A look back at 2025

In January, it'll be two years since I went full-time into writing. And it still feels too good to be true.

Not that it's all fun and games. Writing is hard. Really hard.

Sometimes, when I'm struggling to come up with a new idea for a play or to fill a gaping plot hole I've dug for myself or to breathe life into a dull, cliched character, I'm tempted to chuck it all and deliver pizzas for a living.

But then there are those times when the ideas flow, when all the pieces fall into place, when the characters take on a life of their own, and I'm reminded once again that I'm doing exactly what I'm supposed to be doing with my life.

So I've got to keep reminding myself that the goals I set at the start of the year don't really matter. Only the writing matters.

Which is especially important this year because I fell short on almost every goal.

Here are those goals:

1) Finish six plays.

Nope. I knew this was an aggressive goal when I made it on New Year's Day. The most plays I'd ever written in one year was five. But that had been the previous year, and I figured I could ride the momentum train and crank out one additional play this year.

As a matter of fact, I only finished four: Mall Madness, Thirty Minutes Till Boarding, A Fine-Feathered Murder, and Mouse in the House.

It wasn't due to a lack of trying. Except for holidays and the few vacation days I took, I wrote for four hours every weekday of the year. If I happened to miss the mark one day, I made up for it on the weekend. So I wrote a lot.

And I didn't waste a lot of time brainstorming. After finishing a play, I almost always locked in on another play within a week or so.

The fact is it's taking me longer to write plays. Thirty Minutes Till Boarding was a monster. With forty characters, a ninety-minute run time, and a ton of interactive vignettes to juggle, it took me almost four months to get the play just right.

My current play too is taking a while (and no, I'm going to tell you what it's about just yet). Although it's a comedy, it goes a little deeper than most of my plays, with complex relationships and an intricate plot that I'm sure audiences are really going to dig.

So yeah, I'm not quite as productive as I'd hoped. But I feel like my plays are richer and more mature than ever, and if failing to meet an arbitrary goal is the price I've got to pay, I'll do it. Gladly.

2) Publish six plays

Close but no cigar. I only published five, the same number as last year, which was a record-breaking year. Those plays were: Route 66, Too Many Ghosts, The Worst Fairy Tale Ever, Mall Madness, and A Fine-Feathered Murder.

If Pioneer had accepted Survival Island!, I would have made it. But that's okay. Five plays in one year is still pretty amazing--and enough to keep my career moving forward. I'll take the (almost) win.

3) Get a picture book accepted for publication

Swing and a miss. This goal is a perfect example of how much priorities can change in twelve months. 

When I started writing this post and looked back at the goals I'd set for myself, I was shocked that this one had even made the list.

I mean, it feels like it's been years since I've seriously pursued picture book writing. But looking back in my email folder, I see that I submitted Okie and Firecracker to my agent in September 2024. And since the book publishing industry is so slow (much slower than the play publishing market), I figured at that time that I still had several more months to wait.

Well, those months have come and gone and guess what the response has been. Crickets. Not only haven't I heard from the publishers that my manuscript was submitted to, I haven't heard from my agent.

I suppose I might submit another manuscript to him some time, but I've had exactly zero success with the three I've sent him so far. So getting a picture book published just isn't a priority for me anymore. Not when my playwriting career is on fire.

4) Foster gratefulness

Kinda sorta. This was my touchy-feel goal for the year. And of course that means it's impossible to quantify.

How do I feel I did? Okay, I suppose. When I got frustrated with major setbacks or the little annoyances that plague everyone in their day-to-day life, I did try to remind myself of all the blessings I enjoy: good health, a loving family, enough money to pay the bills (almost). But it wasn't always at the forefront of my mind.

I still think gratitude is immensely important. It's just not going to be a specific goal for me going forward. There are too many other areas in my life that need improvement (as my darling wife will be happy to tell you).

5) Spend more time with Honey

Success. If I had to choose only one goal to meet this year, this was the one. As I explained last year, Honey the Wondermutt is getting up there in years (she'll be twelve in January), and I want to make the most of the years we have left.

However, she's not a playing dog. She never really understood Fetch (when I'd throw something to her, she's usually try to bury it so that I couldn't take it away ago). And she really doesn't like toys.

But she loves her daily walks (we call them her daily sniffs, because she spends more time sniffing around bushes and trees than actually walking). And she really, really loves it when I give her belly rubs.

So that's what I did. Could I do more? Sure, and I will. But I'm happy with the times we shared this year, and I look forward to at least a few more years before she passes over that fabled rainbow bridge.

The early mouse gets the cheese

Every time I write a new play, I hope for two things. One, that it'll get published. And two, that it'll get picked up quickly, with schools and community theaters falling over themselves in their rush to be the first to produce it. (Okay, that's only a slight exaggeration.)

Of course, step one comes before step two. But not today.

And that's because I just received an email from a teacher in Ontario who's interested in licensing Mouse in the House for a production in March.

That is, like, crazy early. Pioneer accepted the play only four days ago. Heck, I haven't received the contract yet.

How did she know about it? I'm glad you asked!

She found it on the New Play Exchange, the digital library owned and operated by the National New Play Network.

As soon as one of my plays get accepted for publication, I'll post it in two places. The first is the Plays tab of this blog. There I list all of my plays from newest to oldest. Since this list is only intended to whet your appetite, each description is brief, providing the genre, cast size, length, and a one-sentence synopsis. Nothing more.

The second is the aforementioned New Play Exchange. Here I generally list my plays from most popular to least popular, although I usually slide my newest four or five plays to the top.

This list is much more comprehensive. You get a longer, more detailed synopsis. You get a full cast list with character names, descriptions, and number of lines. You also get a direct link to a script sample as well as the page where you can license the play on the publisher's website.

What makes this database especially powerful is that you can search for exactly the criteria you're interested in. Genre. Cast size. Setting. Even keywords such as "single set" or DEI. They're all searchable.

The only drawback? To use the database, you've got to buy an annual subscription. But it's dirt cheap--just $12 a year--and well worth it since it gives you access to the largest online database of plays in the world.

It's a no brainer if there ever was one.

So, yeah, this blog is still the best play to learn when I'll be releasing a new play. But if you want to scan a list of all my plays, then I urge to cough up that $12 (if you haven't already done so) and bop on over to my New Play Exchange page.

Mouse in the House to be published

It may be a week before Christmas, but I already got what I wanted most. Pioneer Drama Service just informed me that they'll be publishing my 35th play, Mouse in the House. And unlike the creature in that C. C. Moore poem, this one is definitely stirring!

The play is a wild farce in the spirit of my full-length comedies Bringing Down the House or It's a Madhouse! It has a cast off of 33, slightly smaller than those two plays. And it requires only a single living-room set.

Here's the synopsis:

To solve their financial woes, Jeff and Quinn are forced to sell the charming Victorian home that Quinn inherited from her parents. Unfortunately, just as their open house is about to start, Quinn spies a mouse in the upstairs hallway.

Their realtor Moira is mortified. She wants to hire an exterminator to get rid of the mouse before any potential buyers see it. Kindhearted Quinn, however, insists that no traps, cats, or poisons be used. And so, unknown to the others, each of the three calls an exterminator specializing in "humane" methods.

One uses kazoos, one uses Viking weapons (Quinn didn't say anything about war hammers), and one dresses in a mouse costume in an attempt to get rid of the rodent. The result? Pure havoc as the exterminators prove better at chasing off the potential buyers than the mouse!

How did I come up with the idea? Well, that's an interesting story in itself.

When I brainstorm ideas for new plays. I usually start with the location. I ask myself: what setting is fresh and new (for me, at least) and offers a lot of potential for humor?

That's how I came up with Freaky Tiki (Hawaiian resort), It Happened on Route 66 (1950's diner), and Whole Latte Love (coffee shop). But after completing my last play, Mall Madness (1980's food court), I was stuck. I couldn't think of a single setting that met my requirements.

Then one day, I was watching the Netflix series No Good Deed and as soon as I saw that it was set during an open house, it hit me. I don't always need a unique location. A unique situation can work just as well. And an open house is one situation that's rife with possibilities.

I tossed around the idea of having a murder occur at an open house, but that seemed a little too dark for me. So then I imagined what else could go wrong during that open house. I thought about the couple having their pet hamster get loose, or their pet snake. But everything began to click when I realized the only really good idea is to have a mouse running amuck in the house.

And not just any mouse. This mouse would be their neighbor's super-talented movie star mouse (think Stuart Little if that film had featured a real live rodent instead of a CGI figure).

It was a natural. All I had to do was throw in a few crazy exterminators, a money-hung realtor, a pair of obnoxious HOA officers, a confused pizza delivery person, and I had my plot.

Oh, one more thing. Mouse in the House wasn't its original title. I actually submitted it to Pioneer as Eek!

Personally, I loved the title. To me, it instantly created a picture in the mind of what is was about--and a funny one at that.

But it immediately ran into problems. When my editor Brian received my email featuring the one-word subject line of Eek!, he freaked out, thinking I'd found a mistake in the script they'd just released (my one-act comedy, A Fine-Feathered Murder). Needless to say, he was relieved to learn that subject line was merely the title of my latest play.

Then when I received the acceptance email today, Brian addressed the title again. He said that when the staff there started reviewing the script, some of the readers thought it might be a ghost story or a mystery.

It made a lot of sense. To me, "eek" always meant someone had seen a mouse, but a quick Google search showed that, yeah, some people use it for ghosts as well. And Merriam-Webster simply defines it as an interjection "used to express surprise or dismay". Which I guess includes everything you might be scared by, from spiders to zombies to public speaking.

So I agreed to dump that title. Fortunately, Brian already had another one ready to go: Mouse in the House.

I liked it. A lot. It tells you what the play's about. And it makes it clear that the play is a comedy.

I still have a couple months to see if I can come up with something even better. But for now, Mouse in the House it is. Look for this furry farce to receive a spring release.

No, not that kind of spring.

Upstate NY school goes mad for Madhouse!

One of the best parts of being a playwright is meeting with students who've performed one of my plays (it's certainly more fun than the actual writing!). Which is why I'm on a natural high right now. I just got off Zoom with the talented theater students at Chazy Central Rural School in upstate New York and, man, did I have fun!

This was actually the second time I've spoken with students from this school. Last June, the school's drama teacher Kathryn Brown reached out to me because her students were in rehearsal with my one-act comedy The Worst Fairy Tale Ever and she thought it would be a great experience for them to chat with me (as it turns out, that production was the first one of the final published script).

The kids had a ton of great questions, and their crazy energy and excitement really made my day.

So I was thrilled when I heard from Ms. Brown last month that they were performing my full-length farce Madhouse! and wondered if I'd be willing to speak with the students again.

My answer? I resounding yes!

This time we had the call after their production instead of before, and it was interesting to see how that simple shift changed the questions entirely. Instead of asking how they should perform their characters (I'm always leery of giving directing advice, but Ms. Brown said it was okay), this time the students were more interested in learning how I came up with the different characters and why did they make the choices they did in the story.

Of course, their energy and excitement were just as crazy as before.

Which is why I'd like to remind all of the drama teachers and directors out there that I remain available for half-hour Zoom calls. If I get bombarded with requests, I may have to start charging for them, but for now they're completely free for any school, homeschool group, or community theater that's performing one of my plays. Simply email me at todd.wallinger@gmail.com to start the conversation.