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The Book Lives Three Times: How Seneca Got Reading Wrong by Getting It Right

You finish writing a book and the manuscript sits there, cooling on the screen like bread pulled from an oven. It is done. It is no longer yours. This is the part no one tells you about authorship: the moment the final sentence locks into place, the book begins its first death, because it has stopped being a living negotiation between you and the language and has become, instead, a fixed object. A thing. The writer’s relationship to the finished text is not unlike the relationship a parent has to an adult child who has just walked out the front door with a suitcase. You made this. You cannot unmake it. You are, from this point forward, irrelevant to its survival.

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Writing a Sixty Second Play

One task I give my amateur Playwriting students is to have them write a 60-second play in Two Acts using the Three Act structure.  That means you have around 30 seconds to set up the plot conflict points, 20 seconds to explode the conflict and 10 seconds to bring around a catharsis and denouement. 

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United We Write and Direct

Here are some of the founding ideas of UnitedStage.com from 14 years ago that led us to expand the portal today:

Welcome!
For over 25 years, The United Stage has served as a worldwide consortium for over 25,000 international Theatre professionals and amateurs who vehemently believe Playwrights must direct the original production of their plays in order for their vision to be wholly realized on stage.  There are no dues or membership fees to join.  No one makes any money off this site or off the idea or implementation of this entity.  We ask only for your support as Citizens of what we consider to be the paramount Playwright’s Project in the world.  United We Write & Direct.  Divided We Write.

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Do eBook Authors Need Agents and Publishers?

Yesterday, SuperAgent Matt Wagner Tweeted a link to Peter Osnos’ take on eBooks.  Is SuperAgent Wagner oddly tooting his own funeral dirge?  Or is Matt Wagner sensing an opportunity on the horizon the rest of us are unable to envision?

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