The Art of Dramatic Living

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

Change signals an opportunity to ask big questions, to re-vision and make yourself anew. That’s where my head was over the past two weeks and I found some really cool things I want to share with you:

The first one is Living in a Human Suit created by Scott Brandon Hoffman aka @TheEntertainer. Scott leads with his sense of humor and has a refreshing way of making you laugh while making you think about the Big Picture.

You know things like your life and your purpose and why you might be inhabiting this planet at this point in time.

He’s launched a great site. Here’s a little excerpt:

We’re Building and Leading a Revolution, a Movement, and a Tribe OF Conscious, Empowered, Purpose Driven, and Successful Artists, Creatives, Entrepreneurs, Speakers, Entertainers, Authors, Performers, Visionaries, and other Humans etc. who WILL NOT be denied or accept anything but total authenticity and fulfillment, and we’re going to have some OUTRAGEOUS FUN doing it, because that’s how we roll.

Click here and be amused!

Leah Creates and Cassandra Warren have created the the history of human desire melding photography and words into a mesmerizing (could I say haunting or is that pushing it?) and inspiring blog. This is a place to get lost. My favorite so far is story twelve: a leap of faith.

Heather Plett is new to me and I love her project, What Are You Giving Away? She shares my belief that we all have gifts and she asks us how we are sharing those gifts. She also has an awesome list of suggested reading. Great recommendations for conscious creative types who are on a mission to save the world one act or one brush stroke at a time.

I am eagerly awaiting the publication of Brene Brown’s next book, ‘The Gifts of Imperfection: Letting Go of Who You Think You Should Be and Embracing Who You Are.’ Yes! Let’s shed the skin of who we think we should be and run around all naked and new and authentically us. See that little badge on my sidebar that says, “I choose authenticity.” I got that from Brene’s site: Brene Brown, PhD.

Actually, when I went to Mykonos I was not only the sole female on the beach with her top on, I was the only woman on the beach in a one-piece-fully-covered-armor-clad bathing suit. So the naked part up above is purely metaphorical. Just sayin’.

So while I was doing all this thinking about who I am and who I want to be I decided to sign up for a play-writing class this semester. I started thinking about how much I hate formatting manuscripts and went on a hunt for FREE software that will format my script for me. These links are for play-writes and screen writers:

I finally settled on Celtx. It’s free. It works on your desktop so you will have save your scripts on a thumb drive if you’re working on more than one computer. It’s somewhat intuitive – which is important for me because I refuse to read through tutorials. This was the most straightforward and the best of the lot for my needs. It comes in a free solo version for people like me who want to write on their own and a studio version for the collaborators out there. I didn’t check the price on the studio version. Celtx also has a site called Project Central where you can upload, share and get/give feedback on your media projects.

There were two other contenders:

Zhura – an online screenwriting solution that connects you to a community of users around the globe. I liked it, but there were a lot of bells and whistles I don’t want right now.

Scripped – is also free online screenwriting software. This one was really tempting because I liked the idea of logging on from any computer without having to tote my files around on a thumb drive. But, like Zhura, Scripped comes with a community and other bells and whistles that, for my purposes, were more distracting than helpful. But of these two Scripped was my favorite. For no other reason than I liked their look of the website better than Zhura’s. It has a more theatrical flair that makes me all giddy inside.

Happy Friday! I’ll be enjoying an action packed weekend full of singing – it’s Sinatra night at The Vault, baseball – Cardinals, theatre – checking out a fringe group in St. Louis and it’s off to The City Museum on Sunday. Yes, somehow we will fit it all in. Enjoy!