 And we will take, I will take questions from you about your work and your creative process. Um, and because that's what we just love to talk about here on watching work, and you can get in touch with me in so many ways. And Lolly will tell you how. Yes. So if you're watching here with us on zoom, uh, you can ask a question by using the raise your hand function, which is in the reactions tab, likely at the bottom of your screen, if you have any trouble accessing it, just let me know in the chat and I'll help you out. If you are watching with us live on howl round, you can ask questions via the public theaters, Twitter or Instagram accounts or via the watch me work Twitter account, which is at watch me work SLP with the hashtag howl round. That's hashtag H O W L R O U N D. Fantastic. All right, let's get started. We have a timer to do. All right, all right. Oh, my default microphone is changed. Hey, hey, hey, we are back. We are back. Feel free to raise your hand if you have a question. Yeah, please. Oh, looks like we got a question from Rebecca. You should be able to unmute now. Hi, Susan, Laurie. Hey, darling. Hey, sister, how are you doing? Good to see you. Good. I'm good. How are you? Good, good. Good. So just reporting in. I I investigated substack. Yeah, that's what you said. I have, well, at first it was like, oh, this is going to be so much work. So, um, but then I've been writing and I just started posting at my medium side about about the, you know, big explosion and spill of vinyl chloride in in Ohio. Because it's near where I grew up. Um, yeah. And and it got me thinking about sort of the difference between medium, which is longer than a tweet, but not a marketing blog, not that length. So it's a longer piece. And substack that could be used for, you know, some interesting, um, explorations. So I'm thinking of doing a micro memoir because people keep saying you need to write a memoir, but I don't really want to until after I I'm not sure I want to at all. But after I, you know, the manuscript hopefully gets picked up and and that micro memoir is going to be called Toxic Exposures because I love the title. Yeah, I mean, it's both the actual Toxic Exposures growing up in Northeast Ohio. Substack is a a site for putting your writing up and people can either pay to read it or you can just let people read it. And I haven't made any decisions about all that. But it feels like, oh, that would be an interesting way to just get at. You know, seeing how I can present myself to the public and also write about the stuff that I know. So so I have another medium piece that's going to go up first and then and I'll go back to figuring out sort of this great micro memoir. Sounds exciting. Sounds exciting. I'm excited. Thank you. Yeah. All right. Love the update, girl. Thank you. Yeah. Well done. Good job. Good job. And it's great that you're exploring, I mean, you know, things that are like, you know, things that are new, you're already doing the medium thing. So you're like, let me look at Substack and just see if there's anything out there, you know. Yeah. And in in the sort of all of the instructions on Substack was. You know, you can post on both, people can go between the two. And so it's not like it's the only Substack somehow owns what what gets posted. So and I, you know, the reaction to. I mean, the train derailment and the fire and the fire they set were terrible. That was awful. But it's been happening in Ohio and Western PA for decades. Right. Going back to the fifties. Right. So and it's not so much that they should be punished for that. Or that, you know, mine, but that we thought it was a good thing. And that's sort of what I want to get at is we thought all that oil and lamp black in the fire in the rubber industry were good things. So and then, you know, we ended up with flames coming out of faucets because of fracking. So like, what is what does that mean? And as a memoir, it feels a little more accessible. Sounds good. Yeah. Yay. Yay. Thank you. I'm applauding you in advance. Thank you, Rebecca. That's what we should do. I just think that's what we should start doing when we go to like plays a lot in advance with the light with the light when we go go with lights to half. We go to people who love just a plot. I love it. Yeah, Jesse. Hey, Jesse, I can't I can't hear you, though, brother. Oh, we can't hear you. You're unmuted, but but. And there's a volume up on your pretend to know. Yeah. But you're muted. You're Mike. Maybe you're Mike and you're on your on your computer. Here, I'm going to mute and then unmute you again. And so. Doesn't mean. No, now you're invisible. Well, you know, you just walked. Look, yeah, I'm like, wait a minute, you're walking behind people who are on that was weird. He walked by Andrew and that was weird. I was like, wait a minute, that guy. Hi. Hey, that was cool. Yes. So I'm actually here in writing ensemble class right now and where I'm actually working on a monologue piece right now. And my question essentially was. How do you what what is the best way to generate a sense of realism in a play or especially through your writing and the words that you use? Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Great. Jesse, so define realism, please. What it means to you. What are you talking about? Essentially trying to get the characters to seem as if. It's real. Like, things are really going on at this very moment in time. And maybe like the word choices that they use. And the different connotations on them, I don't know if that's making sense, but. Because in the past, have you have you go ahead, go ahead, talk to me. You had difficulty working on a monologue from a play that I'm sort of toying with it's based on how politics, the pandemic and essentially low pay for public school teachers are affecting them so much to where they're leaving their jobs midway through the entire. School year, I'm an actual teacher in a public school. And so it's something that I'm dealing with now and I know I have conversations that I have with coworkers and I feel like, OK, these are. Very interesting conversations and I feel as if I could use them as material. But it's like, I don't want to take every word that they say. But I want to, you know, just use it majority of it. Some of it, you know, to create a story. Right, right, right, right. OK, OK. How do I create that realism? Yeah, it's a very it's a really great sense of a wonderful project that you're that you're working on public school teachers, teachers, any kind of teachers are heroes in my book. And it sounds like your colleagues are you are having incredible conversations with your colleagues. I would just say I would suggest that you are very mindful about kind of like you to use your words, using what your colleagues say to generate your own material. That is not what I would suggest to do. I would suggest that you turn on your imagination. What grade do you teach, bro? I teach six, seven to eight grade. My son is in sixth grade. I hope you're not one of his teachers. Please don't leave. No, no, no, no, no. But, you know, I would I would suggest, you know, like his students say, use your imagination, use your imagination and create yourself some characters if you want or formally interview your colleagues and credit them with documentary style theater. You know what I mean? But you want to formally you can you can formally and make it all above board, you know, because you don't want to be one of those people who rips off people, right? Make it above board, interview them and and and, you know, your colleague Joe and your colleague Jasmine or whatever and and and present them in a really upfront way. And then you can tweak and change what they say, but be really clear that these are your colleagues speaking. These are actual people. These are not from your imagination. OK. If that's appealing, then that's one way to do it. You interview your colleagues and then you assemble what they say. And then you you sort of edit that down and create a theater piece from that documentary theater. There might be a better term for it, but, you know, or you make stuff up. But it's a tricky thing. So which which right now is more appealing to you. What do you think? Documentary theater actually pulling them aside to get their views on how things are going and what they've experienced and then taking that and then creating different characters around that. Right. Credit them, please, please credit them. Yes, because, yeah, OK, so, you know, their names, their, you know, so when we go to see your show or we read it in a book, you know, we see that these are the people who gave you the stories. And there might be some legal stuff that you got, some a few legal things you got to organize to make that correct. You know, you want to come correct. OK. But that's it's a beautiful sounds like a beautiful project. Just just get the paperwork, get the come correct. OK. Yeah, I will. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. We have Kimmy D. There he goes. There he goes in back and that's so fun. OK, we have Kimmy D. And then Ben, you'll be after. Hey, Kim. Hi. Hi. I'm on the same time zone. Finally, I'm back in New Jersey. My best friend died and I am the exception tricks of his will and his family is not very kind. And I'm really going through it. And so I'm so grateful for everybody to be here. And I'm so I'm sorry I'm crying. I'm just trying to hold it together. But I am going to come see you, though. That's the one good thing I can see you in the when you're back at the public. So I get to see you in person for a change. Oh, thank you. So thank you and thank you, everybody, for being here and meeting. It means a lot to me to have this space. So as a comedian and as a writer, I don't know how to survive my pain without writing about it. And I definitely want to write about this because I don't think we talk. Enough in art about grief as much as somebody died and then this happened. And we don't really talk about this human experience or animalistic experience because animals go through grief, too. And I really want to like delve into it because I'm in it. And it and it's. Every emotion all at once, all the time. So I was wondering, how could I cultivate material while I'm in this mess because it makes more sense to go back to my notes later than to try to recall everything and then make a play. So how would you would you suggest that, like. I take notes while I'm going through whatever it is I'm going through. Does this make any sense? Is this question. No, that's exactly that's exactly what you should do. Right. If it's messy, right about the right, describe the mess. You know, OK, just just just show up every day and write something about what's going on. That makes sense. Yeah, I was sitting on the plane and they were describing how, you know, all the things that they tell you before you take off. And I was thinking, how fucking stupid are we as a society that we still have to be told how to use a seatbelt? You know, like these are the kinds of things that are popping in my head. Why am I on this plane going across the country for a shitty reason? Why why do we do these things in life as adults? And then and I'm just so in the middle of it, I don't know how to. Cultivate and mine the experiences to make art later. Maybe you don't have to cultivate and mine the experiences to make art later. Maybe you just have to live it. You know, I mean, it's it's interesting that the words, you know, cultivate, mine, use life experience to turn into art. Who, you know, maybe you just have to like live it. But if you need to write about it, write about it. If you write about it in your notebook, that doesn't necessarily mean it's going to turn to art. But as you said, as a comedian and as a writer, the best way for you to process your stuff is by writing about it. But just because you write about it doesn't mean it's going to become art. OK, not everything written down is to share. We know, yeah, those of us who have notebooks or or, you know, angry emails and we don't send them have everything written as to share. Sometimes the writing is just for you. Maybe this writing is just for you, you know. But if you want to keep track, which it sounds like you do and process, which it sounds like you do, then show up every day in your notebook and write stuff down. I've never I'm 61 and I've had parents die and friends die. But this is hitting me way different. I'm so sorry. I'm sorry. Thank you. I appreciate your love and support in this space. Thank you so much, everybody. I'm so sorry. Thank you. Thank you. Keep showing up to your to your notebooks, you know. Yeah, I could help and keep coming back, because we'll be here. I'm so grateful. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Kimme, sending you love and support. Thank you so much. Love in the chat. Thank you. Thank you, everybody. Welcome. We have Ben next. And then I think we have Shane on deck after that. Hey, Ben. Hi, hi, everyone. Thank you so much for allowing me to be here and ask a question. Kimme, that really resonated a lot with me. I also work in mental health advocacy. So if you want to connect, I'm happy to help you to find some mental health resources to navigate grief. I'm a two-time suicide attempt survivor from 2011, and I talk about mental health, suicide prevention, death and all of my work. So I'm really I'm not I'm really big on talking about it and helping people navigate it, because grief is a bitch. I've been there, so I'm happy to offer any resources. I just wanted to share that and I'm new here too. So I'm not sure how many questions I can ask. I kind of have two if that's OK, if not, someone can tell me. So I really need some help if you have any resources to be able to or what tools you may use to kind of grade yourself if you've had a successful writing session. For me, sometimes the like administrative things of being a creative creep in during writing sessions. And I'm trying to determine if that still counts as progress within the writing session or if I should be blocking everything out to be able to focus on just being the creative side. But, you know, as a writer, we are a business, you know what I'm saying? So you have to like juggle all the hats and I'm multifaceted. So I can do that. But am I being successful? Right, right. Wow. That's that's a really good question, Ben. And I appreciate the the services and help that you're sort of generously offering on your very first visit to watch me work. But that's very, very loving. We appreciate that. Grading. This is an interesting. The moon must be in something or other. This the the vibe here is really intense today. Grading yourself for your writing sessions. So so you can you can sort of track your progress, right? And that's why we use a timer. And again, we always say I always suggest you use a timer that is just a timer and not your phone. OK, so you use a time like a kitchen timer kind of thing that will help you get away from your phone and get away from your messages and Instagram and whatnot. And one way to track your progress in your writing session is to. Oh, thank you, Becca. The moon is in Gemini. That's interesting is to. Say I'm going to show up every day for X amount of minutes. So 20 minutes is a wonderful time amount amount of time, right? And then if you want to grade your progress, Ben, you always get an A plus. Ben, I'm serious. You and you can say SLP gives me an A plus every day. I give you a plus every day and I don't even know you brother. If you show up and turn on your timer, you know, and sit down at your whatever computer, laptop, you know, whatever, whatever you got, your notebook, whatever, right? And you sit there or maybe you stand at your desk and you are there and you are intending to do the work, you get an A plus. Because that's the tip of the iceberg or the amount of love that you've got to start or continue actually to give yourself. Good job, right? You're doing a good job. No, I'm serious. This is this is what we've got to get those those those unhelpful things out of our heads and bring in more of the helpful good stuff. Good job. OK, so that's how you can grade yourself. Show up. Just show up the very first award I ever got. I think I was in kindergarten or something. Anyway, and they gave out awards. I got an award for perfect attendance and right then it clicked in my mind. That's all I'm going to do. I'm just going to keep showing up. That's all I'm doing. I just show up. Here I am, right? And that's basically it. So you get an A plus. All we want you to show up. With the intent to write and see what happens. OK. I appreciate that. That's very empowering. Do I still get? Yes, you do. Here we are. We're here. So I with the help of a friend who's on this call as well, who I won't shout out because I don't want her to be embarrassed. But I was able to get equity and verse grant from the Poetry Foundation to develop a really ambitious idea. And, you know, I have to have something for them by September of 2023 and I work. I'm a procrastinator and I and this is a really big organization and I don't want to ruin it because they they gave me ten thousand dollars to work on this and they also give away millions of dollars. And I one day would like to receive millions of dollars. And I don't think that's going to happen if I procrastinate and don't do a good job. So I want to see how do you. Oh, my friend, Ashley, said it's OK to shout her out. Ashley Calhoun is my friend who helped me. She's an excellent fundraiser and fund development person, especially for creatives. And I feel so grateful to have her on my team. She also helps my nonprofit that I have here in Detroit. So thank you, Ashley. She helped me get my she actually helped me get twenty thousand dollars from the Poetry Foundation. Half of it is for a poetry slam that my non proper produced. And the other half is for me as an artist and it's really, really weird because I've never been given this money to just do art from my own brain as opposed to producing programming for the community. So I'm really I'm excited and scared. Like Little Red Riding Hood and Into the Woods. So I love some advice on how to manage, I guess, imposter syndrome, procrastination and then just to kind of hold oneself accountable to because I'm really good at putting things on the calendar. I'm really good at like, at this time, I'm going to do this. Do I do it? You know, I'm saying, so how do you how do you, you know, what do that? Yeah, I mean, that's a yes. That's something I enjoy talking about quite a bit. So thanks for giving me the opportunity to talk about making a schedule, keeping a schedule and the way you hypnotize yourself. So first, we're going to. And also and also budgeting, also budgeting to stay with money. Yes, the both. Well, the money that they gave me not overspending because it has to happen with the amount of money that I have. OK, well, that I don't know about because I don't know exactly what you're doing. So you're going to have to talk with actually maybe can talk because she knows maybe a little more specifically. But I'm doing this. This is what we're going to start by doing. This is the words come out of your mouth, right? And they're going into your ears. OK, she be I want you to be very mindful, Ben, about what you say about yourself. You know, things like I'm a procrastinator. Don't hypnotize yourself, brother. We hypnotize yourself, telling yourself that you're a procrastinator. Find a different way. You know, hey, I'm working on getting my work done. OK, sometimes I have a block and I got to work through it. Find ways you're you're creative. Let's find the find some ways to reframe some of those things you're saying about yourself so that you can set yourself up for success, because you're the best hypnotizer of Ben in the universe. And it comes right out of your mouth and goes right into your ears. OK. So that's one thing that helps tremendously. OK. A schedule. What time of the day is your most productive time of day? The morning for me. Right. How early? 8 a.m. Yeah, 8 is good. I mean, you like sitting down at your desk or whatever 8 a.m. 8 a.m. to get up to start working by. I have to schedule in time for me to be on the Internet before I actually start working. So 8 a.m. is where I start so I can start working by 10. Like 10 by 10. You have to be on the Internet for two hours. What do you do on the Internet? You know, email. OK. Oh, oh, and you have to do that before you start writing. Or well, otherwise it's going to distract me as I'm trying to write. Yeah, I do. I do. OK. OK. OK. Well, we'll just we'll just. And so you have from 10 until when to to write three, three. OK, great. So I can probably have a break. Great, great. So let's make it from 10 to 11. Oh, my gosh. Yeah, we're going to lower the bar. We're going to lower the bar and give you an hour to work. If you work for one hour every day, OK, from now, 27th of February until. Let's just say the 27th of August, right? Then you'll have a month to rewrite or you'll have it's due September 1st. Or September, when did you say it was to accept the program? I have to send a report September 30th. Great. So it's great. So you'll have so you'll have time to rewrite or polish and have it, right? If you show up every single day for one hour, one hour, then you can like LolliGag, do whatever you want for the other several hours until three o'clock. You understand? I do. Thank you. When you get on the computer, I want you to after you've done your emails, you've had two hours to emails. Can you turn off the Wi-Fi connection, please? You know how to do that on your computer? OK. OK, shit. Yes, yes. I'm having withdrawal already. And I haven't done it yet. I'm having withdrawal already. OK, well, well, welcome to your writing life. OK, so because what you're doing, you're having what you're going to have withdrawal from the internet, bullshit that's out there. It's not really helping you at all. And but you're going to make way for you're going to make room for this beautiful, beautiful stuff, right? That's called your beautiful writing that we love so much already. OK, and that's how you talk about your writing all the time. My beautiful writing that I love so much already. My beautiful writing that I'm doing. My beautiful project that I'm doing. OK. OK. Hey, hey, because because why not talk about yourself with words of love? Why not talk about your work with words of love and appreciation? It's a gift. You know what I mean? So why not say? And you don't have to put yourself up. We talked about imposter syndrome, which that's not believing that you deserve whatever it is that you have. Is that what that is? What is that? Yeah, that's what it is. Right. OK, well, then you can just turn around. You know, I deserve I deserve the right to have this wonderful grant. I deserve this opportunity. I worked hard for it. I work hard. I put in the time. I do the work. I deserve to have this opportunity. You know, start talking to yourself with words of love or continue to talk to yourself with words of love, because I'm sure you do it already. OK. OK, yeah, I know you give that look. Yeah. OK. And you must promise me you must come back and hang with us on a regular basis. Like, yeah, R.S.P.P. for the next two days. Yeah. OK, OK, well, good. Well, you must come back and hang with us like, you know, like like Rebecca does and like Timothy does and like, you know, you just come back, come and hang with us, because we will continue to, you know, encourage you to speak about your work and about yourself with words of love and encouragement. It makes a huge difference and show up for yourself every single day. Come hell or high water, brother. You were at you were you have turned off the Wi-Fi at 11 o'clock or 10 o'clock and you got your timer set. You can do it in three 20 minute increments so you don't get overwhelmed. Three 20 minute increments and you set it and you work and the beat of it goes off. You can relax and you turn it on again. OK, every day if you do it, you can you can get there. All right, I appreciate that. Thank you. We appreciate you. Thank you. Thank you, Ben, and welcome. I think we have Hank up next. I think we're making the space available. Appreciate it. I'm Hank. I'm calling from Atlanta, Georgia. And and Ben, I really appreciate the question you asked about keeping track of time. I actually have my timer right here, so I'm really so glad that that says my own thing. Really, during the pandemic, I gave myself the assignment to write a six word play every day for a year, inspired by your your volume of plays, which I read. And and the answer you gave to Kimmy before, I wonder if it applies here, is there anything I should try to do with that? Or is that and I would sometimes send those plays out to five or six people? I sometimes run a Valentine to my spouse. I mean, and sometimes or to my my my children. So it really had its own audience on this, but I have this collection of plays and part of me just thinks, OK, it was for the moment there. But I wonder if you had any thoughts about about that bulk of materials or also maybe it falls in what you said that Kimmy is sometimes the most important writing is from the soul and it will manifest itself in other other vehicles, other venues. Yeah, that's a great question, Hank. And because you're asking the question, I'm thinking, well, there they are plays, right? OK, well, you could say, well, plays need to be performed. They might need to be performed. And if you have the desire to perform them, you can perform them or you can get and or you can get your friends to join you and perform them. That would be fun. You could do it live if you have a local hangout bar, coffee house. You know, you could put on a series of shows. You could do it on YouTube, you know, you could record them. That can be fun. You could actually have a lot of fun with it. You could do them all in a row in in in chronological order. You could pick just your favorites and do those. But you could perform them. Maybe it's performing something that's interesting to you. Yeah. And to some degree, I consider myself a writer. I like sitting in the back of the theater rather than being at the front. But but but I also like producing and and bringing people together, connecting people and and sharing that way. You can then you can be the producer, writer and maybe director or get someone if you're not into director, get someone and then actually produce them. You know what I mean? And again, in a coffee shop or on YouTube or in a theater, if you have a theater that you love. Or a bar, I mean, that those kinds of I love that a six word play. It's it's six words of dialogue. So I do have some license with the stage directions. Wow, that's really great. Six words. That's fantastic. Now, that's I appreciate you. You're the inspiration for that, too, having seen the the the three hundred and sixty five plays a year. So having seen a number of those in different venues. So I appreciate your inspiration for that. It's fun, but great for you to keep for having started it and having kept going, having gotten to the finish line, too. It's really great. There are so many great venues in Atlanta and such a wonderful community in Atlanta that it could be fun for you to actually take them into the community and and have them perform, you know. Great. Thank you for that inspiration. I appreciate it. You're welcome. You're welcome. Thank you, and we have a few minutes left if anyone wants to ask a question or share thoughts in our last five minutes. Karina. Hi, Karina. Hi. This is actually my first time here. My friend told me about this, so I'm here. I'm really excited to be here. Hi, it's really nice to talk with you. I guess my advice that I would love is I've written a couple of plays. I do it on my side for fun. I produce them sometimes with my friends. And I have a lot of really passionate opinions and a lot of the things I write obviously come from that place because you want to obviously are going to write what you're passionate about. But I sometimes have the problem of letting my own thoughts and opinions like I want to make them so clear with the piece. But I know it's so important for plays to be to be able to resonate with people in different ways that suits them. And I have this problem where I want, again, to sort of have a character say exactly what I would say if I was in that situation or exactly what I want to say word to word to people, which I know is not helpful because the character is not me. And I know that that's the case, but I have this like trouble with it. And I was wondering if you had any words of advice about that. Well, that's a really cool question, Karina. I wonder if the character is in fact you and do you need to be the character? And might it be might you be in the show? It's OK. It's OK to be yourself. Yeah. If you feel like your characters sound like you, maybe they are or the one character, you know, that's OK. Does that make sense? Could you? Yeah. Sorry. Sorry, I just got muted again accidentally. Yeah, I actually never thought of that. And I have I have allowed myself to do certain writing projects or whatever it is where I do and I need to express my thoughts. And I will write, you know, a one off scene or whatever where it's, you know, me wanting to talk to someone in my life who I don't feel like I can actually talk to. And that's really therapeutic for me. But I never really thought that that could manifest into an actual play. And that makes a lot of sense. And I do, I guess I am a lot of that does come from the frustration that like I'm not able to have the conversation I want to be having for whatever reason with certain people in my life or they aren't going the way I want them to be going. And I guess a lot of my writing is a manifestation sort of against that frustration. But and you're right, that's like a valid thing that can be the case. Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, I think I think you should, yeah, just write the way you think it needs to sound. And if the character is you or you can have your the same name or a different whatever, but you can be OK with that. Yeah. And yeah, you're welcome. Thanks for coming to watch me work. Thank you so much. I just I just put in the chat our upcoming dates. Our March 6th, 20th and 27th and April 3rd and 10th. You should be able to sign up for all of those on the website. Turn out. Thanks, Lali. Thank you. We kill. Thank you. Right. And so we'll be back here next week. Thank you so much. Great.