One week until the Frenzy...

So my new potential career choice (for now, anyway) is writer.

I've been writing as a hobby since high school. First it was the 32-page "short" story for 9th grade English class, and then, deciding that novels and short stories had too much description and not enough action, it was plays. Encouraged by my high school theatre director/mentor and motivated by my need to vent and get all my emotions out on paper, I began to write plays - mostly short, 10-minute one acts but I tried my hand at a longer, full-length thing. They were mostly semi-autobiographical, with me as the starring role and my emotions spread across the page. However, I did win a county-wide prize for best play my senior year of high school...

The year after my freshman year of college, I did a six-week internship at New Dramatists, in NYC's theatre district. It was an amazing opportunity, and it gave me the chance to ask some professionals the question that I'm still fascinated with to this day: How do you go from getting the idea to writing the first draft? I've always been interested in the process of developing a new idea and overcoming the obstacles to putting it down on paper in a coherent form. Something I still struggle with to this day...

Then in college I continued writing down ideas and mapping out plays. I took a playwriting course with the brilliant and talented Michael Hollinger - a Philadelphian playwright who provided me with a lot of insights and knowledge that I never even thought I could learn. And it also spurned me to keep a writing journal, in which I've developed several ideas for full-length plays. And I also started to keep a list of ideas.

Today that list has several ideas - for plays, for movies, for novels, for nonfiction books. Ideas that I have always intended to develop and do something with, but never have. But now, perhaps, I finally will.

Script Frenzy is a challenge: write 100 pages in 30 days (the month of April). There's no prize or award, other than the satisfaction of writing something. I discovered Script Frenzy through some random search, another mindless venture through the Internet led by a daydream about one day actually becoming a writer. But daydream no more. Starting next Thursday, I'm going to attempt to finish my first full-length something, and hopefully jump start my next career.

100 pages. 30 days. It all starts in 1 week.

The Challenge: A New Beginning...

As some of you know, my life is currently a hodgepodge of various elements, pursuits and activities. By day I work on marketing and outreach for a small nonprofit organization. By night I teach and dance West Coast Swing. My training is in conservation biology, for which I received a master's degree, and I have a strong interest and passion for conservation and environmental issues in general. I've dabbled in stand-up comedy, spent several years through high school and college acting in the theatre world, briefly ran my own venture in conservation education for high school students and adults, and even tried my hand at political campaigns (and to this day remain a CNN junkie). My interests range from green living and international conservation to cooking and traveling to reading and writing to philosophy and religions to social psychology and communications to movies, television, and theatre. There's little that doesn't interest me, except certain periods of history, country music, heavy metal, rap, and whatever the angry people on the Fox "News" Channel are spewing.

I've been bouncing around the job market for several years (with time off for graduate studies) and while I feel that my diversity of experiences has been useful, I'm getting to a point where having a direction and a path - and the comfort, satisfaction and security that come with that - is increasingly appealing. I'm interested in the pursuit of personal enrichment, of a job that makes me feel good, is intellectually and emotionally stimulating, that gives me a sense of purpose, that responds to my personality, that satisfies my deeper passions and listens to my heart.

And I feel like now is the time to start pursuing that path - whatever it may be. I'm in a good position - financially, socially, personally - to consider the options and use some of my free time (limited though it may be) to move in a new direction.

Why did you choose your current path? Is the path you're on the one you really want? Does it satisfy your soul? Is it temporary or for the long-term? And have you ever switched careers? How did you make the move? And what advice would you give to someone trying to figure out the right course?