The Bullet Essay format illustrated how putting together a series of single sentences can coax out what’s in a writer’s mind to cultivate an actual story.

You Can Read Here About The Bullet Essay

Feel free to let us know how you’re doing and any personal or professional highlights. If you send in an update, JG will send you, for your personal use, a copy of the recently revised Basic Training Workbook as a thank you. You can access the update survey at this link: Alumni Update

What’s This Note All About: We’re having a New York Alumni Contest with a short deadline of Monday, February 22nd. It might take you 15 minutes to a half hour to participate because we’re only looking for short essays limited to a specific format of not more than seven sentences. You’re certainly free to spend more time perfecting your submission.

The format is a Writers Boot Camp exercise called a Bullet Essay. This contest is a creative outlet and three New York alumni will be awarded full $2500 scholarships to the 12-Week March 8th Basic Training done via zoom.

You Can Read Here About The Bullet Essay

The theme of the Bullet Essay Contest is “Will The City Be The City Again?” Instead of general New York Stories we’re looking for reflections on whether New York will make a comeback and full recovery after the pandemic, socially and creatively. Will it return to its bustle and muscle?

Early last spring, the rest of the country watched Governor Cuomo’s daily briefings and learned what we would all soon face. It was scary and important insight was gained to brace for what was to come in other regions. All the while, with views of a nearly vacant Times Square and all the great hotspots–the restaurants and bars–being shut down, anyone who’s spent time in the City could feel the sadness, of session, and a sense of instantaneous nostalgia.

Without being futuristic per se, we’d like to hear your easy riffs with story potential. The initial sentence might be a segue to a topic, like the chit chat in a meeting to discuss a project. Consider writing about what you expect may happen in Manhattan, what changes may manifest, what kind of recovery will be realized and what you think the City will become in the near future. Again, we’re not necessarily looking for a dystopian view but certainly a personal one, in whatever form, ideally one that expresses hope and vision.

Here are a few areas of possible emphasis to create a ramp for a story:

–Set a scenario in a neighborhood bar or restaurant. The amazing part of living or spending time in New York is how a happening can be defined as a spontaneous encounter.

–Your essay can be about the indigenous manner of the character and character types of the City. You can focus on the story of an unexpected comeback, from livelihood lost to opportunity found.

–You might write about how the lost year can be made up, whether a teenager missing a year of social life, or an older person who had been ready to start up their social life again, only to be stopped cold by reality.

–Is there a different take on romance due to the pandemic and new normalcy gained in the aftermath of the lockdown, perhaps a penpalship extended, a friendship more intimate?

–High rents in the City have always tested whether artists could survive and now it’s way out of control, yet the artists made grittier neighborhoods hip and cool, only to then see rising values make them less gritty, maybe even less cool, yet still gradually pushing them out, a cruel irony.

The New York “Bullet Essay” Contest is another way for us to give back and say thanks to our alumni. If you participate by submitting the short seven-sentence exercise described below, you’ll be eligible for one of three full scholarship awards for the Monday, March 8th Basic Training, the 12-Week process conducted by founder Jeffrey Gordon (JG). Since early 2020, Basic Training expanded from seven weeks to 12 weeks so that it includes a first draft, plus two rewrites.

Managing and prioritizing your time turns your weekly schedule into an actual calendar, your personal Creative Calendar. Some people have remarkable fortitude to take advantage of the holidays to be productive, yet the downtime can often foster a less proactive mind-set and can require all of January to get back on track, as the industry tends to take some weeks to regain momentum. (This year, political events like the Georgia run-offs, the attack on the Capitol and the Presidential Inauguration may have become a preoccupation for some writers and filmmakers stuck at home in front of their television during the ongoing pandemic.) The disruption of the feature film business and the expanding opportunities in streaming television have made business cycles less predictable and that lack of structure can also affect individual productivity.

Regardless of these external business cycles, our Pro Members will write at least 400-500 hours this year on just a part-time basis (10 hours per week) while maintaining active day jobs. That commitment level translates to the equivalent of two fully developed feature film scripts or three TV pilots with bibles, or a greater number of shorter-form projects.

If You’d Like to Know More About Creative Calendar

If you multiply 24 hours per day by seven days a week, there are 168 hours each week. After 50 hours of a typical day job and 50 hours of sleep (for most of us mortals), that leaves less than 70 hours from which to accomplish all of the other chores and wonders of daily life–as well as commit 10 hours toward your writing goals during the transition toward writing as day job.

The Creative Calendar material is relevant for anyone in the entertainment business, whether creative artist, actor, producer, filmmaker or executive, with an emphasis on 10 hours per week on the practice of writing or developing projects. As you know, only through consistent productivity can you scale the learning curve of the creative process and then ultimately lead yourself to career relevance.

Writers Boot Camp congratulates Ms. Shara Davis, Ms. Kimba Henderson and Ms. Adrienne Kenton on winning the three awards in the African American Perspectives Fellowship–$2500 Writers Boot Camp scholarships for the Thursday, October 22nd Basic Training.

Ms. Shara Davis has an MFA in Creative Writing and a collection of short stories in the works. Born and raised in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, she can trace her family’s arrival to America as slaves. Working nearly a decade as a public defender and criminal defense investigator for prisoners on death row, she has examined many aspects of her identity, life experiences with fellow African Americans and the trauma of the criminal justice system. Her project Doing Time is a television pilot and potential novel about an inmate serving a life sentence and reflecting on the choices made by his younger self.

Ms. Kimba Henderson is a graduate of NYU, Tisch program of the Arts and a full-time writer for the past six years in true crime television and docuseries, feature film and audio narrative. Among her informing experiences as a child was the disheartening experience of trying to find and buy an African-American doll for Christmas in a huge toy store. Her TV Pilot for a limited series is Red Harlem about four African-American actors in New York during the Great Depression, who are cast in a Communist Party propaganda film.

Ms. Adrienne Kenton has an accomplished background in production and is re-launching her career after many years as a stay-at-home mom. With two bi-racial children, she is balancing her livelihood priorities with their distance learning, along with her concern and focus on re-framing narratives of Blackness to counteract negative labels. Her story HARVESTING GOLD has strong crossover potential in film and TV, depicting an enslaved girl on a magical plantation set in an alternate history of America’s founding.