 We'll do the dialogue part of the show now, again, it's a focus on your work and your creative process. So does anybody have any questions or answers? I'm remembering your name. Thanks for joining me, that's cool. Anybody? What's your name? Christy. Hi Christy. I'm wondering, you know what the end is? Is that writing? Do you know how to kind of unknow the end? I mean, I'm new at this. Okay. I'm doing my first big project. Okay. And I don't know how to kind of unknow the end as I'm going through it. It's a discovery for people along the way. That's a problem. I don't know how to explain it very well. No, no, no. So Christy, you were writing a play and you know the end. Okay. And that's a problem. To discover along the way how to get there? Right. It's good. It's good because you have been given a gift from what it sounds like because she says I know the end and that feels like it's a problem. You're perceiving it as a problem. It's a great thing. You know where you're going. I mean, how many of us can say you know where you're going. You know where the play is going, which is a great thing. So, you say you're relatively new there to play writing. Cool. I would say that knowing the end is a good thing. And it doesn't diminish the discovery along the way. You know, if we say, do you know the beginning? Okay. Oh, sure. So, because like here you are in New York City, you want to end up in Santa Monica at the Santa Monica Pier, right? You have the beginning, you have the end, and now it's the road trip. That's what you don't know about, which is like just thinking of it like a road trip. So it's totally, if you didn't know the end, you know, or couldn't decide on an end, that would be tricky because we say here we are in New York City and we're going somewhere, getting the car. All of the place, right? So you know where you're ending up. So it's really good. So just make up steps along the way. Yeah, yeah, just make us at first, you know who the characters are. Much, you know, okay? And they might be people all the way. But first they do this, and then they do this, and then they do this, and then they do this. Or there could be 20 steps, you know, it could be eight or whatever, you know, there could be five. So if you would, you know, keep checking in or continuing to come back and then you can check up on this, you know what I'm saying? But that's all great, okay. You have a game plan, like I want to, I'm spending 20 minutes a day on thinking about this or you have some kind of a paint plan. Okay, that's good, that's good. Every day or days you want to go visit. You go rely on back story, like you're an old man with a suit. Do you build a lot of back stories? Yeah. I think this also is picking me up and it's kind of like doing all this background work which is great and it's fun in a way. But I also kind of know what they're going to do. I kind of know the characters that they're going to develop for themselves. Right. And I'm just wondering how much do you rely on back story in a given moment? Right, yeah. So Chris is asking about back story and how much back story do you need in a given moment? It depends on what the moment is. You know what I mean? If you want to, if you're seeing is that, you know, Joe walks up to, or Jamie walks up to Joe and punches him in the face. That's actually saying you might want some back story, or maybe not, maybe you'll tell the back story after you see that first pull. You know what I mean? So it depends on what you want to look at. If you don't feel like you need it, then you probably don't need it. Until you feel like you might need it and then you probably do. In the light of things. Sure. Anybody else? I write, I tend to have a series of images in place first. Right. And I was wondering if you had any advice on how to bring them into conversation with each other or how to get from point A to point B with them because they're not even... It's more tangible than story based. And I don't know how to brass tackle with creating a story about these things that are important to me. I hear you're drawing them now. Yeah. That's really cool. When you draw a series of images, and you also know how to get to point A to point B to sort of connect them, are the images involving the same things and the same characters? Some of them will be very unrelated. But I feel like there's something important between them that I want to discover. I don't know how to go about that. Do you know what they're doing in each picture or image? Yeah. It's usually one in one. This is a lot of it. Okay. It's usually one. It's usually like two things in an image. Okay. Do they speak? Sometimes. Sometimes. Sometimes they're people. Sometimes they're people. Sometimes they're not. Do you see it as like a graphic novel? It's a play. It's a play. Okay. So you can employ stage directions for things that don't speak. So you can describe what you have. So try, it's going to be a play. Then try writing it out. So you attach the image and you can easily, you can just upload the image on your computer and have that as part of the text. And then you can describe it if they're not speaking for you. A chair on stage with a typewriter. And you can just describe what happens. But if they speak, you can try to give them dialogue. You can try to realize every image that you have first and then see how they might fit together. You see what I mean? Just give them each a realized life on paper. You know, more so than you do, you know, have the image and then write something about it if it's going to be a play. Okay. Let's see. I know someone's working on it. Every, you know, they're pouring the ice into a bucket. But, okay. So you're going to get a life on the page and then you can start to see how they fit together. Okay. Try that. Try school. Action and action. How do we start writing? Rather than a kind of in terms of writing. Can I talk about writing? No. The concept of action and inaction. You're asking me to talk about my play. I said, number one, I have no memory of it. Right now. So I don't know. You tell me what it's about and I'll try to figure out what you want to know. It's because I don't know. I can't remember. It was like eight years ago. Right ahead, there's a lot of things, but I don't know what you're going to know. But keep talking. In yoga? Yes. Still yes. Okay. Okay. I mean, I know it's very clear and I know I must have been thinking about it back when I left this place and that was a long time ago. I would have doubted her. I'm sorry. I don't know. I don't know. What's your name? You shouldn't understand it. What are you talking about? About stillness. Action and stillness. Racially. And stillness again. The character doesn't move at all. Oh, okay. That's a statue, right? Or it makes a good statue. Right. It do not move. Which one without words? How do you show the action that's going on within that character? So do you have a character in your play that does not move? Are you thinking about having a character in your play that does not move? I made a short piece. A character that does not move? Yeah. Okay. And within a moment on stage? Within a whole art installation of that character. Oh, cool. Oh, cool. And was there anything on stage that was moving or speaking? To start with, no. Right. Have you seen The Winter's Tale? A Winter's Tale? The Winter's Tale. The Winter's Tale. That one. I'm just thinking that's going to be right away. I saw it when I could think of someone as a statue but she's really the new person. But she's really a statue. And people... But we get information from the character by people moving around. People moving around. Sorry, I'm not so good with concepts. Even if I... Because I'm like 10 years old. Yeah, I have no idea about, you know... I'm sorry. I don't know. I don't know. But, you know, characters can be revealed through movement, through gesture, through things they say. You know all this already. And someone can be very loud and be very still. And someone around them can be moving. Or you can just have someone very still on stage. That can convey a lot. But I don't know how many concepts there are. When we connect with a character, like in something that we're doing. And that was... For me, that's like a whole month. For me, the eight years is like the main thing. Long time. Like, that was before working best and that was before the tsunami in Japan. I'm talking a lot about it. I'm going to get lucky. Anybody else have a question? Yeah, Stacy. I almost never start out with the way of thinking about the world of the play. Right? But I have this play now where I thought that the world of the play first, as far as we're at this issue. Right. And now I'm kind of having difficulty because I know that I want one character to be the protagonist. But right now, she doesn't feel all that active. Like, the show kind of opens... Remember how they used to do that really awesome aerial shot of Mr. Rogers' neighborhood? And you'd see all the little houses and public taverns. Let's go. Okay? Okay. It's just this very... But the intention of the world being set that way is because the protagonist makes the very kind of almost childlike way about very adult things. Okay. So that's why it's kind of a function of her imagination. Okay. But for some reason I can't get her active in the story. Like, she should, over the course of the week, that it's set. Oh, maybe she's either one, she's not a protagonist. Did you say that about another figure, right? Yes, I had that problem a lot, I mean. No, that was a screenplay. That was a screenplay. So it's totally... No, it's not. I've come to find that it's not. This one, yeah, I am having a similar problem is that I did have this one, but it's actually feeling like it's more about the entire neighborhood. But then, with that in mind, it doesn't seem like that world or that setting is functioning as a result of the being almost like a device more than a real product or something that's driven by character which outweighs the problem. Right, so if you have a device and it's not working, what do you need to do? Yeah, I would say, I would suggest that. I would suggest that. I mean, that aerial shot, you know, and you find, wow, my character, my main character who sees the world in this way feels so disconnected or dumb because she's flying over the town who, I'm saying, she's not connected. She's not like someone who's in the town. She has an aerial, I would say, totally let go of that. You have to let go of that. It's like they have them in India and I'm sure in other parts of the world they have this method for catching monkeys. And what they do is they hollow out a coconut. They put a little piece of food in it. You know this method? No. They put a little piece of food in the coconut, you know. And then the monkey comes along and goes, oh, wow, dinner. And he sticks his hand in the coconut and they grab onto the food. The coconut is like in the tree. You know, they grab onto the food and they hold on. They can't get their hand out because, you know, they're holding on and they hold the coconut like this. And they hang out there trying to get the food and all the hunter has to do is come around and just get them. Because they can't, they will not leave. They could leave easily by just letting go and climbing down the tree and running. But they're hanging on to the hand. So I just let go of it and see what else is out there for you. You know, so you can, so you can get. And I know it's a good trip. If you ever want to catch, you know. Catch my nephew though. Okay, you can catch your nephew. There you go. Invite us to have him. What's your name? My name is Michelle. Michelle. Okay, hi. So Michelle is kind of thinking of writing something. You're thinking of writing. Did you say musical play? Is that a play? A play. A play. She's thinking of writing a play. Amanda, help all of you. She's thinking of writing a play and she ordinarily, usually, her day-to-day is writing poetry. And now you're like, I'm thinking about writing something. Uh-oh, am I doomed? Well, yeah, I suppose the world won't end. You know what I'm saying? So, you know, he's thinking about writing something. Is that the mark of, like, the end of all creativity and joy? Okay. The automatic, sensational thing. Yeah. Yeah. We don't want to say that was valuable. We don't want to take too many movies. Yeah, I think so. Like Dr. Javago, when he breaks it, you know, he goes into the house or whatever. And he takes the pen and there's an inkwell. He begins to write. And we're like, yo, dude, the ink is frozen because it's freezing cold in that part of the restaurant where you're at, right? Right? But no, the inspiration is so hot, it's writing. Jesus, Jesus, no, no. I mean, sure, art happens that way, but not always. You know? Not always. I mean, I would say most artists, painters, writers, photographers, musicians, everybody, every, all the artists, answers, everybody, you think that, you know, first of all, it's like, I gotta feel it. You know, I gotta feel inspired here before I go on stage. You know, it goes on stage, whatever the schedule is, right? Or any actor or any musician. It feels harmonic. Sometimes they are not in the mood. Right? And we, why do we think we need to be like, let it go, that's another thing. That's a thing that's gonna keep you in the tree up there with the coconut. Right? And time will pass by and you'll write not as much as you could if you show up every day and have a game plan and hit it. You know, who's, you know, great athletes? Well, Tiger Wars just head back so early, but you know, fantastic, you know, the Olympics. You know? You get into the mood when you jump in, right? The gun goes out, go! And you run. Right? That's what we should strive for. That kind of dedication. You know? So the music shows up. But she shows up when you show up. Not necessarily through the way around. Okay? So you're planning to write a play. So you've got a game plan, you've got a title, you've got some characters. What do you mean? You're going to see plays when you can. When you can, you can afford it. So you have a game plan, like a daily writing schedule? No. That's like uncool, right? That's like, oh my God, I have a schedule. I don't cheat. That's gross, you know? I have a schedule. I always have a schedule. Oh my gosh. And when the inspiration comes and miraculous things happen, yay! But I'm not sitting around expecting them to come. I just show up and do the work. You know? And the work is the like, oh my God. You know, the moment when it happens, I mean, if you ever hear it, if your mother or your personal, your birth people tell you how you were born, made it to great story, yes, snowy and this and that, but maybe it's not. It doesn't matter. Here you are. It's going to be so, so have a, get a writing schedule. Maybe a five day, week writing schedule, right? Does it help? The part of the book. Yes. Yes, it does. It helps. It helps. Yeah. Yeah, a daily writing schedule, something we hit, Carol every day, or five days a week. It doesn't have to be long, 30 minutes a day, is good enough. And you just sit here and I am sitting at my desk or whatever. And I'm writing now. And try to make it around the same time every day. I'm going to spend 30 minutes thinking about my new life. It's a product. Then the magic. That's the magic. That's the magic. That's the magic. That's the magic. That's the magic. That's the magic. That's the magic. That's the magic. That's the magic. That's the tool. I tell you, in my experience, I think that's okay. That's a good point, Carol. That's okay to switch from one way of writing to another. You know, it's all kind of the same. You can write songs, draw pictures, you know, write plays, write poems. You have the right to do that. And planning your day around your creativity is really cool. That's where it gets very thoughtful over there. There are thousands of plays. It's really not the same number. Do you want to see it? It's just an incredible user. What a best thing about music. That's great. That's great. The Lincoln Center Library Performing Arts. Library Performing Arts. You can go and see plays. They have an archive on paper. You can do whatever. Yeah, they do. That is a great business. If you have research, you know, we're all working. Yeah, you should. You can just say, I'm just looking at one act play. So, I need to care for play. So, you can deal with any issue. That's great. You ready? You ready to go? Okay, we're good. Thank you, Jamie. Thank you, guys. Bye. Bye.