Stainless steel pen nibs are wonderful. They outlive their users and last for generations.

Writing and painting are seasonal activities for many, so do not get distraught during the times that you are unable to do either or both.

A fountain pen is a magic wand and can be used as such, other than for writing.

Be thankful to be a playwright. You will tend to outlive directors and performers due to the comparatively minimal physical stress your work demands.

It is more productive to write and to paint than to sulk and to play solitaire.

Every writer obsessed with psychology discovers words within words.

Always master yourself, your subject matter, your medium, and your audience--in that particular order.

To improve your penmanship, think word by word as you write rather than of an entire sentence or paragraph.

Before writing, consider the entire sentence or paragraph, then descend from the macroscopic to the microscopic level.

Since a playwright is a thinker of society, he/she must always be inclusive and never exclusive.

If your readers cannot comprehend your first few sentences, they will read no further and abandon you.

We write and we paint to partially describe, with each work, the dream life that we have, hoping to complete its description with our oeuvre before we die, and hoping that it will be a good legacy to leave to those who can step back and comprehend all of it in its entirety.

When writing a play, don't just write. Visualize.

A vision is nothing if it is not put into words or pictures.

Writing from The Heart Workshop For TheatreWorks Singapore (May 29 - June 4, 2017)

https://www.facebook.com/pg/tHEATREwORKS.Sg/photos/?tab=album&album_id=1943590879221429

Never write, rewrite, or revise a play before bedtime. It will give you insomnia

It is always difficult to rewrite and revise a play because, in doing so, you go through all of the emotions in the play all over again.

A playwright must always write from a state of emotion, because emotion is the foundation of dramatic dialogue.

That is why in a workshop, after an emotional truth exercise, I immediately lead the participants into a writing session.

Everyone who is prone to road rage should try it. It is an effective way of taking emotion to a higher level by means of the defense mechanism sublimation.

The writing on the wall can always be revised.

When inflamed with anger and you want to calm down, write with a blue pen.

The literal has no meaning until you look beyond it.

A writer without passion is a beautiful kite without wind.

There is nothing like black ink, especially very black ink, though you should keep other colors in reserve for stimulus and for variety.

Always have a notebook on hand to write your random thoughts and ideas in, rather than hope they come back when you need them. They never will come back. They are all brought about by historicity, the time, the place you are in, and what you are feeling at the moment. Like water passing under a bridge, those thoughts and ideas will never be the same even if they occur to you again.

Like the only way to enjoy painting, the only way to enjoy writing is to not do one project after another.

It is also the only way to enjoy good chocolate.

There is no such thing as forgetting a dream. When you wake up and cannot recall the narrative and the imagery, first inspect how you are FEELING, for that is always the key to every dream. It is the first message that your psyche sends you in the dream state--and sometimes it is the only message.

Go with the feeling. Write a poem or three-paragraph story WITHOUT CONSCIOUSLY AUTHORING ANYTHING SENSIBLE AND JUST LETTING THE WORDS FLOW. What you have written is a variation of your dream, and can be interpreted as such.

And this is, as a mater of fact, how many great works begin.

Again, a reminder to use mahjong tiles or building blocks to create a model of your stage space as you are writing your play. Keep the structure on your writing desk until you finish writing your play. You may of course make changes and adjustments to your stage as you continue writing.

The model stage prevents you from thinking in terms of cut-to-cuts and close-ups, and compels you to think instead of entrances and exits, upstage, center stage, downstage, stage left, stage right, diagonals, cycloramas (if you want one), and what is hidden backstage and in the wings.