 All right. Change to the right mode here. Hey, this is Watch Me Work. It's, what day is it? Is it Thursday? Is it Thursday? Somebody tell me what day it is. It's Thursday. Thank you. Thanks everybody. Great. I'm going to give a little blurb and then we'll get started. I'm Susan Marie Parks. This is Watch Me Work. This is, we're doing it Monday through Friday at five. This is, we're in our second week of doing that. For those of you who have not been to Watch Me Work before, Watch Me Work is about your work and your creative process where we will spend some time working together and then spend some time talking. I'll be answering your questions about your work and your creative process. I'm a writer of lots and lots and lots of different things. I've been doing this show, Watch Me Work for 11 years. I've been doing this show primarily live in the lobby of the public theater. Big thanks to the public theater who has and continues to support me in this endeavor. And also thanks to HowlRound. They came on a few years ago to live stream our live show. And now they are supporting this great endeavor. Also thanks to Zoom for helping it happen. But big thanks to the public theater and HowlRound. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for the show that we create together. First thing we do is we work together for 20 minutes. We create the action of the play. Here's my timer. We're going to time it for 20 minutes. And then after the 20 minutes has elapsed, we will, I will take your questions about your creative process. And that's the dialogue of the play. If you will. I don't know, I didn't go to grad school, but that's what my students say. So anyway, this is what we're going to do. We're going to work together. We're going to talk about your work and your creative process. And hopefully we'll give you some encouragement, you know, keep your creative juices moving along. Give you some, you know, good energy in these difficult times. And all that kind of stuff. Anything else to ask questions and all that. Our moderator, is it, it's not Audrey today. Tell me everyone. Yes. If you would like to ask a question during the questions portion and you're inside the zoom, please click the raise your hand button. It should be in the participants tab more than likely on the bottom of your screen. If you're using an iPad, it's more than likely on the top of your screen. I will see those that raised their hand and I will call on you and unmute you when it's your time to speak. If you are watching the stream on howl around.TV, you can ask questions via the public theaters, Instagram and Twitter. And you can also ask questions via the watch me work Twitter, which is at watch me work. SLP. Don't forget to use the hashtag howl around. That's H O W L R O U N D. And that's it. Thanks Amber. There you are. Okay. So we're going to work together. For 20 minutes. If you're confused. That's okay. Join the club. Here we go. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Here we are. We just did. 20 minutes of work. Hope it was. Nice. For some of you for all of you, actually. And now we're going to do the remaining amount of time. Questions questions. Who's got a question. Well, Natalia has a question. Tell you if you're here. Yeah, I'm here. There you are. Okay. Hi. Hi. So my question will be. So. I asked you a question, I think Friday. Last week and it was about just like. How do I make my work that is personal? How do I write something that's personal and like. Balance the, the two things. While writing, and I actually. Had a moment of inspiration and it was one of those moments where I just kept writing and writing and writing. And I didn't really have any. Plans or structure. I just went for it. And I realized it was a lot of. It was a dialogue that was just like in my head. And I was letting like the people speak to me because it's based on real life and true story. So. My question would be. Once that. I guess inspiration is timed out. How do I. Go back. And we threw. The, the structure. Cause right now it's just, it's pretty much a word vomit. And I'm just trying to get out all the ideas out. When it comes to me, whether it's on paper. Or on my phone through a note app or something. But how do I go back and revisit that? Sorry, that's my bird. How do I go back and visit that? With a more clear picture. Great question, Natasha. Great question. Glad you're writing. Glad you're doing what you call word vomit. Very cool. Yeah, so have you, have you gotten to the. Like the, the end. Of your word vomit, you know. Um, no, I haven't. I. I actually don't even know what my end looks like yet. All I know is that the big theme. Of the play is about family. And. Dynamics, just like the different family dynamics. And even though there's a lot of conflict within families or. Or just, just like. I just lost my, my train of thought, but so. I haven't. Thought of an ending. It just went up right now. It's just a lot of like memory recall. And, uh, being back home. Cause right now I'm at my mom's place. I guess it also is what inspired me to continue writing and just like observing and watching, um, how we all interact with one another. So it's, um, it's just one of those moments where I just keep writing and kind of reliving or just observing what's what's happened so far. Right, right, right. Um, what I wanted to know is if you've gotten to sort of the end, because writing and rewriting, uh, while they look very much alike or two different processes, right? We, did we talk about that, uh, the courage of writing the courage of rewriting the courage of, as you call it, and as I call it to, you know, word vomit, it's just vomiting out, right? It takes courage to just anything goes. Everything grows being in the writing process. And then it takes the other kind of courage is the rewriting process where you have to trim, cut, prune, select, right? I mean, if you just think of you actually go bleh on the page, you actually were vomiting, right? Yeah. Um, it would take, it would take another kind of courage to actually look at what you throw up. And go, hmm, I think that is, I think I'll, I'll put this out, you know what I mean? And out of the vomit. Um, this could be very interesting. I'll put that, that you see what I'm saying. So that's a whole different kind of courage. Now I asked you if you were at the end, because I don't want you to, a lot of times it's fun to just let it out and let it go. But then we have a fear, our fear of writing is replaced by a fear of having it make sense. Right? Oh no, it has to make sense. So I better, I better find the, the theme or the story or the structure right away before I just spend too much time vomiting, right? Right. Like dating when you're dating and then you go all of a sudden, oh, are we in a thing or are we just in a thing? You know what I'm saying? And the person goes, well, we've only been dating for seven years. Do we have to decide? No, I'm kidding. Um, so I would have, so you've been sort of vomit writing for how long? I mean, on this process project? Well, because I was writing this play a few years back and then it just kind of paused because life was happening. And then, oh, and then, um, I've had this time since being home, uh, just to continue writing. Um, and I just have moments where it just kind of comes to my brain and then I write it down just because I don't want to lose that memory or because sometimes memory can be, you know, it can, your mind can play tricks on you with that. So, um, yeah, so it's just a continuous thing because I guess within my family, it's just, it's been a lot of just different situations. So I just want to make sure that whatever I have in my head, I can put it on paper. Um, and then I guess rewrite after it's over, but I could just pouring out. Yeah, so great. So have it, so have it pour out some more. You know what I mean? I'm, what I'm saying is how long have you been in this vomiting process? You know, it's, it's been, it's been like the past two weeks. Okay, great. So, so spend some more time just vomiting it out. And when you get to the point where you're like, Okay, that's, I'm pretty much, I feel like I'm at the end of that process. Even if you, you know, after that, you know, come back to the vomiting process, but if you feel like you're at an end to the process, that's what I was talking about, then you can stop that process and work on the rewriting process, but it doesn't sound like you're at an end. You see what I mean? I don't want you to be mixing them too much because what I hear is a concern that you need to start making sense of it all. And that might stop the flow. You see what I mean? Okay. Okay, so continue to do exactly what you're doing. Do it for a little longer and see what it feels like, like this time next week. You see what I mean? You see? Yeah. Get more stuff out. We don't, okay. All right. Okay. And either a couple of things are going to happen. Either you're going to vomit a lot and then you'll, you won't, you won't be able to make sense of it. Right? Or you'll vomit a lot and you will somehow be able to make sense of it. Or you'll vomit a lot and you put it away in a drawer, whatever, whatever. I mean, we have to be like, whatever happens is going to happen and it will be what it is. For sure. You see what I'm saying? And I think that Ramona's cat. Has heard your bird. Just observing Ramona has a cat, which is on screen, right? Is looking at Ramona on the screen. The cat is like going, where is the bird? I don't know what she's, anyway, I just was observing that. But you know what I'm saying, Natalia? So keep, continue to do exactly what you're doing. Keep showing up. Keep doing the vomit writing as we call it. And, and just keep doing it for a little while longer. See how you feel. See if something doesn't emerge on its own, but don't worry about it right now. Okay. All right. Thank you. Cool. Cool. Thanks. It's Natalia. All right. Next we have Melania. Hello. Hi. Hi. Hi. I am so happy to be here and I would like to thank you because we talked last week. And since that, I, I think I am working on my courage. Of writing. Yes. And suddenly with this, I love the talk to the hand. Talk to the hand. So I began to do that. Writing. Yes. Because I write and when I write, I come here. This boy saying, no, if I say hi, the voice is low. If I say, talk to the hand, talk to the hand, talk to the hand. Like a choreography. And, and it's working. I, I am writing. So I want to thank you for that. That, that was the, the purpose of my talking. And there is something that you said last week. That I write it down and wrote it down. And I would like to ask you about. You said work. It's between you and the spirit. Accept the gift that being given. You talk about the spirit and writing and what I am right now discovering in me, when I cut, I can stop the, the voices. I can hear myself better. And my characters are able to go into action. That was my problem that they were all stuck. So I would like to know more about this talking between us and the spirit. While we are writing. Thanks, Melania. I'm so glad your work is going well. Good for you. Good for you. And again, everyone, Melania has been calling in or tweeting into the, to our live show when we do it at the lobby in the public theater for years, for years. And just now because of doing it on zoom, because of this Corona thing, I actually get to see each other face to face. So it's a great pleasure to get to know you like this. But I'm so glad that you're working and. Yeah. The, the, it's a relationship between you and the spirit. Right. Your creative process is a relationship between you and the spirit. And this isn't like. Those of you, those of us, whatever it doesn't, it's not like your relationship with God, the white guy with the beard on the, you know, the, you know, the, what if the dome of the Sistine Chapel, that's not what we're talking about. We're talking about the, a relationship between you and that thing that's bigger than you. That's the spirit. You know what I mean? So you can, some of us see it as our, our, you know, friendship circle. I mean, certainly the watch me work community is something that's bigger than, than just us than just, right? Maybe our, our people, our foremothers and our forefathers, that kind of thing. When I say the spirit that the thing that, that people connect with in times of difficulty. I'll go out on a limb and say whether that thing comes through or not. It's still there. You know, the thing that, you know, spring, the idea of spring, you know, in, in the Western hemisphere, the Northern, the Western hemisphere, wherever the fuck we are. I'm in New York. I don't know what's, I don't get to go outside anymore, which is a problem. But in the Northern hemisphere, we're, we're in spring, you know, and you look outside and you see, you have a sense of that thing that's bigger than, than all of us, right? The thing we share, you know, the underground river of the spirit. When I say underground, you know, the thing beneath the surface of our shit, our daily stuff, that all of us seem to be very invested in, but when you sit down and, and feel it, you feel that, that, that, so it's not myself, little s, you know, it's myself, the big s, the big s is the s of the spirit, you know. So being creative or doing your work, whether it's creative or not, I think the, the people in the medical profession now, custodians, anybody helping in a big way in this difficult time that the whole world is having, are really investing and giving back to that bigger part of themselves, right? And so the, and they're not necessarily creative, you know, necessarily the doorman in my building who sits there with a mask on blesses heart, you know, and helps people with their packages and groceries and things. He's not necessarily being creative, but he is giving to the spirit, you know, but we who are creative, who have that gift are just strengthening our relationship with that thing that's bigger than us. And that's, to me, what creative work is. Does that, does that make sense? I kind of went on. It makes a lot of sense. Yeah, yeah. And that's why our work is important to me to my, I mean, this is me to, you know, it's not about the money you might make or, you know, who fabulous people might call you during watching my work. If any of you saw me pick up my phone, it was a very fancy person calling me. And, you know, and I was like, oh my gosh, you know, I better pick up the phone and have this conversation because I wanted to stay. I want to stay connected with that person, but it's not about the fancy people who might call you or who might not call you, you know, it's about to meet for me. It's about that connection. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Does that make sense? Does that make sense? It makes a lot of sense because I am, I am seeing that, that putting time and doing the work is making me discover things that I never thought about myself, my life, but at the same time, I know in myself, I am having the, the energy and the, the bravery if you want to, to make these characters and let them be. And it's an amazing thing to me because it was, because we talk and you told me about this of the top to the hand and, and with this group that we are having the squad, as you call the squad. That's right. And it's so important because I, I am so thankful in the middle of all of these, you know, the homeschooling that I talked about the other day. You got three kids, three kids at home. Three kids at home. That's right. Yes. And all that stuff, having this time to, to connect with something that goes beyond me, but allows me to know myself and being, you know, able to explore and maybe say something that. To me it's difficult at least I don't know sometimes and, and it's okay to not know. It's a blessing. So I wanted to thank you and I love what you said. Yeah. And thank you. Thank you, Melania. Really, really your blessing. Here we are. This is, but that's why Melania, you know, you're onto it. That's why I'm doing that. That's why we're here doing this and encouraging each other. Because this is going to give us an opportunity to learn something. And like you said, become brave and become more brave or braver and more courageous. And, you know, Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks Melania. All right. Next. We have Diana. Diana, you there? Oh, yeah. I'm doing that. That's why we're here doing this and encouraging each other. You know, I'm doing this and encouraging each other. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Hello. Thank you for this. This has been really wonderful. I had a question. I've been asked to adapt a book into a play into a TYA. And I have, I've never adapted anything before most of my stuff. All of my stuff is original. So I'm just wondering if you have any advice for how to. Yeah. Yeah. It sounds like it's going to be fun. Yeah. Is it a, is it a, is it a, it's a novel or. Yeah, it's a novel. It's, um, it's a full length, like older young adult book. Okay. Okay. And, and what's the four, you're going to adapt it into a play. Yes. Theater for young theater for young audience. No. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But theater for older, older younger audiences. Okay. All ages. Like, so. Okay. Great. Great. And I'm guessing that you've read the novel, the book. Yeah. Okay. Okay. And so you, do you really have the story under your, you know, under your belt, on your fingers and your body? Not yet. Not yet. I'm going to have to keep digging into it. Okay. Okay. Have you done anything like, um, I mean, what I do, and I've done a lot of. Adaptation. I mean, a lot of original work and a lot of adaptation. And both are a lot of fun. I think. Yeah. Making something up on my own is, is really enjoyable. Making something up that another writer has already, she or he is already, they have already carved that path. Right. And, and so what I feel like I'm doing always, I mean, I've done, you know, native son, their eyes are watching God. I work on porgy and best. And it's like big, huge things. But I feel like I'm always holding the hand holding hands with the first writer. Right. And, and I have a lot of respect for them. Um, I don't take on a project to show them a thing or two, you know, a lot of people think, Oh, she's adapting, you know, a poor game, but she's going to, you know, no, no, no, no, no. I'm holding the hands. Gershwin's are holding my hand and I'm very proudly walking alongside them to bring it into the next. You know, generation, if you will. So I mean, you're working with the writer, whether they're alive or passed away already to bring this, this novel, this beautiful book that they wrote into its next incarnation. Right. You're almost like a priestess, you know, you're ferrying the spirit into the next incarnation. So it's a, it's a great thing that you're doing. It's a great service that you're doing to the first writer. And the first writer is doing a great service to you. Like, cause like I said, they've already carved out the main points of the story. Now in a novel, the requirements are different. As you know, then in a play or in a TV play or in a teleplay. So you're going to have to maybe do some editing, some inventing, right? Because it should flow as a dramatic work. Right. So I would suggest if you haven't already, this is my census card again, but it's the same size as an index card, but you know, get some cards, you know, and write down the main story points, right? You may have already typed them out already, but you can write them down. You don't have to put a lot of people at story board. You don't have to put it on the wall. You can just have them and put them on your desk, lay them out, but get those main story points down. Start telling yourself the story, right? Start thinking of it again. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Is it a, it's a, you're adapting it into a play. Yes. It's a book. It's a, it's a book being adapted into a play. Okay. So you have to think of the story. And then it might need an act break. Right. So one act break or two act breaks or however many. So you, so you, you think of it like that. And then again, a novel, a book has, you know, maybe chapter breaks, right? That could help you create the scenes, but in a theater piece you're going to probably need maybe an act break, maybe not, you know, but so you'll want, but you'll want to get those, those big story points really at your fingertips in your head all the time. Okay. Yep. And just remember that the original writer, the first writer is working with you. They are helping you. So lean on them, hold their hand, walk beside them, talk to them, not in, not for real, you know, even if they're living, but through their work. Yeah. Be in conversation with them as much as possible. Yeah. This is really helpful. The novel is cut into sort of journal entries. And so there's a lot of natural dialogue in it, but I was being really binary about it's a journal. You know what I mean? Until now we just said about pulling the story points out. Yeah. Yeah. Think about the story points. And would a journal be the best, coolest, dramatic way you could tell it? Right. Maybe. Or is, do you need to do something else, something that's, that's, that's deliciously theatrical. You know what I mean? And again, journal, the journal entries could be told. I mean, we have an in theater drama, we have the soliloquy, which could be like a journal entry, maybe, you know, we do have the convention of breaking the fourth wall and talking to the audience that could be employed. You could mix and match. You could, you know, there's, there's a lot of, of techniques that you can, you can employ in theater that will help you tell the story. Okay. Okay. Yeah, that's great. Sounds like a great opportunity. Yeah, it will be. Thank you. I appreciate it. Thank you. Thanks for asking. Of course. Diana. Next we have Rebecca. Rebecca, are you there? Hey. Hi, Rebecca. Hi, Rebecca. Oh my goodness. Hi, Susan Lori. Rebecca. From NYU actually, from collaboration class. All right. Hey, it's good to see you. Hi. Good to see you, Rebecca. Good to see you too. This has been great. So, okay, I have some notes here. So I'm enjoying what I write and I have a bunch of small pieces, many beginnings to things that sort of stand alone. And I feel like they all kind of accumulate in all these tabs I have, but they feel all related to the same play. It's sort of like my, they're all part of my blah, blah, blah play. Like, I think, oh, maybe they're, they're standalone. And then they just all sort of center back around the same theme. They're very much not linear. And I feel like I hear a lot. Or I don't hear much in these conversations about like experimental pieces that are, you know, they're, you know, they're, you know, sometimes I'm not even interested in their dramatic. Miss. They're very sensorial or experiential. And so I'm curious if you have suggestions about. Or thoughts about how to. Continue to focus those things into one piece. And I'm curious if you have a question to your like planes once, which was about content informing form. I don't know if that it rings a bell, but it had a big impact on me then. So. That is what I'm. That's what I'm experiencing and interested in the, in the, in the idea of trying to get to middles and ends of things and not just in beginnings and enjoying, you know, any slush kaleidoscope experience or something. But wanting to share it. Cool. That sounds like a great project, Rebecca and. You know, again, we. The conversation is shaped by the questions that are asked and not by any specific agenda that I have. So people want to talk about. Certain kinds of art making or theater, making or all that of course I can talk about it, to lay on my experimental shit on y'all if you don't want to hear it. The great thing about not really be more interested in the experimental stuff is that it can go so many ways and yet you have to be very, very disciplined and rigorous with your creative process and your ear architecture. Shotgun shacks or shotgun houses are popular for a reason. People know how to build them. They know how to put them down. Experimental things are maybe less popular. They require the architect or the writer to be very, very rigorous in her design because at the end of the day you still want it to be habitable. I'm using that metaphor. You still want it to be watchable. You still want it to be an experience. You want it to have an end. You have to be even much more rigorous. Writing, I've got to say, and I've written writing stuff like doesn't last back man the whole entire world, aka Negro Book of the Dead, was a lot harder than writing a teleplay for television because a teleplay for television has to be a certain thing and it already has the rules defined. When I go out into the experimental thing, the rules are different and harder to discover. What you can do is if you have many of these collagee pieces, oh look, I found another piece of paper. This is small. This is cute. You can put them on little pieces of paper like this or again you can use an index card. And you can, so I imagine you have them written down somewhere, is that correct? Okay, probably not on, great. Okay, so you can put them on cards like this little, I mean, you don't have to fit the whole thing on the card. Just put the sort of meat of it or the bones of it, right? Put it on a card, right? And then you put all of them on cards. So you have them sort of a whole big stack. I don't know how many you have, big little whatever, a stack, a stack, oh my god, right? You have a huge stack of them and then you can just start going, hey, I'd like to see this one first. Oh, this would be cool after that one, right? These three in a row would be great. Yeah, I don't know where that one goes yet. I don't know, I got to rewrite that one. I don't even know what it's about, you know? Oh, this and this and this and this and this and then that. Boom, okay, great. Then we have these three. You just start to organize them by sort of listening to your internal rhythm, but that has to be strong. Sure, sure. And it sounds like a lot of fun, but try that, you know, try just starting to organize them and you might, if they're on, you put them on cards, you can number them in the corner in pencil, right? Because they might change, but you might, you know, if you don't have a big board or a big wall, you're going to put them on, you might want to just number them in pencil if you shuffle them around in your hands, you know? Okay. Don't. Just start to organize them. Yeah, yeah. It'll help to visualize it. The documents I get, you know, I get stuck, but putting them up on the wall will be sure. Up on the wall, down on the floor, in your hand, you know? Okay. Sounds like fun. Yeah. Thank you so much for doing this. Thanks for your like. Thanks for yours. Thanks, Rebecca. All right. Now we have about eight minutes left. Next, we do have Nancy. Nancy, are you there? Oh, hi. Yes, yes. Can you hear me? Yes. Oh, you went away again. You're a lamp today, Nancy. Yeah, your connection to my ear is very intermittent. Can you hear me? I'm... Keep talking. I kind of can, kind of can't, but we'll see what we can do. Someone has to unmute me. Can you hear me? I'm speaking. Hi. You are unmuted, but your voice is, it's breaking up. Now you're muted to my board anyway. You are unmuted. Again, the connection sounds very poor or dodgy. Keep talking. Let's see if we can make sense out of it. Go ahead. I'll just be brief and I'll break out. Today's in a row, I guess my luck is finally changing. Okay, I work in different projects. Someone at the same time, except a lot of times, things get started, they don't get finished because I jump on one, one, the other. You talk about working on projects, and I know your skin. What's the best way to do that dance? Do you look at the beginning of the week? I'm going to do, I'm going to put this amount of time on something, or is it an instinctual? Some of it's for hanging, most of it isn't. They're all important, so I really need a kind of... Sure. Thanks. I got it. I'm jumping in because it's hard to hear. A lot of people are texting that you should type it to me, but I think I got it. I think I got it. You're working on a couple of different projects, more than one different project at a time. How might we suggest that you rotate those projects? Yes. Thank you. Great. Got it. I work on a lot of different projects at once. You can do it in a variety of ways. Even if you're not working on different creative projects at once, maybe you've got your home schooling, and you've got to make dinner, you've got to wipe down your home again with disinfectant. I mean, you've got a lot of different things going on these days, but if it's creative projects, you can do it in a couple of different ways, Nancy. You can do it by hours, two hours on project A, followed by a tea time or what, a little break, palette cleanser, go out for a walk or whatever, then maybe two hours on project B. You can do it like that. Taking time chunks during the day for each project. You can also do it like Mondays are for project A, Tuesdays are for project A, Wednesdays are for project B, Thursdays are for project B. You see what I mean? You can divide it. You can cut the day into pieces like this. I'm like the calendar, right? Google calendar, or you can do it like this. Or you can say one whole week on project A, then put it down, get to the finish line, some kind of finish line, the end of an act, the end of a end of series or whatever you want to do, right? And then next week on project B, I'll work on that. Then next week back on project A, you can do it like that. It's fun to work on things like that. I do it a lot and you can get a lot of things done in a month as opposed to just one thing at a time if you have to work like that. Yeah. Right. So you know when you come to the, you know when you come to your end piece. That's what you said. Can you hear me? No, no. I know when I come to the, what? Where you can leave one project and go to the other. Yes, where I can leave one, do I know where I can leave one project and go to another? Yeah. I decide. Basically, if I say I'm working on project A for two hours today, timer goes off. It's two hours. That's where I leave the project. I put a, I get out my highlighter and I write in the script. If it's a re, if I'm rewriting, I circle it and I say start here, go to page 72, whatever like that. Or if it's a new project, I put a, you know, put, it's easy to find where I'm still working on it. You know, maybe I'll put a post it in my notebook. Remember that tomorrow you're going to do XYZ on this project. Sure. If it's timed wise, if it's, I'm working on project A for a week, when the week's over, there you go. Stop. Right. Go to the next project. It requires a kind of, it requires a kind of discipline. You have to sit down and work in a focused way for the amount of time that you've allotted yourself. Great. Yeah. Great. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you so much. Thanks. Thanks, Nancy. Thanks. All right. We have time for one more. Next we have Jenny, Jenny, are you there? Hi. Thank you so much for having this. I'm thrilled to discover it on HowlRound. I have a, I'm intimidated by a project that I'm working on because it is a true story. And I'm working with a climate change scientist who is suing the Trump administration because they tried to censor her. And I have her whole story and, you know, we're working together. And I applied for a Sloan grant, which was a one page outline. And because there are certain things like her husband and she, her husband reports, supports her. But the only antagonist I have is basically the Trump administration. And that doesn't come along until later. And I don't know if there should be a conflict in her marriage. Can I add things? And, you know, just, it's intimidating me because her actual story is extremely dramatic. And I don't want to change it too much. But I'm nervous about it not being, not grabbing the audience right away. And, and can I change things as, as it, you know, as important as her relationship with her husband, for instance, what if he didn't support her in, in making the changes that the Trump administration tried to force her to change, which was censor. Right, right, right. It's, it's amazing. Is it Jeannie, your name, Jeannie? Jenny. Jenny, Jenny. Okay, it's amazing, Jenny, you're more by the changing the facts of this person's life than the Trump administration, which is amazing, which means you must be a superhero and wear a cape. I mean, my personal feeling is I would personally, I would not want to show someone's good marriage in a bad light just to grab an audience. That's my personal, that's my own code, you know what I'm saying? Okay, so, so let's not, then don't do it. Don't do it. Okay, so that means you got to dig deeper. What's great is you've discovered that you need to engage an audience. Okay, a lot of writers don't even know, right? Oh yeah, right. Okay, so you need to engage an audience. So how do we do that in a way that is going to, you know, like Emily Dickinson said, tell all the truth, but tell it slant, success and circuit lies, right? So you gotta dig deep. I mean, that's not, Emily Dickinson says dig deep, but you got to dig a little deeper. Okay, maybe you have to, what we call, cut deep, like start at a place of conflict. Okay, maybe you have to go ahead. I had, I start where she's in front of Congress, you know, being, being, you know, the Republicans are trying to discredit her, but Congress, and then as she tells her story, the flashbacks show what really happened. Great. And then there's a personal part of her, which is that she is British, and she worked really hard to get rid of her cockney accent. Because she came from a tough neighborhood, and she wanted to be respected as a, and she got her PhD here in America as a science climate scientist. And when she's at the top at the crisis point, where they're really battering her, that's when this tough girl, when she's from her cockney neighborhood comes out. So I don't know whether I should start with her trying to work to get rid of, you know, that tough part of her, and be the nice girl, or I should start with her being, you know, on, on the committee where they're, they're interrogate, you know, interviewing her. Right, right. I don't know. I mean, I think you're, are you working with producers or, or? No, no, it's just me and her. I mean, my friend and mentor under Medley, she's like helping me, oh great, oh great. But I, I mean, I don't know where you should start. I mean, I think your, your material is going to dictate where you should start and how you should flashback. It sounds really exciting, but just for my money, I wouldn't make her a good marriage bat. Okay. Okay, I would just dig deeper in that and find other things that are compelling and dramatic and interesting to see that you can, you can continually engage your reader. The sun's on my face. Okay, okay, the heck out of me. Huh? It intimidates me to be able to do it right. Oh, well, I mean, you've been called, those of us who are called to do big projects, I mean, I'm working on something about Aretha Franklin right now. I mean, big, there's big, you know, we're called to do big projects about big people. You're there for a reason. You've been called. You're going to answer, you're going to hide in the corner. You know what I'm saying? And we're all called to do various things in our lives. The question is, are you going to answer the call? Are you going to hide in the corner? It sounds like you're going to answer the call. Yeah, yeah, be, yeah, be intimidated. You can feel the weight of the responsibility, but lean into it. You know what I mean? And just know that you'll, you'll get it right if you keep working at it. You know, you might not get it right in the first draft or whatever. That's fine. You know, very few of us get it right in the first draft. Who cares? Okay. Okay, just keep working at it though. Keep, keep working at it. And it's a great question. It's not a great project, by the way. Thank you. Yeah, thank you. All right. It is 6.04 p.m. We should definitely do this tomorrow. Yeah, let's do this tomorrow. All right, everyone. Just a reminder, you can sign up to be in each day's Zoom class at publictheater.org by 3 p.m. It's your standard time each day. We will email the link out between 3 and 4.30 p.m. And the following week sign up links will be released tomorrow at 3 p.m. as well. So see you tomorrow. Thanks, everybody. See you tomorrow. Have a great...