A look ahead to 2026

Like I said in my last post, my playwriting career is on fire. Nine years after it was first published, The Enchanted Bookshop is still pulling in over 100 productions a year, while three of my last six full-length plays are also huge hits. And it look like my royalties for the 2025-2026 should be about 30% higher than the were the previous year.

So the key to 2026--and getting closer to my ultimate goal of matching my old engineering salary with my playwriting salary--is to keep doing what I've been doing. And that means write, write, and write.

Here are my specific goals for the New Year:

1) Finish five plays.

Last year, I wanted to finish six and only finished four. This year, I think I'll again finish four but I'll shoot for five. Manifestation and all that.

Of course, if I threw in a couple one-act plays, I'd easily reach that goals. A one-act only takes me a month or two to write compared to three to four months for a full-length. But my full-lengths are the ones putting up the big numbers so for now my plan is to focus on those.

Five full-lengths. It could happen.

2) Publish five plays.

Last year, I wanted to publish six and only published five. This year, I really do think I'll publish five.

I've already got one in the editing queue at Pioneer Drama Service (Mouse in the House). I'm waiting to hear back on my ten-minute comedy Fear of Clowns, which I submitted to Heuer Publishing in July. I'll submit Survival Island! to them as soon as they make a decision on Fear of Clowns. I'll be submitting my latest full-length comedy to Pioneer this month. And I'll be ready to submit my airport comedy Thirty Minutes Till Boarding to Pioneer shortly after it receives its world premiere in March.

So I could hit that goal just with what I've already got written (or nearly written).

Of course, if any of those get rejected, I'll be a setback. But I'll still have time to complete one play and get it through the submission and editing cycles before the end of this year.

Keep your fingers (and toes and eyelashes) crossed!

3) Brush up my Shakespeare.

I've got to be honest. I've never been a big fan of the bard. And it's not for lack of trying. I saw many, many Shakespeare productions over the twenty-some years I lived in Colorado Springs. TheatreWorks did a particularly good job with them through their end-of-summer Shakespeare in the Park program.

And I've always recognized old Will as a great writer. As a writer myself, I really need to know him better. It's just that I've always struggled with the language.

But this year I realized that if I really want to "get" Shakespeare, then I've got to put in the work. And I finally want to.

First up is Twelfth Night. I've got the PBS recording of last summer's production in New York's Central Park queued up on our DVR. I've got a copy of the original text. I've got a good modern language translation. Now all that's left is to go through them, side by side, until the story and the characters--most of all, the language--come alive for me as they have for so many others.

I can't wait to dive in.

4) Post more frequently.

I've tried multiple ways to market myself beyond what my publishers do for me. But almost none of them have been successful.

About the only one that has been is this blog. I frequently receive emails through the links I provide in my posts and on my contact page. I also see my comments about my plays quoted in newspaper articles and promotional materials put out by the theaters producing those plays.

Sure, I've kept this blog going for 15 years. And I've fulfilled my original vow of writing at least one post every month. The problem is that I tend to write them in clumps. I'll put off writing for weeks at a time, then dropping three or four posts at one time.

I believe this feast or famine mentality is making is tough for my readers to keep up. So I'm going to do better. I'm going to make time to post as soon as I have something to post about.

I hope this ups my readership. I know it'll up my readers' sanity.

5) Don't sweat the small stuff.

I always throw in one touchy-feely goal each year, and this time I want to focus on how I react to setbacks, both major and minor. Like a lot of people, I get stressed out when things don't go my way. I worry about what's going to happen. And I spend too much mental energy thinking up ways to counter them.

Of course, most of the time, things turn out fine anyway.

So I want to start shrugging off those setbacks as soon as they hit. I'm sure this'll help with my stress levels as well as my health. And those are two very good things.