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I was spending that winter in an apartment in Provincetown overlooking the harbor. Grand for inspiration, but it wasn't working for me. It was a Friday and I was one-third of the way through a novel and I had no idea what was going to happen next (I don't plot my novels in advance...!). Dead stop. Writer's block.

So I took a walk on the beach, picked up a copy of the local "Banner" and proceeded to read it. I saw a small ad: "Looking for ten-minute plays for a new winter play festival."

Ha, I thought. I can do that! So I spent the rest of the day writing a ten-minute play pulled in large part from other sections of the same newspaper, sent it off, and realized that now I knew exactly what should happen next in my novel. I forgot about the play.

To my astonishment, it was selected for the festival. I then learned very quickly about getting a director, auditioning actors, and in the midst of it all something magical happened: The director pulled things from my play that I didn't even see were there.

And that's why I keep writing plays. That moment of magic when you see what someone else can tease from your words; thoughts and ideas that may not even have been fully formed when you're writing but that jump out at a good director; the thrill of it becoming something bigger than it was.