To build momentum, writers need regularity, deadlines and accountability. Building Momentum in Your Writing To build momentum, we need regularity, deadlines and accountability. Regularity Part of what helps us grow as writers is the regular practice of writing... when we sustain work on a single piece, exploring, expanding, revising, and then exploring some more. Ask yourself: What is a minimum useful time for a writing session? (e.g. 15 minutes, 30 minutes, an hour?) What is an achievable goal to begin with? (e.g. 30 minutes twice a week) What days of the week are best for you to write? What time of day is most fruitful for you to write? Can you put writing times on your calendar NOW? Deadlines What deadlines would be useful for you? Weekly? Biweekly? Some other interval? Accountability How do you as a writer find a balance between the solitary and the social? Where do you find accountability so that they don’t give up? • Writers' groups • Buddy system (another writer) • Accountability person (e.g. a friend) • Writing coach • Classes

Create & develop new work in community. Boost your writing to the next level. "Thank you for your classes! They have enriched and expanded my world." I've been teaching writing and performance workshops since 1993. I love the creative process, and my goal is to help you take the next steps in your work. Writing for the Page or Stage with Charlie Varon I'll work with you to create a new piece or develop an existing one. The workshop meets from 7 to 9:30pm for 6 weeks and culminates in a performance. A class for beginners, seasoned writers or anyone in between. Let deadlines and supportive feedback help you grow as an artist! LIMITED TO 5 STUDENTS Next session: TBA 7 to 9.30pm Pacific time (via Zoom) Each student will present work every class. $375 - $475 sliding scale Sign up by early reg. deadline and take $25 off your fee! Note: There are no refunds for this workshop To enroll: 1. Click my PayPal link and pay the appropriate amount. Or mail me a check: Charlie Varon, 31 Chattanooga Street, San Francisco, CA 94114 2. Email me to let me know you've done that. I'll send you: Confirmation Zoom link

< Back #2 Bernie's Dream August 23, 2023 Of all the voices I do, none gives me more pleasure than that of Bernie Sanders. I cooked this up yesterday and sent a draft to David Ford, my collaborator and director for 30+ years. David listened and asked the question that unlocked the piece. I recorded again this morning and sent it to him and then to Joe Dunn, who told me to post it right away. Bernie's Dream 00:00 / 02:47 Keep the bonbons coming! Email me when the next one is ready! Email Subscribe Previous Next

Mind bcomes tranquil Charlie Varon's Comic Bonbons #18: Mind Becomes Tranquil Mind becomes tranquil 00:00 / 05:09 Written & performed by Charlie Varon Collaboration: J.P. Tilleman Saturday evening, March 8 in Oakland: Charlie Varon's Comic Bonbons LIVE! Info & tickets

Poetry Unwound: "Circling" Charlie Varon 's Comic Bonbons #14: Poetry Unwound: "Circling" Poetry Unwound - Circling 00:00 / 02:28 Written & performed by Charlie Varon Collaboration: J.P. Tilleman Attention, writers and performers: I have openings for mentoring/coaching .

"You want it all" Charlie Varon's Comic Bonbons #22: "You want it all" You want it all 00:00 / 01:07 Written & performed by Charlie Varon Collaboration: David Ford Special Thanks: J.P. Tilleman Next live show at The Magic Patio - date TBA More announcements #1 Don't postpone writing your memoir! New session starts Thu Sept 4 Email me for details #2 Can't stand what's happening in this country? Life is better when you're doing something to change it Here's one place to start

Before a show, after a show: maintaining sanity as a performer Spiritual Exercises for Solo Performers Stage fright. Adrenaline. Vulnerability. Before a show. After a show. A few practices I've found useful. To view or download the printable booklet, click here . STORYTELLING SPIRITUAL EXERCISES FOR SOLO PERFORMERS Political Theater Now I remember seeing Mother Courage at Berkeley Rep a year or two ago. The acting and production were excellent! But the transaction seemed off. I would have preferred a documentary film about one of our current Mothers Courage, living in Iraq or Congo. The transaction at Berkeley Rep seemed comfortable. An affirmation that by watching this play and getting it, we audience members know something about the world and are on the right side of things. Some days I wonder how much theater (and other art forms) consists of flattering its audience. Offering comfort food of one sort or another. I look at the world. Who can fathom the global economy? The future of disease? Climate change? Korea? Megacities? The massive behavior modification experiment called the Internet? I inspect my world view. Totally inadequate to the times. So for me the question is always: How do I let myself write from inside the question, and resist any impulse to offer an easy resolution, facile answers, or stale truths? When I'm doing my work right, my characters take me to places I wouldn't otherwise go, and say and do things that scare and trouble me. And now I must indict myself. Last fall, my agent got me a weekend's worth of gigs doing Rush Limbaugh in Night School in Kirkland, WA and Tacoma. I printed out the 3-year-old script -- which was itself a 10th anniversary revision. Which meant that many of the words were already 13 years old. Reading the script, I laughed. Some good jokes! It was like reading someone else's play. One of the nice surprises of time passing. You get to be the audience of your own work. I memorized, I did character work, I purchased pears. Politically the play felt dated. I cut out some lines about voting machines in Florida. But satire really wants to be fresh -- to have not just the absence of the stale but the startling new. And RLNS did not meet that test. I rationalized doing the show on the grounds that it's a well-wrought story, it's funny, and people need to laugh. And I need to buy groceries. But that is a rationalization. One night recently in my solo performance class, a guy about my age did a piece about his first job as a newspaper reporter, in the early 1980s, in a small town in Connecticut whose main industry -- silverware making -- had just collapsed. The Hunt brothers had bought up silver futures, causing the price to skyrocket, and the industry fled overseas. The performance piece was full of the texture of decay -- potholes, eviction notices posted on plywood doors of houses, bars full at 2pm. A girl rides a motorcycle without a helmet, suffers brain damage, Reagan's Medicare cuts prevent her from getting the rehab she needs. The reporter writes a series of stories about this and wins an award; some action is taken; and there is a death. So why was I riveted? Why didn't this all feel dated? Maybe it was the presence of the man who had lived it. The events occurred 25 years ago, but he's here, still struggling to understand, wrestling with the past in the present, asking me to join him on the journey. Maybe it was the fact that it forced me, uncomfortably, to see afresh. "Holy shit, I lived through this! I lived through Reagan and decimation of social programs and deindustrialization!" Or maybe it was just that he told it well. (Winter 2008) POLITICAL THEATER NOW

Another Bernie Sanders dream Charlie Varon 's Comic Bonbons #9: "Bernie's Strange-Bedfellows Dream " Bernie's Strange-Bedfellows Dream 00:00 / 02:29 Written & performed by Charlie Varon Keep the bonbons coming! Email me when the next one is ready! Email Subscribe Attention, writers and performers: I have openings for mentoring/coaching starting in February.

KPFA April Fool's Prank 2007 Charlie Varon 's KPFA April Fool's Day Prank 2007 Charlie Varon's KPFA April Fools Prank - 2007 00:00 / 13:43 Written & performed by Charlie Varon Collaboration: Marc Fisher In 2007, KPFA's Larry Bensky asked Charlie to fill in for him on his Sunday Salon show. Charlie did, and here's what happened. Attention, writers and performers: I have openings for mentoring/coaching .

< Back #20 The grass is green and the sky is blue April 18, 2025 Written & performed by Charlie Varon Collaboration: J.P. TillemanSpecial Thanks: David Ford The grass is green and the sky is blue 00:00 / 02:02 Keep the bonbons coming! Email me when the next one is ready! Email Subscribe Get tix now Buy before May 1 and get $5 off w code COCOA More announcements #1 Don't postpone writing your memoir! Say What You Mean Before You Die New session starts May 1 #2 Can't stand what's happening in this country? Life is better when you're doing something to change it Here's one place to start Previous Next

Overcome writer's block and loneliness by creating in community! Boost your writing to the next level. "Thank you for your classes! They have enriched and expanded my world." I've been teaching writing and performance workshops since 1993. I love the creative process, and my goal is to help you take the next step in your work. Creative Writing with Charlie Varon 6 Mondays, May 9 - June 20, 2022 (no class May 23) 7-9pm Pacific time via Zoom During the course of the 6-week workshop, you will... Email me one piece you've written (up to 1250 words) I'll email you suggestions for revision, and you do a rewrite (in 2 hours or less) In class you read it to the group, and then I give supportive feedback Each evening you will also... Write to prompts Have a conversation with another writer, where you can read something you've written Hear some thoughts from me about the craft of writing Note that you can write in any genre you like, and there is no class performance. Payment is on a sliding scale via PayPal or check: Employed/doing okay financially: $300 Unemployed/underemployed/financially distressed: $175 Somewhere in between: $225 Sign up by May 1 and take $25 off your fee! Note: There are no refunds for this workshop To enroll: 1. Click my PayPal link and pay the appropriate amount 2. Email me to let me know you've done that. I'll send you Zoom links and other information!

Starting Points for Creating Characters 1. If you're writing a personal essay or memoir... Some thoughts from Philip Lopate: “In personal essays... the writer needs to build herself into a character... “So how do you turn yourself into a character? First of all, you need to have – or acquire – some distance from yourself. If you are so panicked by any examination of your flaws that all you can do is sputter defensively when you feel yourself attacked, you are not going to get very far in the writing of personal essays. You need to be able to see yourself from the ceiling... “A good place to start is your quirks. These are the idiosyncrasies, stubborn tics, antisocial mannerisms, and so on that set you apart from the majority of your fellowmen. There will be more than enough time later to assert your common humanity, or better yet, to let the reader make the mental bridge between your oddities and those of everyone else... Who wants to read about that bland creature, the regular Joe?” (Excerpted from “Writing Personal Essays: On the Necessity of Turning Oneself Into a Character”) 2. If you're creating fictional characters... My starting points: Abandon all shoulds. Look for any spark that lights you up or intrigues you. Create characters you don’t fully understand. Look for both external conflict and internal conflict in the character’s life. As you develop a character, and think about their backstory, write what gives you energy and don't worry about being thorough. 3. David Ford's wisdom on “normal” From a workshop David and I taught many years ago... Student (after reading something she’d written): “I don’t know, the people in this piece don’t seem normal.” David : “There’s nothing normal a bout people.”