another production of Kill the Critic!

I love this play. In fact, several people have told me it's the funniest one I've written, which depresses me, because I've written a LOT of plays since then, For some reason, thought, it's been rejected by two publishers and has struggled to get a third production. A couple theatres are currently looking at it, and if it gets a production from one of those, I'll try submitting it to some new publishers.

5) Get another production of The Last Radio Show

I love this play too, but I admit it's a little hard to produce (lots of props and sound cues). Two publishers have rejected this one as well, so I'll try to get some more productions to prove its worth before submitting it again.

So there you go. Five goals, a lot less than I've had in the past. But to achieve my ultimate goal of becoming a full-time writer, I have to focus on one thing: writing more plays. It really all comes down to that.