What can this book do for you? It can help you . . .Exercise your imaginationWake up your musesEscape the quagmire of literary lethargyEnrich your sensory apparatusSpark a new point of departure for a character or ideaInspire you to get on the boat and take risksClear out the dead wood and make room for flights of fancyWhy write plays? Passion. Interest so intense and compelling that it keeps you up at night. Consuming commitment. Sound a little bit like a relationship? It is. A lifelong one if you are a real playwright. And if you are then it isn?t unlikely that you have uttered the words ?writer?s block? in self diagnosis of an inability to channel what is in your head onto the page, whether you are starting a new project or trying to complete one that?s already in progress. If you think you?ve ever suffered from writer?s block, then ?Writer?s Block? Busters: Clearing the Dead Wood to Make Room for Flights of Fancy is the story medicine you need. It is based on a certain premise: that writer?s block is rubbish, that it does not exist. That?s right. Myth. This book helps you navigate right around the myth and into writing. While other craft tomes function as deconstructive guidebooks and how-to manuals for writing the play, playwright Velina Hasu Houston?s new book eschews instruction in favor of mentoring via writing exercises that jump-start the imagination when sluggishness or (could it be?) laziness burden playwrights, prose writers, and other creative writers in search of inspiration.Writers, teachers, and actors can benefit from this new book from a twenty-year mentor of playwrights and the founder of one of the U.S.? premiere dramatic writing graduate programs, the Master of Fine Arts in Dramatic Writing at the University of Southern California School of Theatre.No matter what your creative writing genre, if you engage fully and invest the whole extent of your imagination and vision into a writing exercise, chances are it will either lead you to something that actually becomes part of the final work or allows you to go where you have not gone before thus illuminating notions that you can utilize in your work in another kind of way. ?Writer?s Block? Busters: Clearing the Dead Wood to Make Room for Flights of Fancy provides teachers and literary artists with more than 100 ways not to leave your writing. Since her work first appeared Off-Broadway in the 1980s, Velina Hasu Houston has written over 30 plays, 14 commissioned. She is Associate Dean of Faculty, Professor of Theatre, Director of Dramatic Writing, and Resident Playwright at the USC School of Theatre. Houston?s plays have appeared internationally at Manhattan Theatre Club, Pasadena Playhouse, Old Globe Theatre, George Street Playhouse, Pittsburgh Public Theatre, Smithsonian Institution, Whole Theatre/Olympia Dukakis, Nippon Hoso Kai, Negro Ensemble, Syracuse Stage, Mixed Blood Theatre, and others.