 Monday the people are out in the streets again, hooray. All right. And we are here doing something in that direction as well by doing our work. So it's watch me work. It's Monday. The I don't even know what date is the 8th of June. Thanks Audrey and 11 years ago I started doing this show in the lobby of the public theater. And we've been doing it there ever since until. You know, COVID came and howl around and the public theater, the public here especially that has been so generously supporting this effort. And a few years ago howl around came on to help us live stream. Now they're helping us together create this beautiful community. So what we do basically is we work together for 20 minutes and then I take questions from you about your work and your creative process it's, it's simple, and the idea is to just encourage you and hold space help you hold space for your work. It doesn't have to be writing, although that's my main thing. And any kind of work that you do because the process is often so similar. Okay, whether you're painting or doing dance projects or, you know, digging a ditch, building a bridge. Anyway, I'm just going to tell you how to get in touch. Go Audrey. Hi everybody. So if you are inside of the zoom all you need to do is click on the raise your hand button on the participant tab likely at the bottom of your screen if you're on a laptop or the top of your on an iPad or a tablet. And if you're watching on how round TV you can tweet at us at at watch me work SLP with the hashtag howl around. Or you can tweet at public theater and why or messages in our Instagram. Now that I've let my hair down. I'm going to set my timer for 20 minutes. And we're going to work together. So I'll see you on this other side. Here we go. Hey, hey. Okay, that was 20 minutes. Yeah, outside the marching of Fifth Avenue. Yes, outside we are marching up Fifth Avenue we should say right. Yeah, yeah. And anybody got a question. So far I don't see a question. Listen to the sounds of people doing the right thing. Got a question. Three questions. Oh my goodness. Elaine. Go for it. Hi Susan Lori. Elaine for a long time. How you doing. Good. Good. How about you? All right, right here at Washington Square. We're marching right outside your window. It's lovely. Well, I just wanted to thank you so much for these classes. They've been wonderful. It's been wonderful to hear your voice and see you again. And it's given me so much to carry forth to my students right now. And my question is, is there anything we can do for you? He said. It's a, oh, Oh, you always like that. You're always like that. You know, the, the thing you guys do for me and people like you who have known for a long time and people I'm just meeting here and. Is you do your work. You know what I mean? That's the thing that you do for me. I mean, that's the thing I do for you. You know, we, we, you, you, we know, I mean, we know that in difficult times, I mean, or in happy times, even people read our work or people even hear that we are working. And they are emboldened and excited. And they feel that their work might be possible because we are working. It's like the marcher. It's like the folks marching. You know, that you hear about your friend who's marching or, or, or, you know, being active and an activist in some kind of way and you feel like, well, I might, I might be able to do that too. Maybe I'll come down to Washington square also. And that's why there are all these folks down here every day. So we encourage each other. Well, what a great question. I think you doing your work and, and, you know, I, Jim, I thought about your question all weekend. It was a beautiful question that we had on, on, on the end of day, Thursday. You know how we're holding space for each other, how we're encouraging each other, how our presence and our commitment to doing the work, whatever it might be, you know, to kind of liberate ourselves and create a better world, liberate ourselves from the bullshit and create a better world for ourselves and the people who are coming after us and the things and the creatures that are coming after us. That's, that's what we're here for, you know, so thank you. What a great, you always ask the best questions. Thank you for so much for giving me so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Oh, you need an email Elaine, so I got an email. Sorry about that. All right, up next we've got Carol. Carol, are you there? Hey. I'm not on mute. Yes, you are. Yes, ma'am. Hey girl. How are you? I'm doing okay. It's a tough time. Yeah. Aside for two months because we, and some difficulty with the, with the twins, my great grand babies that were expected. Oh, we're born four months early. They were two months. They were two months early prematurely. Oh, one, one did not make it more than a day, but he was wonderful. And one is struggling. And, but doing well. And we've had good days. But I want them to say that. I've learned so much from watching me work through all these years. That it did. you feeling and to, and to write out the difficulties that you're going through and cut and listen for the answers. And I want so much to make this a better world for this new baby. Oh, Carol. Every day is better. So every day is better, but I want the world to be a better place for him. I want to know. I thought I'd made it a better world, but I'm disappointed in that. But still writing, and I think books and creativity is more important than ever in what we can do and in just supporting. And I just wanted to thank you for helping give me the strength and the desire to continue on each day to my writing and to do the work and work out the problems within the work. And, and so I, we're all doing a lot of praying and, and, and it's going well. It's going well. This little guy is going to be something. He's going to be the one, I think, to make it a better world. Oh, Carol, I'm so sorry. I don't mean to make you sad. And we're, I don't mind, you know, me, girl, I don't mind. Girl, I don't mind being sad. I don't mind feeling my feelings. I know. I know. And, and it's, it's, it is, there's a sadness, but there's also a real motivation to how do you get past, I passed all things that you, and making it a better world when you think you're doing all you can in different ways, right through, through the years. That's a very difficult question that I don't know if anyone has about, or it would be a better world. Well, I, I think, I mean, first of all, for those of you who don't know Carol, I said, I think like 11 years ago from our very first watch we work in the, in the lobby of the public theater, our very first one, we weren't live streaming, we were just sitting there. Carol was there. Carol has been there like every single time we've done watch we work. Yeah, every single, every single incarnation of, of this, this show, this class. And we were so excited about. Yeah, I remember. And that's the only reason I bring it up. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. You know, sweetie, it's, it's, well, we'll all define with it. And he's going to be something really special. He's going to make it. But what do you do? And you think you've done everything? You know, I mean, for those of us, you know, we, we think you think you've done, you think you're doing the work, you think we think, I mean, not again, about the, for the world, you know, you think the work we think, geez, I've, I've looked within my heart, I've looked within my soul, I'm mindful in my, in my interactions with my friends and, and, and in my thoughts about those people I don't even know. And I'm, I feel that it's still here, the shit, the bad racism, for example, is still here because it's still here. And while a lot of us who have done the work have done work, but we, we haven't, we're not done yet. Yeah. Oh, I so agree. I know that's what I mean. I mean, that's basically, we're not, we're not done. And I feel like it's an opportunity in a way for each of us to, to look within and see how we, how, how the, the culture has, has poisoned each one of us. We all have it to varying degrees and in varying levels of, you know, you know, I do no longer just point to them, whoever they are and say it's them, because I think it's still here because we all actually still have it. And if this is going to be, you know, a movement, we have to sure there are people out there who need to be thrown in jail and reprimanded for the crimes, the murders that they have committed, but it's also an opportunity for us to look within. I think it is. And I remember and was very active in the 60s. I remember living in New Jersey then being and hearing the gunshots from Plainfield in the riots and seeing the smoke and that motivated me and to do things. And my husband and I got started and was very successful with creating a youth center in an African American small African community there that still goes. It's still in existence about 40 years later, an after school program. And I think that it was one of the first after school programs. And that I think is one of the things that are needed that in some way or another is it was always interracial, you know, there was things that came out of that that was wonderful, wonderful. And I think we need to educate and bring up kids and find their interests and their creativities and let them work. But not only, I appreciate what you're saying, Carol. And I think what you and what you have done and what you and your husband have done together is really righteous and beautiful. But if I may say it's not only educating the poor, disadvantaged children, educating the disadvantaged children, there's something weird about it to see like, I mean, I could imagine someone, I mean, if we were, if we were going to run a marathon or Mary and Sally were going to run a marathon and Sally because just because she's white, she was given a 10 mile head start. Absolutely. That's what it's like every single day. And we all have to realize that. And some, and for someone like me, sometimes it's even hard to admit that I struggle with that kind of bullshit, because I don't want to be a downer or difficult, you know what I'm saying? So it's an opportunity for all of us to just look at this stuff. It is. I know what I have learned from around these days is the extent and to appreciate the amount of anger and how it needs to be expressed and how to, and I always understood it to some degree, but I didn't understand it even more now. And just want to, now what can they do to help? I guess is what I'm asking. I guess that's what someone else was asking as well. And it's a hard question. Yeah. Well, I mean, there are the protests out there. But really, if you can't get outside, if you're not able to, I would say if you're not able to get outside, we talked about it a couple of days ago, if you're not able to get outside, look within. Absolutely. Register to vote, vote code blue. Absolutely. That's the bare minimum. But let's get someone else's question. Thank you, Carol. All right. Emanuel, you're up next. Hi. Thank you very much for doing these. They've been amazing. So I have a question. So I started writing a piece started coming out about my mom's side of the family, which is, which has a horrible history kind of the their immigrants and the way that they behaved in the way that it's traumatized my mom and her sisters and all of that. I want to tell the story, but like, I'm not quite sure how and all of the sisters and the brothers, there are many of them are so lovely and loving and just get on with it, despite all of these things that they're ups and downs, but they're always like the same. I don't know how they do it, but they're always lovely and always family oriented. So my question is how to go about painting these figures like the father figure who was horrible, but with love. Like, I don't, you know, I still want to, I want to pay respect to my mom's family, basically. And they're very funny people also. So I think there's going to be a lot of comedy in there, comedy and drama, I guess. But it's about approaching them, I guess, about maybe I was thinking of interviewing them or like talking to them and having their like first hand stories. But I'm afraid about my angle, basically, like as a, I didn't grow up with them, I grew up far away from them. And so I feel like a little bit of an outsider. Yes, how to give homage to. Yeah, I think it's going to take a lot of listening, you know, a lot of listening. If you didn't, if you say you didn't grow up with them, you might have a, you know, keep an open mind about what they've gone through. So if you say, you know, you're labeling it a horrible this that, you know what I mean, you have to keep a very open mind as open as possible. So you can see all sides, you know, I don't know if you're going to, you're through thinking of writing, what kind of thing you're thinking of writing, but as much as you can, I think interviewing them is a great idea. You know, and if you want to do like a, like you mean like video interview or just an audio kind of interview, but keep an open mind as much as possible so that you can see, let them as much as you can, let them tell their story. You see what I mean? But really you have to keep your mind open because once you start deciding, I mean, you know, once you start deciding what it is before you really, really, really taking it in. I mean, I'm not saying it was, you say it was awful. I'm not saying, Hey, come on, Emmanuel. It was sunny and rosy. I'm not suggesting that at all. But I'm just saying just if once you start closing your mind off too much, you're going to lose the ability to hear what they're saying. So I think, I think interviewing is a great idea. And just go slowly and take your time. No story or no aspect of the story is insignificant, you know, and see how it goes. How far are you along with it? I've just got vignettes of all of them. I've just got little pieces of, and like the fact that I'm saying it's horrible, they're actually my mom's words. It's like, but the other sisters might not have those same words. So that's that's good. I just grew up with my mom's tale of her childhood. So I've got an outline, I guess, and I have an outline of several of their arcs, I guess, of several of the sisters and of the father as well. It's quite, yeah, it's better than fiction. It's just it's insane. The whole of these people that are insane. They often say, you know, the same that, you know, sometimes children with the same parents grew up in very different families. So that might be part of it too, you know. But it sounds like a great project. Just keep your ears open, you know. Keep listening, you know. Sounds great. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thanks, Emanuel. We're actually going to take a question from social media. We've got a question from Jean. Do you use a certain program, i.e. final draft or playwriting, or do you write by hand and then type up? I wondered if you had a particular format in developing a play, i.e. outline and put your paper on the wall. I am writing by hand and I'm looking for a way to lay out the scenes I have written so I can see the bigger picture. Oh, wow. How fun, Jean. Yeah, there's there are lots of, I mean, one, I don't use a particular, I mean, I happen to use, what is it, Microsoft Word, just because there it is, you know what I'm saying? It's, I don't think it's the best. When I do screenplays and teleplays, I tend to use final draft because it automatically formats. So it just saves me some time down the road. But if you're just writing text, I mean, just typing, like writing a novel or a poem or even a play, I suppose, I think Microsoft Word will do, I like to use my own formatting, my own style of formatting when I'm writing a play. When I'm writing a screenplay or a teleplay, I tend to do industry standard because I'm writing them for their works for hire. So it's more of a job job. To get the bigger picture, yeah, put your paper on a wall. That sounds like fun. Getting it on a wall, getting on your feet, your physical feet and writing on a big canvas could help you see it. Also, my favorite kind of thing because I have a really small apartment and we don't have any wall space really to write on. Look, they're index cards. It's little pieces of butcher paper. They are relatively affordable. And the great thing about these, you can write different, if you want scenes on them, you can use them for research. You can write scenes on them like scene one, if you're writing a screenplay, scene one, scene two, scene three, like that. And then you can carry them around with you. So when you go outside, now that New York City is open, I don't know where you're living, Gene, but New York City just opened up. So we're all going outside, sitting in the park, social distancing with our masks on, and you can take your cards and you can flip through them and visualize your screenplay, play, teleplay, novel even, you know. Also, the great thing about index cards, I like the small kind because you're not allowed to write much on these. You can't because they're small. And so you have to be real like succinct and specific. So I would say have fun with some index cards. I would suggest that you can also put index cards on a bulletin board, which gives you that butcher paper on the wall kind of thing, which is possible. I'd say, you know, these are, these are pretty cool. And yeah, what was the answer to the question? I think, yes, I think that was great. I feel satisfied. Okay, thank you. All right, we'll take another in-person question, so to speak. Bob, go for it. Hello. Hello, Bob. How are you? I'm good. Good to see you again. Good to see you. Question about something I've been working on since I spoke last is very much like very sort of heavy genre, you know, it's very much not a realistic work. And I think about some of your work, particularly sort of The Last Black Man, where I feel like you engage with all of this sort of cultural consciousness, like you're engaging with so much stuff that isn't just two people in a room, like you're really opening up where it's not his backstory, it's like the backstory of America, the work, you know, kind of dealing more in tropes and genre, but still I feel like a connection to the characters in your work, even when it does feel almost like a review, which usually you don't have that emotional kind of accumulation that for me is I think how you get to connect. And I'm struggling personally when I write to like take these characters seriously, because it is chopped up. And I also want to make sure that even though it is, again, almost like a genre piece, that that people also take them seriously, you know, like I'm wondering how would you approach and how did you approach when people aren't going to be on stage for 90 minutes, telling you their truth? How did you connect with them? And how do you think an audience can connect with them? Yeah, sometimes people who write, you know, in more of an experimental way, which Last Black Man, the death of The Last Black Man in the whole entire world, aka The Negro Book of the Dead, yes, and it's experimental. And I wrote it in 1990, which was a long time ago. But it has some of the things that I still hold that I still feel they're very valuable, the heart, it's not just a heady intellectual piece, pretty much, you know, none of my work is like that. It's a taste thing. If your work is more, I don't know, not, you know, but for me, it's always the not just the the what's going on up here, but what's going on here? You know, where are the characters feet? Where are her feet? Where are his feet? What does she want? Which is desire? You know what I mean? And if it's just simple, like, what is he like character you could say, what is what is this character want? She wants to talk. That's good. That's that'll do. She wants to tell you everything. Even the shit you don't want to hear about. She want to get in your face and talk to you all day. That's something, right? That's something. So I just connect with desire. That's sort of my thing that I connect with. And but if I don't know if you've ever done this, but if you're dealing with people who aren't like I'm doing it, not human, and I'm not doing a vampire. I'm not doing a werewolf. But you know, like, you still try and isolate and find their heart. What do you mean? Not human, not human. Well, I don't know. None of you like a dog has a heart. I would go out on a limb, Bob, and say that a rock has a heart. That's just me. You know, a tree has a heart and you can't convince me otherwise. Right? That's why people go and hug trees. Why do you think people go and hug trees? Because trees have hearts. They just don't look like new that thing, you know, that we have. And so people not recognizing themselves in the other, discount the other. Gosh, doesn't that sound familiar? That's what's going on outside right now. You see what I'm saying? Trees have hearts. So do whales and stones and mushrooms and it's all here. Right? And that's what you want to vibe with that. I don't know, mushroom or tumbleweed or I don't know what you got in your play, vampire or well or wolf. Look, the music's happening outside. You know what I'm saying? Right? It's all beating. You just got to get on the frequency of that other being. And that's, you know, you know, I mean, in the most extreme case, and this is not who you are at all, Bob, but the most extreme case it was the cop in Minneapolis who put his knee in George Floyd's neck because he didn't see him as a being. Right? So that's the worst possible case. And we, but we, we good people, good loving people create the same kinds of weird infractions every day. Right? Right? Which is why we throw our, which is why we litter sometimes or you know, those little things that we do, you know what I'm saying? So find the heart that I mean, that's what I would say. Obviously, that's what I would say because it's me talking. Find the heart of your characters. Every character has a heart in my playbook. And when you find the heart, then you're connecting with the pulse, the vibe of it. And then it will speak to you if you listen in here and you can hear. And then you're into something. You're onto something. The music, they got me in the march. You know, they got, they brought out the band this weekend. And people were like, it was really great this weekend. I got the band today. Anyway, I'm sorry. Thank you. No, it's true. Thank you, SLP. Thank you, Bob. All right, we're going to go to Carla. We got about 10 minutes. Okay. Hello. Hi, SLP. How are you? Hey Carla. How are you? Hi. I'm good. So my question is, I've been writing a few different things, but right now I'm writing something that's more like a novel. And I find myself, I have like an outline. And this is just the first draft. So I'm like going through it. I have an outline. I have like a little goal that I have. I know what's going to happen in three chapters from now. I feel very good about that. But then when I sit down and write, I feel like I'm like in that state of like, I'm, I feel like I'm falling asleep. And I'm like, I don't want to see that my story is boring, because I feel like it isn't, but I feel like I'm writing and I'm like, oh, why do I write in this next sentence? Even though I know what's going to happen next, I'm just like, where do I go? And I don't know if it's the fact that it's a novel. And I'm like, it's like so slow through it, you know, because the novel has a lot of detail and all that. And so I'm like, I'm like, why, why, why can I just connect like at the beginning, at the beginning, I found myself writing all the time. I feel like I found this low where things are just going really slow. So I don't know what to do about it. I don't know if that makes sense. It totally makes sense. Oh, sorry, go ahead. Yeah. So anyway, no, yeah, I don't, I don't, yeah. It totally makes sense. I mean, you're basically doing the work, you're sitting down, you have a daily practice, I'm guessing. I started doing, because I wanted to write two hours every day, but then I can't, I realized I'm not a person that can sit for two hours. I just, it's too much. I'm Puerto Rican, I need to stand up. To do. So what I've been doing is since we did 20 minutes here, I've been like, using those two hours and cutting them into 20 minutes. So I do 20 minutes, get up, do something else another 20 minutes. And like, I try to do that. And still, when you sit down for those 20 minutes, it's like, yeah, I feel like I hear the what, what, what. Yeah. Oh, it's okay. So no, this is, it's, I mean, I, I don't know if it's easy or not, but this is what I'm going to suggest. So great. You got you. So you did the first step, you did it. You were like, okay, I have a goal. I'm going to do two hours. Okay, great. I'm going to, I'm going to lower the bar 20 minutes in pieces. Great. Great. Lower the bar, Carla. No one's, no one's watching. Right. Okay. None of us have pants on. Remember, think about it. Hey, Carla, 10 minutes. I bet you can rest 10 minutes and just go. Oh, good. I made it to that little chapter marker, right? Because in your chapter, things like, okay, Jane's going to wake up and she's going to make coffee and she's going to go to the store, right? That little bit. In your chapter, for example, all I have to do is get Jane out of bed and make coffee and get her to the store. Right? Yeah. It might not be the best writing ever. It doesn't matter. And then it goes off. Now you can celebrate because you've accomplished the goal. So you got a bar in both ways in terms of how much time you're sitting. Not total. I still, you two hours is a lovely bit of time. Chop it up into smaller bits. Like you're, you're, you're someone who like, look, Jane, look, you're going to eat a sandwich. You can't eat all that. You got to cut it up into smaller pieces, smaller pieces. Yeah. Okay. Smaller pieces and also lower the bar in terms of quality. Mmm. Yeah. Let it be shitty. Yeah. No one's going to see. You don't have to show it to anyone. Unless you like that, you need to like post it every day on Insta. No. No. Right? Yeah. I have only told my sister. I'm like, no, I'm just writing something. And my friends are like, when am I going to read it? I'm like, I don't know what you're talking about. Let's talk about something else. Say a little bit together and have a big dinner party when Corona, you know, is like over. It's over like a year and a half. Yeah. On the same side. So, you know what I'm saying? But yeah. And even then you don't have to let them read it until you really feel comfortable, but small bits, small, smaller amounts of time, and be bold and just vomit it out and, and divide your chapters up into small chunks of plot of story. You know what I mean? Mmm. Okay. Make it. Yeah. I've done that in the one I'm doing now. I've written like small sentences, like even in this, even in the page, I'm like, okay, I need to get to that line of sentence. That's exactly it. All right. Okay. Well, thank you. You're welcome. You're welcome. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Up next, you've got five minutes left. We've got Melania. Hello, Susan. How are you? First of all, I want to say to Carol that my heart is with her. And I remember my first time doing the Watch Me Work in the computer through Twitter with howl around that. Thank you for, for this. So, and always, Carol, always they are first in one table in the middle. So I am praying for her and the family. That's the, that's the first thing. Oh, and you were, you were talking about children with her and you know that I am writing my theater play for, for children. And one thing that is happening to me that thanks to, to you, Susan, and, and all this group and all this year with the Watch Me Work, one thing that happens to me, happened to me was that I could discover myself as a writer to say that I write to show up to my work and doing that. I can say that I am writing and that is something new for, for my family, especially for my girls. And in this time with the coronavirus and all the homeschooling that we ended because we are on summer vacation and all that stuff, they, they know that I have my Watch Me Work and they say, mommy, you have your Watch Me Work? Yes, I have my Watch Me Work. Okay, go, go, go. And I bought them timers. So each of us, we have timers. Yes. And we do our work together and what I, I would like to know is that now that I am walking in this journey, writing my story and doing my work, is how can I share this with my daughters? If there is something that you do with your child, with your beautiful boy that sometimes goes there and say hello, because I, they know me all these years, of course, as a mom, but I, there was a time in my life that I was very sad and I didn't know what I was doing. And now, maybe more than once, I don't know what I am doing, but I write about it. And I am doing my work and I am trying to show up and have the courage to, you know, to discover myself and all these new things that are appearing in me, this sometimes it's anger, sometimes it's happiness, this mix of emotions. So I would like to know if there is some kind of thought that you have about sharing this path that I am walking into with the writing with my daughters? I think that's such a beautiful question. And I'm going to give you an answer it might not fit for you, but I wonder if for a little bit longer you could be selfish and hold it for yourself. You know, I mean, in my experience, you know, we as mothers or parents, you know, we give and give. And because this is still relatively new for you, and you're discovering so many wonderful things about yourself. And if you've already bought your daughter's timers, that's a huge gift. Allow your example to be the thing that they are getting right now. You know what I mean? Mommy's got, watch me work, mommy's writing things, you know, mommy's working on things. Mommy feels like that's important and we respect her. Allow that to be the gift that you were giving them and recognize that is a huge gift that you're giving them. Just your presence at your writing desk and your commitment to yourself is a huge gift. So if we could for a little while, Melania, let's say that that is a lot you're giving right now. And the rest, keep for yourself for a little while longer. Let's be selfish a little while. Like in the plane, you know, the airplane, they always say put your own mask on first before you put your mask on, you know, your child. Enjoy this oxygen that you're giving yourself. Okay, you know what I mean? And know that it's okay to allow yourself to be fed by your own spirit right now. Okay. And also know that your presence as a mother and a woman committed to herself is teaching them huge volumes. And if you want to give them some instruction, tell them to get a meditation practice. You know what I mean? You know, you can say, hey, here's something you can do. And that's something they can do on their own. Five minutes in the morning, you know what I mean? But just enjoy. Be a little selfish, a little, you know. Okay. Thank you. You're welcome. You're welcome. Thank you, Melania. Thank you, SLP. So just about six o'clock. Oh, all right. Here we are. Crazy, crazy. Go ahead, sorry. No, I'm just saying hi. Hi. So, you know, as usual, we'll come back again tomorrow. And if you want to sign up to be in the, in the Zoom, I know the links went out a little late this weekend, so I'm sorry, but they're all up there now. Yeah, well, but you know, they're there now. So sign up by 3 p.m. Eastern and I'll send you the link between 3 and 4 p.m. or 3 and 4 30. Yeah. Okay. Thank you all. Thank you, SLP. You rock. Yay. So do y'all. Bye. Love you guys. Have a good evening. Good you like.