{"id":923,"date":"2012-02-22T18:25:08","date_gmt":"2012-02-22T23:25:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thomaskaufman.com\/author\/?p=923"},"modified":"2012-02-22T19:10:52","modified_gmt":"2012-02-23T00:10:52","slug":"923","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thomaskaufman.com\/author\/923\/","title":{"rendered":"Digital Improv"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Digital Collaboration: Improv Stories<\/p>\n

Okay, I confess: I was part of an improve story group, organized by Gelati’s Scoop, an exceptional blog by Giovanni Gelati.<\/p>\n

I met Giovanni through the internet, and he liked STEAL THE SHOW. <\/a>When he contacted me about this new venture, I was intrigued. Here’s how it works:<\/p>\n

Someone (in thi\"\"<\/a>s case me) starts the story with three words supplied by Giovanni.In this case, my three words were: Bar, Dumpster, Library.I had about 90 minutes to write 1000-1500 words, then pass it along to the next sucker \u2013 oops, I mean writer.<\/p>\n

By noontime the story is finished.The Scoop gets other writers to read it and the authors have a chance to talk on his blogspot radio station.<\/p>\n

So, how did I do this? Well, I felt comfortable with these words, maybe a little too easy, I thought.One thing \u2013 I’m playing with a new mystery novel, and part of it deals with the main character coming into a strange town. I wanted to use that same idea for this short story.<\/p>\n

Have you ever driven across Texas?It is an enormous state, and depending on your route, could easily take you 24 hours to cross.I’ve made this drive at least 6 times, maybe a dozen, and in all kinds of weather. I guess in a state that big, you expect just about anything, including hail the size of footballs (it is Texas, of course).<\/p>\n

Once, when I was new in the film business, I had to drive a van packed with lights and camera gear from LA to North Carolina.I got stranded in Texas, the roads were washed out by flooding.The highway patrol made us turn around, so I had a few hours to kill in this little town, the name of which escapes me.But I liked the idea of being forced to stay in one place, to feel as though nature were pressing in, keeping you constrained.So I did a little research and found that Burnet County has been flooded a number of times.<\/p>\n

A bit more digging told me that the people in Burnet pronounce the name “burn it.”Too good to pass up, right?In fact, I titled the piece BURN IT (hey, I was the first person to write, so I get the name the story, okay?)<\/p>\n

By the time you read this blog it will be available as a Kindle and Smashwords download. Drop me a line and let me know what you think.\u00a0 If you like it, thanks Gelati’s Scoop.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Digital Collaboration: Improv Stories Okay, I confess: I was part of an improve story group, organized by Gelati’s Scoop, an exceptional blog by Giovanni Gelati. I met Giovanni through the internet, and he liked STEAL THE SHOW. When he contacted me about this new venture, I was intrigued. Here’s how it works: Someone (in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":924,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-923","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thomaskaufman.com\/author\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/923","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thomaskaufman.com\/author\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thomaskaufman.com\/author\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thomaskaufman.com\/author\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thomaskaufman.com\/author\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=923"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/thomaskaufman.com\/author\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/923\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":927,"href":"https:\/\/thomaskaufman.com\/author\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/923\/revisions\/927"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thomaskaufman.com\/author\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/924"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thomaskaufman.com\/author\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=923"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thomaskaufman.com\/author\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=923"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thomaskaufman.com\/author\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=923"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}