 It happens very much when we work. Hi. Hi. No? Everybody know how to do this? Yeah? We're going to work some. Anybody out there in the Twitter universe? We're going to work some. We're tweeting links. And then we're going to talk about your work and your creative process. Emphasis on your... Yeah? And if you're out there, do you want to tweet in or however? Yeah. Did you grow your hair? I did. It's great. Oh, wow. Yeah. And a lot of the past activity. Yeah. It's had a moment. It's great. It's gross. It's like... Yeah. So if you are watching at home and you want to ask some questions, you can tweet as if at watching work SLP with the hashtag HowlRound, which is H-O-W-L-R-O-U-N-D. Or there's actually on the HowlRound.tv streaming platform. You'll have to do a little questions thing that you can click on and comment, and I'll be looking at that as well. All right. Yeah. I think that's it. Awesome. I want to do my work for you there. Yes. I know, right? It's so great. I think you can get people to look at them. Yes. All right. So we're going to do 20 minutes. Do you want to get any work done? One word. You've got one thing done. Here's the part of the show where we ask you how you're doing. And if there's any way I can give you some feedback on your creative process, I'd be happy to. That's why I'm here. Anybody? Give your name. I'm Alexa. I'm Alexa. I'm Alexa. It's short. My question is sometimes personally, I find it hard to work on my own stuff because quote-unquote for anybody. Right. So sometimes I don't work on that as much as I think I should. So sometimes I do like little contests and little things with deadlines to help me get into that mindset. But sometimes I also feel that I spend too much time on these little contest plays that I care, I guess you would say less about. I should keep trying to train myself to do a deadline by doing these contest plays that I care a little bit less about, or should I just find a way to regiment myself? Did everybody hear your question? What's really good, you can pat yourself on the back for several things, really good is to realize, huh, okay, I work better when I have a deadline. So I'm going to go through these contests because they have deadlines. So you can sort of notice what you need and you're going after what you need. Okay. And the question is should you keep doing plays you don't care about because you not care about what I'm working on, that's just not how I function. So I guess it's more of a kind of good because I feel like there's a lot of pressure when I write these. So I have more fun doing that. Right. So maybe my question is how do I take the pressure off myself of, you know, is there a It's tricky, it's tricky because you have to do what you're saying is to have a deadline it gives you a certain kind of pressure, which makes you much more deadline, but because you choose to work on a place that you don't care as much about, it takes some of the pressure off. So that's another thing you need. You need to have a little less pressure or a little more fun. Right. So yeah, I would say, you know, work on stuff that really matters. Right. So that's, so if it's your place that you're not serving to these little contests that you call them, then just go ahead and find where you work on the stuff that really matters to you. Now how can you have a deadline for something that you're just writing for yourself? Right. Yeah. You can just make one up. Oh, it's easy. You know, like, oh, I want a deadline. August the first. That's a good one. Right. Right. Yeah. Or August the first. That pulling out of thin air. But I bet that's a really good deadline because it's far enough in the future to give you some time, you know, right? Because it's not like tomorrow, you know, what? Right. That would make everybody freak out. But as far as, it's not so far. It's not like a year from now. Yeah. Which is so long in the future that you're going to forget. Right. Okay. So you can make yourself deadlines like that. But if August the first isn't working, you can make July the 10th or whatever. Okay. So you can do that. You can do that for yourself. I do it all the time. Okay? The second thing is how can you have more fun working on things that matter? Right. Should anybody have anything? You know, because it's like stress. You're working on something that matters and it's stress. Try to find a way to get in the mindset of when I'm writing the contest plays when I'm writing. Right. Right. And how do you get in that? Is it, is, is, what makes the contest plays fun? Is it because they are, for example, short? Is it, what is it, what is it? Um, they are shorter. But, no, there's nothing to say that what I'm working on right now has to be long. So I guess I can tell myself just write what I want to write or what I feel like is the length and that hasn't, that has to think it has to be a three or two act or whatever. That's true. Right. Just let it be what it is. Um, also, these are fun too because it's kind of like, usually there's like a theme or something and it kind of focuses my brain in that area. Right. Which you can also make up for yourself. Yeah. It's, yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's tricky because what you want to do is you want to become a, a, a, a free person. Right. So, right. Just like, I mean, I don't know, but, you know, keep, you know, there's a moment in child's life for American children where the parent says it's kind of free to be potty trained. You want to be free. You want to be independent. You want to be free. You want to be free. It takes effort and responsibility. Right. Okay. Between, you have to develop some skills. Like you have to develop the skill of creating your own deadlines. That's a free woman. That's what a free artist does. She is self-motivated and self-directed. You have to come up with your own themes. So, we don't need to wait for the man, the master, the one, the teacher to tell us what to do, how to direct our thinking. We can do it on our own. Okay. And plenty of, I'm sure, fine plays and works that come out of people telling people what to do. But if you're interested in seeing what the, what, what the other side of the person is like. Right. You want to, you want to give that a try. You want to be encouraging of ourselves when we're doing our thing. Right. So, we're not just doing something for some, we're doing our own thing. Right. Yes. Okay. So, you want to be that. And you want to develop a delight in your own. There's a, I mean, we don't call them plays for nothing. A play. You know what I mean? It's plays. What you have to do is you have to, there's an exciting that happens. I was talking to some students a couple of weeks ago at Yale. I was talking to them. We were talking about how if you're swimming in the water, you know, in the water's deep and you're sort of in the ocean after a while. Right. You have to learn that actually what you're there to do is dive and learn to swim underwater and delight in the complexity and difficulty of the path that you've chosen. Right. Dive. Dive. That's your job. Your job is to dive. Not to swound around on the surface. Right. Right. And wait for somebody to tell you what to do. You're going to dive and delight in all the treasures you find underneath the surface of your surface. Okay. So, to go there, you know, and if it's difficult. It's okay. Keep, keep going. You know, and develop that. And that's what an artist, whatever she does, painter, director, dancer, you name, whatever, tightrope walker, rather, fallow, you know. We learn to develop a delight in our craft. You know, that's why we walk around with smiles on our faces. Even if the work is hard to have this catalog. Right. Because it's simultaneously very difficult. And it sounds very enjoyable at the same time. Right. Okay. So, just remember, if you let it, it totally gets hand out to you. You go there. You know. You know that, you know that place, right? I do. Right. Yeah. Sure, sure. What we all do, we all forget about it. We all forget about it. We all forget. It's difficult to hold in your mind and in your day to day, you know. How something you're doing kind of just for yourself should be, you know. And I think the more time you spend on it, the more enjoyable it becomes. And then you get into the practice of delighting in this complexity. And there you are. You're on your path. That's the path. And which doesn't mean that everyone's who I might forget. You should have a community to remind you or remind yourself or whatever. That's a good question. Anybody else? Hi, Rachel. Hi. I just wonder if you have any suggestions on how to approach people or feedback. Recently finished something like Never Share. It was more, I do a lot of like professional business, whatever, writing. Right. Very little creative personal writing that ever goes beyond my iPhone. And so I decided to share with several people and then didn't hear back from any of them. So I didn't, not so much didn't hear back, but heard like very minimal different things. And I don't know if it was like the pool of people I chose. Yeah. Content of what I chose or how I like, if I was too low key about, oh, just take a little bit of time or like, I don't know, since I haven't done or sharing. I'm here before. You're so brave. Look at you. You wrote something. You finished it. You decided to share it with people and you went out. You totally jumped off the building and you're still flying. There's nothing wrong. You're just like, now you're cruising around going, okay, who am I going to share with next? And some people, just so you know, just like sharing your work is new to you, some people getting someone's work and needing to comment on it. That's new to them. Some people don't know and they don't want to say the wrong thing. They're not accustomed to it. Okay. So that's the thing, which means that the next person you pick to share your work with maybe needs to be someone who maybe does some writing of her own, or his own, maybe. Maybe there's a writing group you can get in that has an active, that's part of the process of the group, like a short story writing class that just wants what we can share like that. It's part of the class. So that's a good thing because everyone in that class will be expecting and expected to comment on your work, to give you feedback. It might not all be helpful, you know, but it's the format of the class. So maybe a formal class and there are lots of them around town, you know. Even if, say, it's a poetry writing class and you're a fiction writer, you can still probably join and say, hey, this is the format. You know, you can check it out like that, okay. But that's kind of a, if you're sharing with friends, yeah, maybe next time, or maybe if you have other friends you haven't yet shared with, ask them. You're going to share some with me, you know? No, yeah. Totally whatever. College, colleges. Hey, that's a good idea. Other writing in this. That's a good idea. That's a very good idea. And maybe prep and before, you know, because also some people, they might be tight for time. I mean, you know, those many things that are going on in your life make it difficult sometimes to give quick or generous responses to people you know, your friends have that too. But it's definitely not the quality of what you sent them. It's just the people and how they had their own stuff to deal with. You know? Okay? So, yeah, definitely widen your pool. And, you know, I was going to say, think about giving it, giving you, sharing your work with people who really care about you. That's a good place to go. Okay, going not necessarily with parents. I know. Not caring about it like that. But you know what I'm saying? But friends who care about you. And maybe friends who you can reciprocate. You know, maybe they have, like I said, they have writing that they'd like to show you or maybe they have a band they'd like you to listen to or they have a, they're learning an instrument and they'd like to play it in front of you for the first time. Something like that. Something like that. Or childcare or whatever. I'll sit for you for two hours if you want to give me feedback on my efforts to, yeah? Good question. But congratulations, you've been so great. Did you do that? Do you have a cape? Thanks. Sounds like you do. We might be, I forgot you. Wallace. Wallace. Yes. Someone to read something I wrote. Uh-oh. Is it long? Try sitting down. I can't, you know, you know, this is not, this is not what we do in this class. But you really gotta read something. Yeah. No. It's a poem. Yeah. And so is the Iliad. But, uh... Yeah, you said... It'd be about, it'd be... I'll give you, give me 30 seconds. Give me, give me, I have a question first. Are you expecting me to give you feedback on your work? Nope. Okay, because I want to, you know, I don't want to be inappropriate. Okay. Okay, go. Upon the back of a forest, a rose, a city of steel built by hands of immigrants in search of a new ideal, the Algonquins were the first, then the Dutch came next to shore, Peter Stuyvesant last led the scrappy band, scorning Dutch Jews and Quakers of Yor. That's the first one. What is it from? It's from... Did you write it? Yeah. Yeah, it's gorgeous. It's a, it's a, it's a, it's a poem about New York City history written poetically. Mm-hmm. There'll be other elements to it, but, but it was, what the 20, what I used the 20 minutes for, was to look for the poem. And I have this beautiful journal that say, it's called an intensive journal. Uh-huh. And I couldn't find it, so I like tried to scrub it out what I could remember, and then I was able to locate it. But, but I added more to that, to what I knew because, you know, I didn't have what I thought I had. Right. So, um, but that's, that's how I used my 20 minutes. It's gorgeous. So where, where are you going with your poem? Um, I think this is a poet. What I want to do is I want to, um, write about the history of poetry in New York City. Oh, cool. Um, you know, starting from pieces that were not known, that were perhaps done in, by the Alconquans. Um, and then later to just come up through the ages and talk about not only poets, but the famous poets, the most famous ones, because there were like lots that were there, but we don't know about it. Like we know about Emma Lazarus. We know about, um, Alan Ginsberg. We know about who else. Who else? I mean, it's just, don't, don't you jump to mine. Thousands. Hmm? Thousands. I know, but it's like, it's like you don't, most of those people are forgotten, but the ones you remember, like everybody remembers Emma Lazarus because of the poem she wrote. Right. But there were some, there were her contemporaries. Oh, Walt Whitman. But there are people who are written, writing in her day that they don't remember them because their poems didn't rise to prominence as theirs were. So there will be people that I will miss, you know. I'm just, it will not be exhaustive. Is it to be performed, or is it, is it just, not just both? Uh, yeah, it's actually a part of a autobiographical poem. Um, and last time I was here I talked about epic poetry. So I've taken my life and done that. And so it starts out, you know, like how many years ago, 10 years ago, and kind of like starting in 1999, and it moves through the present day. Talking about the things I learned. So it will be a part of a larger piece. What's the title? Uh, right now it's called Fairy Chronicles. Uh, fairy, a very specialized word. Um, there in the 1970s there was a movement of gay men. Um, mostly pagan that drew a word uh, an ideal out of native culture called the birdosh, or the two-spirited warrior, male and female, androgynous. And, um, and now many of those people are, that movement is called the fairy movement, the radical fairy. So they, uh, they're very known for, um, educational efforts during the beginning of the AIDS movement, the AIDS crisis. Uh, going into gay bars and letting people know about using condoms and so on and so forth. So they're like really important to the, I guess, the preservation of gay culture and gay identity. And a guy by the name of Harry Haig was, uh, yeah, Harry Haig was like the, the leader the first of that movement. So, so yeah, so I'm one and, and the thing about it is none of us are alike, right? So, someone who is, they would say, you're not a radical fairy, yes I am because that's what I claim. Well, almost I would totally claim you as a radical fairy. There's no doubt about it. There's no doubt about it. What are the other policies, uh, very often, um, they play with the idea of gender, you know, they're not drag queens necessarily. They're just men who say what rules says that men can't wear a skirt as a part of everyday what kind of skirt? Um, it depends sometimes they're called broom skirts broom skirt? I mean, it's just yeah, I mean it's like sarong oh, sarong, oh. I mean it's like some of the clothing, you move the man into another culture I was just getting you with a fashion man, I was totally joking Oh, I got a bad news Yeah, so anyway so the fairy comes to New York That's great and I appreciate it because I'm really looking forward to this, you know, this is where I can actually talk about my creative process so I'm very grateful for it Okay, that would be easy More, but you know do you have a deadline? Do you have a deadline? Um, you know, I would like to put the four pieces together for my birthday on November 11th Okay So I have three already written and so this is the fourth Oh great, okay and you have a good method for finding your work when you need to find it Yes coming here, because otherwise it would still be I mean it would still be on the shelf Okay, so you're going to put the four together by your birthday Yeah, November 11th That's a good birthday 66 You? Oh, in 1966 Yeah Time to time Anybody else? I'm not sure if it's like totally the right form but let me know So I'm mainly a producer but I'm interested in what like the ideal kind of producer playwright relationship is and like this new and sort of like a way of thinking of like a producer sort of a dramaturg and collaborator type person and not just a person who like tracks the budget and like finds the things Is there like I guess it's not exactly a question I guess I'm just like what is what would be a good version of that relationship So obviously a good version of a relationship between a playwright and a producer that's not just someone who runs the buzz People at Audra's Department, you guys are legendary and you can make magic happen, I mean but it's very much magic that most people going to the theater don't even notice We go, we sit there and you guys have made all this beautiful stuff possible right I mean examples in people we know What do you look for like in a do you look at it as a producer as a collaborator or do you not have like more hands off like what is the It depends on the producer actually because some producers you want in the room and some you don't Right Right, I mean some people you want in the room helping you get there to the finish line and some people you really don't want their notes Right, so people at the public theater you want in the room, you definitely want them, so like you think of Oscar you know you want Oscar in the room because you want to hear what he's thinking and not just because he's a big cheese with a long hair but because he gives really good notes so he's I mean in my mind he's the kind of producer that you want you know the producer who's also the drummer kind of thing over here with Andy, you want them in the room you know, you want to hear what they're thinking, now this means that you have to develop a real relationship with the playwright and that takes some effort but it's no, it's not bad it's like you read their play and then you say hey can I grab a cup of coffee because I'd love to talk with you about your play you know, where are you in the writing process and because I'm the the kind of producer who is who offers when asked you know dramaturgical advice and you can just start a relationship but you have to begin it because most playwrights they're not going to say hi who in the room has notes for me you know I mean you're going to have to approach them you know just in terms of like do you think like I would never want to give somebody notes who doesn't want but he wants them or not yeah, I think if you begin the relationship before rehearsal starts that's great because then the pressure is much less so when you read the play that you like and you know it's going to be the season or whatever then you start the relationship then right? and you then so it's and you can say I'll be around so if you want another set of eyes on it I'd be happy to you know and you bet they're going to be calling you it might not be appropriate because maybe other people in the room might be like she's only going to take my notes so it might be a little tricky so you'll have to be kind of maybe back channel about it you know and you know writers like people who give them notes that are helpful can you guys ask? Rebecca hey Rebecca welcome back, good to see you how's it going? I spent 10 days on the second graph with the fantasy that I would get through so it's full of blank draft but it's all the way through well that's a lot but I got through enough then I'm sort of feeling a redirection is it good? well I think the one thing that is good is I'm sort of figuring out so this is about someone else and of course it's not a memoir but it has personal stuff in it so that's the balance of that I'm trying to figure out how to represent a crime that was probably a reaction to a crime so that I'm struggling there and one of my informants who's the original, unreliable narrator told me about his historian he told me about the Beodoldius in historical documents so now my struggle is with how much more research actually actually going to be seen in these court documents I have to see them I think they're actually the transcripts of the grand jury right they've all been burned taking to the dump in there Nashville I think they've just finally got it because I've been on this for ten years which is the other thing damn I don't have time right so I just feel I think the pressing thing in terms of is getting the how to represent a crime that I mean it was murder that I consider justified right not necessary and not right but justified and how to represent that how to write about it how to you know that Bob Marlin song I shout the sheriff I did not shoot the deputy let me shout the deputy right and just deputy was beating up the black woman so how to is it like it's not first person is it it goes it moves so when you're talking about the crime which person will it be it's the newspaper coverage but it's a kind of balance between what the black paper said which are totally right but it doesn't feel like enough to at this point to let those two things sort of talk to each other represent different versions right so are there characters you could survive that um right because he lies all the time right but you know I think it is probably so then there's the balance between the story and the commentary and I think it's a commentary but um it's confusing um so you have a draft of it already that's not working is that I don't know if it's working it's only 55 pages in the second draft but you've gone over the material before I'm sorry you've got you've shown this part of the book I mean you've written this part of the book already and then you said it's a second draft so I'm sure that you have a first draft of this particular difficulty and it's not working no I don't think it is I started out wanting to write about the Jim Crow period without ever saying the words Jim Crow so that people would feel it as opposed to have some idea of it and that's what I want this to do is have people feel both the action and the consequences and and not not 80 years later holding against so um so I you know I know it's like in terms of writing it's like there's this thing up here I'm reading for and it's just out of my skill and range and reach why do you say that well because that's the best way to write it just out of my skill and range and reach just the structure you know I feel like there's certain things we all know how to do and there's certain things we learn how to do in the process of trying to reach that perfection I'm not going for absolute perfection but I am going for I'm not sure there's I mean I need to keep writing and I know that yeah but it's okay to have to realize you know you're in the difficulty of it and that's okay and it's going to take some growing as a writer to get there and that's okay too and you know like you said it's it's a new skill that you are acquiring you know and it gets closer and it gets more reachable as you continue to work on it you know it seems like you're going to get there you just need to keep walking and it's difficult for ten years yeah yeah well a lot of that was just the piece of stuff together sure sure sure eight years of it was just a piece of it yeah yeah yeah so this is the moment where I feel like I have most of it do you have another block of time to work on it? I'm trying to figure that out probably after I teach still some so probably after graduation I'll take a couple of weeks it's very exciting it's very exciting I'll keep going good luck and it sounds like a great project so anybody burning questions? burning questions I've got one from online there's a couple paragraphs but I'll choose a part of it so this person Jeanine Robinson is saying that she feels like she's in a gather phase for a project and she wants to make herself sit down to work and it's just not coming any suggestions? and do you use a typewriter in real life? real life as opposed to what we do just three times so yes I use a typewriter there's a lot of things typewriter, write on my phone there's a lot of writing on our phone longhand shorthand computer so yes all kinds of things are helpful anything's just right in this show so you're in a gathering phase she's in a gathering phase she wants to sit down and write and it's not happening maybe there's more gathering certainly maybe there's more gathering but I will say also if you feel like you've done gathering for the moment anyway you can just sit down with your title 20 minutes a day and just free write and see what happens because a lot of times you might have an idea of what it is that you're looking for like it's going to look like this it's going to be a red rubber ball and you're sitting down and waiting for the red rubber ball to descend from the ceiling it's not happening so you think nothing's happening but something in fact is happening and you have to just sit down and write long hand computer whatever 20 minutes a day to start talking to yourself you know mulling over your gathering things and things will start to piece themselves together like Rebecca was saying pieces together right they start to collect together for the that's what I think anyway that's helpful so are we back next page nevermind we're back on April 30th April 30th we'll be doing another installment of why should we work thanks