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Alexis Sanchez
Puente English 28
Ms. Batty
10 October 2016
Writers Block
Writing a play for the first time was one of the most excruciating processes I had to
endure in my entire life and yet one of the most fulfilling. Writing was always something I was
interested in. I hold so many memories from when I was younger of scribbling on napkins, tissue
paper, post it notes,the few vacant spots on pamphlets, anything that would be willing to receive
the ink from my pen. Id have stories dance around in my head and characters whod I felt Id
known as if they were my own friends. However that was all I thought writing would ever be for
me, sporadic ideas that Id document from time to time. Never did I realize what I could actually
create with this creativity I held if I put in the work.
I remember walking into my writing class for the first time it was a small studio, with a
large black curtain in the back, and a circle of chairs at the center. The room was extremely cold
but my palms were somehow still sweaty and the stage lights shined so bright they stung my
eyes as I entered. I was confused why I was even there in the first place, because originally I
signed up to take acting classes at this studio in North Hollywood after completing a three week
program there over the summer. However because of an error made on the roster, I ended up in
the writing lab. The writer kids as they were referred to in the studio were all were chatting
about things I had no clue about. It was as if they were speaking a different language that I never
knew existed. The tossed around references like frisbies and they all went way over my head. I
immediately felt myself shrinking, I tried desperately to find the perfect moment to introduce

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myself but before I knew it the class started. The teacher started the class with two quotes; one
by David Foster Wallace and another from Sam Shepard Great! I thought More people
everyone else has heard of except for me I thought this attitude would carry on for the rest of
the class. However when it came down to actually writing and sharing ideas, things began to
shift. The writer kids started to compliment my ideas and respond well to my writing, I felt my
fear slip away. I decided to stay in the writing class however at that time we were simply creating
characters and writing monologues, I had no idea for what was in store later on.
Fast forward to the second semester of my writing class and our assignment was to write
a full length play, this is where the real struggle began. At first I was excited but as soon as my
fingers touched my keyboard a cloud of insecurity rained down on me. It got even worse when
we began to see our scenes acted out by students and I started to tear apart everything I wrote. I
constantly compared my writing to the other kids writing. I noticed I had more grammatical
errors, more typos, not enough fancy words, not as much references. All these negative thoughts
started to consume me which eventually caused me to stop writing. My teacher Andrew noticed
this, Im just really busy with school became my usual excuse. After a month he became
concerned and pulled me aside to confront me about my lack of writing. I told him how I felt and
he told me something along the lines of Ninety percent of what you write is going to be
garbage, so pump out as much garbage as fast as possible so you can start getting to that ten
percent that is actually good.At the moment that did not sound very uplifting but I took his
advice, in my own spiteful manner I thought You want garbage, fine Ill give you garbage and
lots of it! I soon became the most prolific writer in my class I no longer cared about how my
scenes measured up to the others writers. I simply started having fun and trying out new things
since Andrew seemed to value quantity over quality. Slowly but surely I started to see that ten

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percent Andrew spoke about begin to emerge.The feedback from the writer kids became less
notes or constructive criticism and more compliments. I still remember the first time my
teacher told me no notes a term that rang joy to my ears. Unfortunately, this is when the second
hurdle started. Suddenly, I began to put pressure on myself to write good things and writing
began to feel like a chore. Just when things began to get better my inspiration ceased.
Nevertheless, the due date from my play was just around the corner so I had no choice but to
keep writing. The day of the reading of my play emerged and I was not one bit excited. I
despised the last few scenes
Overall I wasnt completely satisfied with my first play but I was extremely proud that I
completed something. I gained so much great feedback from people on my writing, I developed a
habit of writing almost daily, and I realized I had an amazing group of friends at my writing class
that are willing support me. Most importantly I learned that in order to be great at something you
have to be willing to be really bad at it at first. Your insecurities should not prevent you from
moving forward but rather, motivate you to try harder. Like I said in the beginning I never
thought I could actually pursue writing but through this experience it has become evident that
you never really know what youre capable of until you try it. If you dont try anything you think
you arent capable of you wont lose, but you gain either. I cant imagine not being a playwright.