News on your favorite shows, specials & more!

When Shonda Rhimes Tells You to Write, You Write; Even if that Means Every Day

By: Sep. 01, 2015
Get Access To Every Broadway Story

Unlock access to every one of the hundreds of articles published daily on BroadwayWorld by logging in with one click.




Existing user? Just click login.

While addressing the 2014 graduating class at her alma mater, Dartmouth University, the great American auteur Shonda Rhimes said, "You want to be a writer? A writer is someone who writes every day - so start writing."

Now, I have worn many hats since I joined the BroadwayWorld team in late 2012, some have required writing, some have not. I have covered regional theatre in Atlanta and Orlando, I have written about TV and movies for our sister sites, I have covered the New York Theatre community, I have entered thousands of entrees as our Database Manager, and in January, I became BWW's Advertising Manager.

When we ramped up the number of TV shows that we would be recapping and reviewing on BWW TV in the fall of 2014, I was writing about five to eight hours of TV per week, in addition to continuing to cover the Central Florida theatre community.

However, with the time-intensive responsibilities of running the site's advertising efforts, my writing output has decreased significantly in 2015. While I still maintained my local assignments, and occasionally reviewed a movie, I felt like I was slacking when it came to writing about the television serieses seriei series that I love (and love to hate). So, I knew that I wanted to redouble my efforts for the 2015 fall season, but the question I kept coming back to was, "How can I guarantee that my commitment to writing won't wane during the busy Broadway advertising seasons around the holidays and the Tony Awards?"

Either brilliantly or foolishly, I decided the answer would be to commit myself to writing an article every day for a calendar year. Whether it was about TV, movies, theatre, sports, it doesn't matter, as long I write and publish a new article on BroadwayWorld every day from September 1st, 2015 until August 31st, 2016.

So, this article is officially the first entry in my 366 in 366 campaign; only I am stupid enough to try something like this during a leap year! While it is impossible to know what the next year holds, I am planning to include many different types of articles in this effort. I will be regularly writing about AMERICAN HORROR STORY: HOTEL, HOMELAND, THE LEFTOVERS, and any other TV show that particularly catches my interest this fall; I will still be reviewing movies and Orlando theatre; I have a handful of new regular features ready to roll out; and along with BWW TV's recapper extraordinaire Jennifer McHugh, I will be launching a new entertainment-focused podcast (hopefully) later this month.

I am equally excited and scared (see what I did there?) about this project, because writing is hard, but I love doing it, and I want to get better at it. I am going to attack my writing weaknesses and force myself to push my literary boundaries. So, if at some point over the next year, I write something that you particularly enjoy (or despise), please let me know; after all, writing isn't worth a whole heck of a lot if no one ever reads it.


Let me know what you think of this silly little project in the comments below, or on Twitter @BWWMatt. If you want to follow along with these articles, you can check out #BWW366in366 on Twitter. Also, don't forget to follow @BWWTVWorld on Twitter and Like us on Facebook for all of the latest TV news, reviews, and recaps.




Videos