 Before we start, welcome to the super friends and everyone who's here, I wanted to just take a moment to acknowledge the anguish and trauma that is happening in our culture today, specifically surrounding the recent deaths of Armand Arbery, Breanna Taylor and George Floyd, and we would love for us to just take in a moment of several breaths and a moment of silence for the anguish and loss experienced by their friends, their family, and their communities. Okay, thank you for that. As we continue to do this important work as artists and as writers to document what is happening in the world and how to process and how to put down into words the myriad of emotions and feelings, I hope that this conversation today, especially with my being who I really admire and respect, not only as just as a writer, but as a friend. So I'm really happy to have my being here. Thank you so much. But what we're going to do today is actually just basically talk, I'm just going to start out by asking just a few questions to just kind of get us, I don't know, lubricated. And then I want to be able to give as much time to our participants to ask you anything about your process, working in the industry, how you got started, what inspires you, what's getting you through the day, you know, with everything that's happening in the pandemic. But I would just love for you to talk a little bit about maybe just like a few things about like your biography, like, where, where did you grow up and how did you get inspired to become a writer? I grew up outside of DC, Maryland. My mother is from Argentina, and that's probably some of you can glean up from my hat. And how did I, I don't know how I got into being a writer, I mean, obviously I grew up in a bilingual home, I grew up, I was talking before the call, like, I went to Saturday school via escuela Argentina de Washington as they call it. So like, you know, I learned Spanish from a very early age. And I've always been really, I don't know, I've always been drawn to like, in acting things, like as a kid, I, when I would watch movies with my family, I would inevitably I would like gather these props next to the TV, and I would start enacting the movie alongside it, which would cost my dad to like fellow I mean that like, I wasn't the one being paid to talk so I should stop distracting everyone. So I guess I feel like part of that impulse to like constantly be trying to like, inhabit things in my body probably naturally drew me to theater, and and obviously started acting but very late in high school and then in college, I really sort of dove in. And from there, I started writing sort of dabbling in different kinds of writing at first I thought maybe I would take a screenwriting class. And then someone I was already I already knew I was going to study heater. And I was primarily focusing and acting at that point, although you did a little of everything in my undergrad. And a friend of mine was like, no, no, the real writing is in play, right? The real writers are playwrights. So I took a playwriting class and then it just sort of took off from there. I wrote a bunch of plays in undergrad. I was always writing and I was very fortunate to have, I think, a one act and two full length plays of mine produced, you know, in whatever form you can as an undergrad with other undergrads, but have that done. And then I went from there to grad school and sort of, I guess I just sort of got sucked into that tunnel. But I do think that that I tell the story about like who I was as a kid and acting movies alongside the TV. I think as as a. I think there was always that need in me to try and sort of understand things by trying to sort of inhabit other roles. Right. So there's some folks here who are sticky or want usually asked the opinion of like whether they should go to school for playwriting or not. Or you went to you went to you to Austin. Did you know that that that was a program that you wanted to go to? Or you planted different places and did you get and what do you tell younger folks who are who are possibly interested in pursuing a career in writing? Um, I don't think it's a necessity at all. I think you have to go like for everyone, I think it's for you have to go for certain reasons. I went because I, you know, when I was in undergrad, my my faculty mentors had told me that they thought it would be a good idea. But to go to to have writing time to go, if I wasn't going to go into debt, I didn't at all at UT at the time. I don't know. I don't know what the funding situation is like now, obviously, because there had since there have since been budget cuts, but I didn't go into any debt. I wanted to have writing time. I went and got some contacts, but really I I I learned a ton too. So I think like it depends on it's obviously always a tradeoff about where you are in life, what you need to sacrifice in order to go to school versus what you're looking to get out of it. And I think that I just think you have to be very conscious about that. I personally would not have gone at it meant going into more debt to go to school. And so I was fortunate to not have to. But there are so many ways to learn to to write and you don't have to necessarily go to school. If you want to end up teaching it at a university level, and that's another reason I to me teaching experience was valuable in the idea of getting into the classroom was very valuable. And so there are certain doors that it opened for me by having an MFA, but there are also other doors that I've been able to open that I I think having an MFA help me from the education standpoint of like having had the time to study and write on my own that you can do in other ways. And I didn't need the accreditation of the MFA to get those doors. So cool. So my third question is related to to being to being Latino and and and you having a significant footprint in not only just working in dramas that are based in Latin America, but also working on a show like Ozark, which is fascinating to me. What what do you think you bring to the writer's rooms in in in those in those tellers in series? Those different very different worlds of Ozark and Narcos. And I think you're working on something now again in Argentina. But yeah, if you could talk a little bit about like growing up by culturally, bilingually, what what what did that? What does that bring to what do you bring with that in terms of the process? Yeah. So the show that I've been working on in in Argentina, just so people know that came out the first season premiered in February is called what does it say? And it said inside the world of Argentine professional soccer and sort of organized crime associated with a lot of clubs in Argentina. And so that's a very different process, obviously, from like Ozark and Narcos. Narcos, when I started on that show, I was the only when I started was the only Spanish speaking writer. And then obviously, you know, there are obviously other other creative voices on the show who weren't writers who were Spanish speaking or who lived in Colombia or lived in Los Angeles, but were Mexicano. And so there, you know, but when I started, obviously, there was a very valuable standpoint of being it's show that is based based on reality and and being the only one who could access so much material that was only in Spanish. So there was that that was very valuable. You know, from on a show like Ozark, it's obviously very different. But the concept of where the show sits, not just geographically, but in terms of like who are the protagonists of the show. But I do think that it's really one of the the points of view of the show that I think is really valuable and that all of the writers hold very dear is the idea of how the line between legitimacy, quote unquote, and and institutions that we don't view as legitimate is actually quite blurry. And so I think that that like always trying to to be a voice that that holds that very near and dear that like how our society decides what is legitimate and not what defines that and why why do we make those decisions? And also, I think just like trying to obviously also is a cross cultural show and trying to like understand like where are the sort of the the different assumptions that characters from different cultures bring into that that world and like what can the protagonists do for their bosses, right? And their bosses know that only the protagonists can do because of because of where they sit culturally. And so that that's like a big thing that obviously that I can bring and everyone is aware of, but also like knowing what are certain assumptions that that Latino characters bring into the show can be really useful. And the show Porta Siete, I think, is and I would say that what I can bring to Porta Siete is also what I think I can bring to all of these shows, which when you speak about being bicultural, it is. It my experience of it in childhood is almost like I belong to nowhere. And so like I was never in the inside or anywhere because I feel like everyone saw what I wasn't rather than what I was. And in fact, like one of the one of the trips I made to Argentina to do production for Porta Siete, I actually had like I was having coffee with with two other people. And I literally watched them argue in front of me, whether I was Argentino or estadounidense, because they were like, well, I mean, he was born in Estados Unidos, but he speaks so much like an Argentino, if you walk around here, you wouldn't think that he wasn't an Argentino, but it's really. And so like to me, that was very emblematic of like, oh, like it everywhere you are, my experience is that people tell me like, you're not this. So then I think it's benefited me in some ways as a writer, because I feel like it's useful for a writer to feel like an outsider, because I think that you don't take anything for granted. I think that like sometimes writing can get very general and vague when you don't realize what your audience doesn't know, right? When you don't realize, because you're just like, oh, well, this is just the way things work. And you don't even aware of like the various assumptions that cultural assumptions that your characters are moving through and that you need to communicate that to an audience, right? Especially if they're an audience, it's not like you. And I would say that like everywhere I go, everyone is not like me in that sense. I think that's my primary experience of life is that like I am never in a place where everyone is like me ever, ever. And do you use those cultural assumptions in the writing to kind of explain it to the audience and like a general audience? Yeah, I mean, I think that like. So like an example of something. So I think what I see that it's also those are two writers who, you know, are born in Argentina, lived in Argentina, their whole lives. And it's a show that obviously is for Argentina, but also can be for a global audience. And so one of the things we're constantly talking about is like they'll discuss something and I'll be like, wait, what is that thing? Like, yeah, you know, you know, they do they do this thing but in the stadium and I'm like, yeah, but what is why? They're like, I don't know, they just do it. And I'm like, but that's, you know, that's not like, no one else does that anywhere else in the world. So like, let's let's highlight that because that's like weird and interesting and like people would be like, what are they doing? So they're constantly are like, what do we have to do to sort of slow the pace of how certain bits of information are unfurled so that people can process them, right? Because if they're if you're watching a story from outside of a culture, if if if you sort of like throw all of all of the sort of rituals of that culture at an outside audience at once, people can't process it. Whereas if you like piece it out piece by piece, then people can like, oh, yeah, now I have been initiated in this ritual. Great. And obviously so much about soccer is ritual. So it's like, I've been initiated in this ritual. Now I don't need to I can I can I can receive that ritual alongside this other ritual the next time. So those are the conversations that I have on that show. Like an example of another another conversation I had writing on a different project was talking about like retirement because they were like, well, this person retires. I remember being like, this person's never going to retire. Retirement isn't in their vocabulary. Like, that's not a thing they're going to they know they're going to work until the end. And it was like a big sort of like mind blowing moment for my collaborators on that project. Like, oh, it's like, yeah, it's not that's not an assumption that anyone has. Certainly in a lot of people in Argentina, they don't have that assumption. And I assume in many other countries in Latin America that that many workers just have the assumption like this is this will be the rhythm for my life. There's not this is not a station in my life that I will move through. This is not a phase. This is my life. And so that was just like an example of the different assumptions that I try to I try to illuminate when when in collaboration with people. I think it can be really useful to you can be quite explicit sometimes highlighting the different assumptions people have different characters have. Right. And it's fascinating because I sometimes think about how what who might what my audience is. Because I think I see here that having like just having the theme of football. Soccer, you have a billion. Yeah, like this is the most popular sport. So everybody has sort of a shared language about that. And then you have the Netflix, the brand, which is very global. And how do you how do you I'm curious, how do you think about writing for like, how do you think about an audience like that when it's like the whole world? Do you know what I mean? It's like it's very different for me. Like I'm writing a play right now that's set in San Diego. And I know that I'm mercy myself in that world for my childhood. I I'm not really thinking about like what somebody in Taiwan or somebody in Argentina might think of it. But but I wonder if like, does it does it change how what you what the semiotics are what you convey in the. I think it does change the rhythm of it a little bit. It does change how you have to highlight certain things. And then so that's on one level. And I think that, you know, having collaborators, that's like incredibly helpful. I think in many ways, it's like really helpful to have collaborators. It's one of the things I love about television, but obviously you can do this in theater as well. And I think, you know, I think probably one of the things that attracts me to TV that I've brought from theater is collaboration. And a lot of writers who don't come from theater, like freak out about it. That's it's difficult for them. But I think that having collaborators who don't have the same experiences as you. And obviously, like as a Latinx community, like we are so diverse and we bring so many different cultural assumptions. And yet also as a Latinx community within the United States, there is a sort of shared experience of what does it mean to have roots from elsewhere and obviously like shared certain parts of shared history and shared language to that are really helpful. And so that's like really exciting about having collaborators. You both have like a foot in the same experience and then like off to the foot outside. And that can be really helpful to have someone pause you and be like, I don't understand that thing. Maybe we need to highlight that, right? So that like having good collaborators who will sort of point things out to you where they don't understand is really valuable. On the other hand, I feel like how do you speak to an audience? It's the same way that like it's just the same the same storytelling principles of like character, making people invest in the characters, love them, making the sort of internal contradictions of those characters very present, their internal conflict, their pain, what they're longing for, you know, because people the other thing that I've learned through working on shows that are that are, you know, broadcast around the world is that people will really jump on board a ship where they don't understand a vast majority of what's happening if they really like the characters, like they will go with that. They'll figure it out. So you may think like, I have to explain that thing. And honestly, the viewers are like, no, it's just the we skip that scene because this guy wants that. And then so and they don't care as long as they're like they feel that sort of core connection, that heart connection with the characters. That's great. I will share like this little tidbit that my my grandmother's favorite movie that was that she would always stop and watch. And she didn't speak English. She she loved the movie Predator because it takes place in like in the jungles of South America and B like that. That's a movie that doesn't need like that's not driven by by something linguistic, right? It's not like a character drama. The drama is in the situation and in the people. And if you can tell that story visually. Yes, it's it's compelling. It's so compelling. And I just found it hilarious that she loved Arnold Schwarzenegger. And yeah, my my my my favorite Schwarzenegger movies, too. She also loved the movie Alien. She loved that. Yeah, she was obsessed with that movie. I mean, but there's like that like beautiful like there's a kind of like Brechtian I was I was just a Brechtian alienation. I mean, no pun intended, but like the idea of like, what does it mean to feel like a person? She, you know, lives in a in a world in a country that she feels like she doesn't belong to. And so like, what does it feel like to see it projected in these nonhuman terms? Like, what does it mean to feel like you're this collision of different, you know, cultures in a way, obviously. And then like, what does it mean to sort of the dislocation of that? Right. Well, I don't want to hog all the time with you, even though I'd love to. But I want to open it up to folks to ask you questions about, you know, your writing, your process, what inspires you and all that. So when I'm going to let's see where this goes. Let's welcome everyone into the Zoom. Hello. Hello. Yeah, everybody. If you're you're more than welcome to turn on your video. If you would like to join the conversation, if you have a question for Martin, go ahead and use the raise hand button. You can find that at the bottom of your screen. Hit the participants button. It should come up as a little blue hand. If it does not, there should be a little dot dot dot off to the side. And it'll be there. And as a last resort, you can always toss it in the chat. Our first question is from Danny Borba. You are unmuted. Hi. So I think you you said that you started off as an actor. And I think I I'm starting to be an actor right now. But because of that looks and feels like these little discussions of super amigos, like I'm seeing my up my inner writer being uprooted. But sometimes I feel like my actor brain is still present while I'm writing. And I wanted to know, like, what do you ever as a writer, like, write in the perspective of the actor or knowing that since you were like an actor, are there some advantages that you see from that or or disadvantages and things that you have to look out for? But yeah, that's my question. Yeah, I think that I absolutely, I mean, that now I, you know, I haven't acted since undergrad, but I I do think I carry a lot of my training that I received as an actor into my writing. I think, like, I probably talk my scenes aloud, if you filmed me, right, like I would be saying them out loud. I think a lot of writers do that. I think you'll find that a lot of playwrights start out as actors. I think there's something really valuable about, like, having to memorize the words of other good writers and really, like, haven't get them into your body. I think that like that that sits with you and then you can carry it into your writing. In terms of, like, how I use it in my writing consciously, other than just the ways that it's sort of filters it in unconsciously, is thinking about, like, what is playable, right? Like, what kind of scene, what kind of language would give an actor that charge, that really bring in a new energy to a scene and bring that sort of physical charge that will really electrify a space and make an audience, especially a live audience, lean in. You know, I think in terms of TV, you have the benefit, if you are lucky, to work on a show continuously for a long time of seeing what an actor can do in that role, and then you sort of, like, learn what they're really good at, and then you write towards that and you, and that maybe helps you honestly write less in a lot of ways, right? Like, a lot of the discussions that I have in TV rooms are like, yeah, that really long scene actually, like, if you cut it in half, the actor is going to convey everything that you're writing, because we've seen that. And so, you know, I think that that trust is a little easier when you work with the same actor in the same role for a long time, but I do think that that, you know, I think hopefully, you know, acting training can also help you understand, like, where do you give the space for the actor to act, right? So that you're not, you're not overwriting everything, you're not trying to do everything in the test. So much of the electricity of a play lives in those spaces between the lines, in the space between the actors. And so where, you know, I think my training as an actor also helped me understand that too. All right, thank you. Wonderful. Our next question is from Stephanie's iPad. Stephanie's iPad, you are unmuted. Hi, I'm Stephanie's iPad. I'm also from Argentina and I came here from a very young age. And as a light-skinned Latina, it's really hard to belong, so I totally get you. Yeah, one de oca, Martin. But my question is about your trajectory, your process from grad school to writing for theater to getting into those coveted spots at Netflix and then pitching your own show, which is incredible and getting it made. So what were some challenges? What were some things that maybe you would tell yourself now knowing everything you know? I mean, if you could share a little bit about that. Yeah, I mean, what did I say? I mean, I think I've been very fortunate in many ways. And I think that, so, I mean, like I got into, you know, after grad school, I was able to obviously, I had like a side job that I continued working. I had two side jobs actually. I taught test prep and then I taught and then I gave Spanish language tours of Chicago. And I would do those while I would write. But like to me, creating a structure in my life where I had the ability to write while doing those other things was very important. And I think that so that is a piece of advice that I would have. I mean, I did like a couple of years of different fellowships that I got out of graduate school that I was very lucky to get. And then from there, I kind of went into TV, not a cost being my first job. And it wasn't like a thing that I was really, really heavily pursuing. And I say that I was very fortunate because a lot of people, it's a thing that like they really, you know, shift their lives to try to pursue it. And they knock on that door for a long time before it comes open. I guess the only thing I could say is to try and do everything you can when the opportunity comes to be ready to seize that opportunity. And that would be to like, what can you control? You can control practicing your craft, right? That's the thing that we as writers can always do, which I feel so fortunate about is that nobody can, the only one who can stop you from writing is you. The only one who can stop you from writing is you and from watching things, right? Even if you, even in the midst of quarantine, right? You can, you can watch content, whether it's theater, whether it's TV, whether it's movies online, and you can watch them intentionally, like with intention, you can journal about them. I journal, I try to journal every day. So I'm thinking I'm reflecting constantly about what I'm seeing, what I can pull from it, what I can learn, what I can carry forward from that experience. If I'm reading a book, I'll write down little quotes from it. And I have like a, you know, on like a little journal, digital journal, I guess, and I'll tag it so that they're just like little things that I can use a little bit of inspiration. So I think those are the things that you can take care of. I can't, I mean, I have been lucky. I think that I've gotten a lot of the opportunities I've gotten because I am bilingual, because I am bicultural. I think that, so I can't control that. Like that was a gift that was given to me, but what I can control is when the opportunity comes to me, I can control being able to take the most, to being able to make the most of it. And I think the way that you do that is by making sure that you are writing every day, that you're like putting in your time, right? Like, you know, I think that I had to learn as I got older is like that there's a time to work and there's a time to not. And that the not working can be as valuable as the working, but that like, because I think if you don't set good parameters on your work, you're going to feel guilty about not having worked and therefore you're always going to be working. So I think like you can clock in. And I think you and I talked a little bit about the Pomodoro technique, I don't know, but this is probably a good time to talk about that, which is a technique. Yeah, where you literally, you put on a timer and you work interrupted for 25 minutes, you will do nothing but work for 25 minutes. They take a five minute break and then you do it again. And like, if you tell yourself, all right, well, you know, I have a day job because I have to make ends meet, but I'm going to make sure that I write for four Pomodoro. So you can get so much done if you do nothing but work for four 25 minute stretches. And I think just clocking in, like making sure that you're putting in your hours, putting in your time so that and consuming good material intentionally and reflecting on what it is that you respond to in that material, what it is that you maybe don't respond to, so that you have a point of view and that when you have the opportunity to have your play done, or you have the opportunity to work on a TV show, right? Like you can or you have the opportunity to workshop a play, which is a very precious opportunity. You know how to come in there and intentionally make the most of it. Beautiful. Our next question is from Isabel Pask. You are unmuted. Hi. I guess our question is about being in a writer's room. We're working on kind of writing a series right now and none of us have ever actually fully been in a writer's room. And so and we're all kind of just coming out of school and working on putting together, we've done like research on different writer's rooms and have a virtual thing going on right now, obviously. But what is your advice kind of in making a writer's room feel like it's working really well and feel collaborative and like a lot of, you know, feel supportive and also productive? Yeah. That's like the art of trying to run a collaboration. I think that to me the best collaborations and I think that like Ozark is a great example of a collaboration like that that works really well. And I tried to bring that into the process of the writer's room. I think we have a really good collaboration to is making sure that everyone feels valuable and making sure that everyone's contributions feel essential and making sure making sure that you can articulate what is essential right in your vision and where is the room for people to play. Once again that I think that's the thing that I learned through the theater right and watching like an actor and actors and directors and designers like take your plan and run with it and try to understand like what are the vital parameters obviously because there are choices that are less useful choices to make than others right but also you want people people are going to bring their best when you let them innovate when you let them bring you something unexpected when you let them surprise you and so like a lot of what I do when we work on what the other writers is like we're mapping out the story and we'll talk about things together and I'll you know I'll pitch something and they'll be like yeah that doesn't really work for these and these reasons you know I don't think it'll signify the way that you want and then a lot of what I try to do is articulate okay this is what we're trying to do this is what we need to convey the emotional essence of what we need to convey let's find the best and most specific vehicle for that but you know especially in a collaborative series where you have a bunch of different writers who are probably going to be you know different writers going to be writing different scenes or different storylines or different you know whole different episodes right like like we do on Ozark and you know and what you want to do and what we do as as a group on that show and what I also try to bring into my other collaborative processes is a very specific sort of roadmap of how the episode will lay out as a group like scene by scene beat by beat but then also within that like throw possibilities at a writer a bouquet of possibilities but also let them find and chart their own path through the writing so that they can make discoveries right like you want um someone very wise once said that like you can't if a writer doesn't have an experience while writing something they can't expect the audience to have that experience so you can't make discoveries while you're writing a thing if you discover nothing if you don't surprise yourself if you don't delight yourself you don't make yourself laugh you don't make yourself upset and heartbroken for your characters how can you expect anyone else watching you know and obviously there're going to be moments where audiences have strong emotional reactions and you didn't have or didn't anticipate because you know we are as diverse as the number of people as there are in this planet so they're you know they're but at the same time you want to make sure that people have roadmaps as collaborators to work with so that we are all you know the whole team is articulating the same vision so you articulate what is essential about a story and about a scene and about a character's path and then also leave open the writer to try and chart their own course and surprise themselves as they write because that's the that's the like the best part for me of the process even with all the you know I think some people love to see the work come to life or you know be on the stage and the screen and I think that I I love all of that and it's very rewarding but to me maybe the best part of the process is the sitting down and scratching out a scene for the first time in my notebook and and being like oh there's something cool there that I didn't I didn't know I didn't I didn't know that I was going to find so how do you how do you have a shared vision and preserve the ability for every writer to do that that's the thank you thank you I just want to follow up with that so what so just give me like a picture of you're in a room and you have your cup and you have your donuts or I have my latte I have my latte you have your latte and what what is the agenda is it like okay we're gonna like we're just gonna write for five minutes about anything and then like a warm up do you guys do yoga do you like do you have a whiteboard do you have cards like what is like what is what do you what do you is it like Dungeons and Dragons is it like you know you're like all doing a thing and and this is like we're creating our own adventure or is it something different yeah it is in for Ozark it is you know obviously now we're working we're all working remotely so the process is different because we found that and I I've in my experience we're gonna what does it do which is sometimes obviously going to want to sign this and talking to the other writers the vast majority of which is remote right so you can't work as long remotely as you could in person because there's just there's a greater effort in communication you're also a little more efficient remotely because the like all of the sort of subtle uh I don't want to say time wasting but the like the sort of expansion of energy happens physically right the subtle like communication nonverbal communication expands things in a way that isn't there working remotely but when we're working in person on Ozark for example it is it is uh they're like 10 of us in the same room right between the writers and the assistants and like we sit around the table and for eight hours a day obviously with like breaks intermittently but for eight hours a day we we discuss and sometimes argue about storytelling um and and that's what it's like for you know so it's a it's like you have to feel out and you have to feel like when can I contribute how much you know I have to listen but also I have to think which can be tiring how do you think while you listen you know like there's certain moments where people have to choose to like tune out from the listening because they're trying to think and they'll often write and then they'll come in with you know come back with a pitch but with the general process for Ozark is like we spend about at the top of a season five weeks mapping out the entire season then two weeks on an individual episode by the time we're done with those two weeks we have all of the episode mapped out scene by scene on cards on uh and that's blended so we'll start I'll take a step back we start an episode we start by thinking of the different story lines right for the the major characters we'll write them on whiteboards right revise them revise them and once we've got the story lines down we put them on cards each scene on a card then once we have the cards and we feel like the cards are good we'll blend the cards right after we've blended the cards on like a cork board we walk through the cards one by one scrutinize them throw ideas at them possible dialogue possible dynamics or energies that the characters could bring into the scene possible given circumstances a writer takes that compiled all of those compiled notes and has you know three to four days to do a first draft of an outline like 12 pages right and they get two days to turn around notes on an outline and notes can take a long time it can be like on an outline can take like four hours um and then um so you get used to getting like a lot of notes a script you have two weeks to turn around a script you get notes on that that can be like four hours to be six hours of notes um then you get another week to turn around the that you know that draft and then the showrunner takes the past at the script so that's the process we're like that's what our day is like in a physical writer's room obviously it's different uh you know teleworking um and then for what I see it did like recently obviously the process that we've kind of been would be like we convene to our other writers and I we sort of like talk about life for 30 minutes like how things are how how bizarre uh life is in the quarantine what people are having to do how it's different in Chicago versus Buenos Aires and everything and then like I'll open up a google doc and we'll talk and like I'll write the look at like what I'm like writing down and that and that's basically like the whiteboard it's a digital whiteboard that will argue about it and we'll you know but it's a similar process do everything storyline by storyline and blend it together and then walk through it scene by scene and throw ideas dialogue given circumstances everything so that's the general process but it is like you know online for what does it do it can be like three hours a day you know and then but I was like in person it's eight hours a day it's like being imagine it like a big dinner table that you eat lunch obviously and we take a break around lunch too but there's tons of food they say that every writer's room I haven't been in every writer's room but every writer's room I've been in had a ton of food and whiteboards because people are just like throwing stuff in their mouths and thinking um they say that when you think like that creatively like your brain needs a ton of glucose so like that's why people are always eating I think I gained 50 pounds just doing that I know thank you for painting that thank you for painting that picture I want to move on to whoever has the next question how about this next uh next question is from the chat you are unmuted can y'all hear me okay um wow thank you so much this is it is really informative to hear kind of what the writing process is I come from an acting background and I'm finding that I'm doing a lot of unlearning about like I never thought of myself as a writer and now I'm starting to kind of open crack that open a little bit more I've been in a lot of um zoom like playwriting groups where we'll read a play and the writer's trying to develop it and I'm just curious I mean you kind of touched on this a little bit but I'm curious if you have any advice on how to be an effective collaborator and maybe specifically from an actor's point of view like what is the most constructive thing that you find an actor can give you as you're developing a play like are there things that are super superfluous or a little distracting or are there other things that are more helpful I'm just curious about like what is the most helpful thing for a writer in the development process yeah I would say um other than obviously just like general rules of like courtesy like I one of the that uh like the the best on tv sets are slightly different because actors can you know like you rehearse everything right before you shoot it but like the some of my favorite collaborators as actors on tv sets often will come up to me and they'll be like excuse me I I would I was wondering if I could change the line this way uh and this is the reason what do you think and 90 of the time I'll be like yes that's great do it um but like obviously the culture of theater is different and I would say first other than like the rules of courtesy right there um uh I think um so I think understanding right that like as a playwright the writer can feel completely alone like the to me the worst feeling as a as a playwright so you know workshopping a play and like there's a puzzle and everyone looks at you and you're the at the end of the table and you're just like uh I'm not sleeping tonight this is horrible um and you're like in previews maybe so like remembering that the writer's in that situation a b trying right trying the thing before bringing the question or the concern right so like a lot of times I feel like the writers is trying to do a thing and sometimes what frustrates me it's like when the thing isn't even tried and then like it generates this long discussion rather than just like okay this is a change dive in and then if you feel like you're having trouble um then talk about it I think like asking questions right like leading with questions and and and ultimately like articulating if something is is hanging you up as an actor articulating why the why is like really important to me at least as a writer more than the like what is the why this is tripping because of this thing because I can't I'm having a hard time bridging from this moment to the next one emotionally or I don't understand the given circumstances or you know and I think also like asking questions is is another way of of of doing of getting at the lot right but I think to me it's like the the try first and the really try like the dive in sometimes it uh my frustration has come with certain actors where you feel like you they uh first of all they want you to make the change before they've tried and then second of all they don't really try when you make the change and then they come back and say like it's not you know so I feel like I I have great respect obviously because I feel like you know actors you're literally putting your body out there and I feel like it it demands a kind of sacrifice but I feel like throw yourself into it and then come back and be like this is what's challenging for me and you know and sometimes like this is how you could help me get from this moment to the next can be helpful too but I feel like questions reasons why and then that's the last one like maybe this is how this could be helpful great thank you beautiful our next question is from Linda Milo Linda you are unmuted oh okay thank you hi Martin um I just want to say thank you um I actually grew up going to the Ozarks as a kid and I never met anybody like that when I was there um uh but I have one question and it's in it's about what is the difference between writing a play and writing for film in terms of the script uh just well the biggest thing is is what is unsaid uh in a in a tv or film script that like um that's part of it so you see two things what's unsaid and then I feel like theater when I'm writing the play I am constantly thinking about like in the in the expression of the play justifying it's need to be a theatrical event so I'm constantly thinking about like what how am I how is the liveness of the audience their physical presence necessary which can feel like a unfair burden to put on a play because no one ever asks why a movie is made into a movie or tv show is made into a tv show they just think well this is how the most people can see this thing right but I think that because people don't because a wider audience in the U.S. and in the world doesn't necessarily automatically think to step into a theater right it's not like a thing that casually happens for most people I feel a burden as a playwright to with my plays make a case for why it has to be live so that when someone does step into the theater or maybe the first time or the first time in a long time they feel like their physical presence was essential and therefore they feel charged in a way that makes them want to come back to the live thing um so that's the one thing from that's a personal thing for me as a writer and I think I think that like everyone uh I think not everyone but a lot of people will encounter as they if they are going back and forth between playwriting and tv writing uh or getting into tv writing after you know being a while being a playwright is that generally in theater because language is is the most is the thing we most control and it's a more it is visual but it's also a more oral experience for the audience um it is uh we have our characters say a lot of things we have our characters articulate a lot of things in general theater characters from uh are uh more verbal and more verbally expressive from the exact same world than if you translated that to screen because the images can say so much and the sort of silences and the breath and the way the shot is composed can communicate so much that what would be perfect on a stage the perfect encapsulation of a feeling state for a character verbally and would make perfect sense within the world of a play would just feel overwrought on the screen thank you thank you our next question is about issa you are unmuted thank you so much for this i i feel like i've learned a lot um i was wondering what your self editing process is like like before you get notes from anyone else like i've written a lot of drafts and i'm just getting started and i know they need work but i don't really know um where to go beyond like just instincts and like i think this should be changed but like yeah yeah i think part of it is just um like as you learned your craft right like learning just different different signposts for how to communicate certain things and i think you learn that by collaborating with people right obviously from studying and you know in formal or informal settings and then and then collaborating with people so that's part of it but so much of it honestly is uh is getting the thing out and then stepping away right um stepping away and then coming back to it and when i come back to this is the thing that takes a lot of time and a lot of concentration honestly i would say meditation too like to meditating is is very valuable to me as a writer and i'll switch like as a person but i feel like when you um i so many times in my career as a writer i have reread something of mine felt a little pang a little twinge of doubt or something that i just sort of skipped over because i wanted the thing to be perfect i wanted it to be perfect right and so i quieted that little like pang only to then in a workshop or you know in the writer's room on a tv show or in production for a player in previews have someone say that thing and everyone's like oh that's right and be like ah i knew it i felt the pang and i ignored the pang because i didn't want to hear it right and i feel like so really like writing the thing setting it aside and then when you come back to revisiting it like really making that an intentional act where every time you have a little like flicker of question or doubt or something doesn't sit right with you jot it down like record that and don't be content with yourself until you've engaged with it right like i think it always be better i think it can always be more specific um you know i had a professor in undergrad so like we never finished plays we just abandoned them um but it's you know you you they can i think can always be more specific and so i think that like holding yourself there's you have an internal standard right you know what you like you know what grabs you you know what seizes you you know what work leaves an indelible mark on you and so you and so you can know if you really listen to yourself listen to your own sort of internal metric of what is good uh of what is moving you you know whether the thing is is clearing that bar whether what you're working on is clearing that bar you know when it's not um but you also have to really listen to all of the flickers of doubt that like it just they're like little sparks and you have to catch them because if you don't uh if you don't catch them as soon as they spark you're gonna you're gonna convince yourself that the thing is good because you want it to be done and everyone wants to be good right everyone wants the thing that they write to be good so that that i think is a big part of it and setting it aside you can't do that while you write right like that's a separate part so you've got to let yourself you know write and and and and be present to the writing part and then set it aside and return to it intentionally with like diagnosing what i would say and then the rewriting is a separate part too because you might not have all the answers to those little like flickers of doubt that come up on the rewrite or i'm sorry in the reread uh and so you need to set it aside again and then return to it when you do the rewrite thank you our next question is from Viviana Cardenas you are unmuted hi Mati thank you so much for being here it's you know it's been great learning from you um as a person of color in this climate and in the pandemic climate of our world do you see yourself um as a writer changing and growing with every you know devastation or new thing that we're facing as as a country today and as a person of color how do you feel about that i that's very hard question answer um i feel like i don't i don't know i feel like it's very early to be able to say i feel like i i am constantly thinking about um how we are all all obviously people are having very different experiences of quarantine or of the pandemic because a lot of people cannot quarantine um but i feel like we're in a very odd space because a lot of people who are fortunate enough to be able to quarantine in their homes are we're sort of going through this experience where it is both we are isolated from each other and yet it is there are certain parts of it that we share and you know at the same time knowing that like our isolation from each other is is essential to make sure that the devastation that a lot of people are feeling is can at least be uh mitigated and less acute for people who have no choice but to face it so i feel like uh but i kind of feel powerless in many ways to to really too much so i i i don't know that i feel like i'm growing as an as a as a writer because of it other than just like hopefully that by thinking about um the things that people are going through that i know that my actions have an impact on even though i cannot see those things right like thinking about like what a hospital is like and my staying inside will prevent uh people from whose lives are chaotic and messy and terrifying in a hospital right now uh who i will never see i will never see that experience i will never access it but my actions have an indirect effect on it so i think hopefully like just the greater consciousness in general about how actions we take indirectly affect other people's lives for the better and worse in very very concrete ways and hopefully that makes me a more conscientious person and obviously i think that and in your question about like being a writer i think that being a more conscientious person hopefully is reflected in in also writing because if we're trying to sort of as writers capture the experiences of people both like us and not like us and try to sort of walk through the paces of their lives with them with integrity uh trying to be aware of of how our lives affect the lives of people who we don't ever overlap with is very is essential definitely thank you beautiful um we're coming up i think we have time for uh one or two more questions uh if anybody wants to toss them in the chat or raise their hand uh while we're waiting i'm curious if you have any tips on how to use a whiteboard uh what your best whiteboard techniques are you know i'm uh i'm not like the greatest uh you know i would say handwriting is is i think sadly what happens in a lot of writer streams is the person who has the best handwriting uh ends up sadly being the one who gets the task of of being the one who writes everything on the whiteboard so my tip would be to avoid being that person don't let me get your hand right on that it goes are the guy who did up writing a lot of the stuff on the whiteboard he had gotten his his one of his first jobs in los angeles was writing the cue cards i think for leno so like he had apparently leno had like very specific like if it wasn't written a certain way it got thrown out and rewritten so you know unfortunately he always was the one writing at the board so i i don't know that i have tips on how to be using it well um i i would say whatever you use whether it's a whiteboard or not just like find a way to uh to record your thoughts and catalog them that's what the what the whiteboard is whether you do it with like google docs or in a journal that you tag different things like i do find a way to record and index your thoughts so you can reaccess them and revisit them awesome i i do not have good handwriting but i do have a large whiteboard that's just been sitting around and i keep eyeing it going like i know this is useful probably i think the visual reference have you get into the space where you can re-encounter your ideas after you've forgotten them is useful yeah oh i like that re-encountering all right looks like we have one more raised hand isa you are unmuted hi again um i i'm also bilingual and i was wondering how your writing shifts based on the language you're using i've kind of done more writing in english i've done a little bit in spanish um i'm most comfortable in like spanglish like just combining um but how you use how your process might change or if it does it all um and just what that's like uh i think generally uh because obviously i've written plays that sort of go back and forth um and and like i've had to think about the logic you do think about like is your who is your audience is your audience primarily in one language or another and then like what is the logic about shifting into the it's rare that you see the play that's like 50 50 that's what i'm saying um so it's like if you're writing for a primarily spanish speaking audience and you have characters who communicate in both languages what's the logic by which they would switch into english what are you trying to say with that and vice versa it's something that i had to think a lot about with seven spots in the sun um how do you communicate because you know most of the audiences in the united states obviously are predominantly uh english speaking audiences even if there are uh latinx audiences in the united states and yet that is a play that is set in a country in latin america where the characters first language they're you know and for many of them their only language is spanish so how do you how do you create convey that environment but also and um and also you know for an english language audience so that's something like what's the logic of how they shift uh if that's just how you naturally communicate and that's how you speak i mean that i feel like you can obviously speak to the the the integrity of your own experience and how you communicate um in in the tv it's different in the sense that obviously uh everything can be subtitled a lot of things get dubbed whether you you know um so uh so you're not thinking about like so much i haven't i haven't had the experience of so much switching languages because i've written usually things with characters who speak one language or the other but the process in terms of generating story to me isn't isn't different because tv is so structural there's so many distinct scenes and there's so many distinct story points that it's so structural and it's so visual but to me the the the the process doesn't feel that different and i you might be surprised i think that a lot of um a lot of writers in tv also because there is the sort of within the the the capacity of shows and studios to translate from one language to another a lot of the scripts that you see in one language the writer might actually the original writer might have written them in a different language cool thank you so much beautiful we are at 101 do you have time for one more question martin sure beautiful all right isabel you are unmuted here i just have one more question come up when you are talking about some other stuff which is um kind of about writing for people who are close to the experience that you know and also writing for people that are have totally different experiences you than you and wanting to both like be responsible in the stories you're telling and the representation that you're putting out there with the stories that you're telling while also staying true to your own experiences and um not like stepping on other people's experiences and just the kind of line that comes with navigating that yeah that's a great question because i feel like as i said like kind of feeling like i'm outside of every experience i for better for worse kind of always feel that way it's always scary to me uh and so first of all i would say it's okay to be scared and it's good to be scared like i think if you're not scared about writing someone else's experience there's a problem right like you should be scared um and i think what what you should do first i think you need to embrace the fear and um use it to sort of fuel research talking to people reading things and then also understand that like um even inside uh like even when you're writing about no experience is uniform right no experience of a neighborhood of what it's like to live on a block of what it's like to to be from a country is uniform in any way right so what you i think your job as a researcher is to be specific to get into the specificity of your character's experience and remember that like a character a character both is formed by their social context and also like they have an individuality that uh that they bring to that context and so to remember like their their people they're you know the person whose experience is outside of my own is a person and a person in a context so i think that what i always try to like start by thinking about like the how they're formed by their closest relationships and the integrity of that and then how that intersects with the particular context um and and so to remember like the person and the context too and the specificity of the context and to remember when i say that like the the experience of of living in a neighborhood a block uh a state a city a country is not uniform to remember that like you're probably going to get uh no matter what you write about even if it's a thing you know about deeply and intimately from personal experience you're going to get if you're lucky to have your work seen by a lot of people different people who come up to you and they're like that is exactly how it is and then someone else will come up and be like you don't know anything about that thing um you know but to remember that you you are you need to set your own internal bar for for how rigorous your research is and so to it's okay to be afraid and you should be afraid and to embrace that thank you issa thank you ah i think we're i think we've reached the end of the road martin thank you for joining us today this was awesome thank you so much thank you for the great question where uh can you tell us where people can stop you uh they can stop me uh i mean i have a website that's pretty it's a little out of date i need to work on it i should um but but they can stop me there they can um you can watch ozark you can watch ozark you can watch portasiete um on netflix you can yeah those are those are the the best places and then obviously like you know theater stuff i would say my upcoming project that it says on my website for theater are all sort of upcoming i can't really talk about that i mean that much detail i had a uh the play that the that you and i workshopped was supposed to premiere at heartford stage um you know in september obviously that's going to be delayed i don't know what morning will be rescheduled but you know as soon as that's up there you know i can get information on oh and my uh play on the exhale uh there's both a recording of it on broadway hd that you could watch oh right lovely performance by marin ireland really lovely performance and then uh there's a audio version on audible too so that's another place that you can and of course there's publications of your of your place yes and there's publications of seven spots on the sign on the exhale which everybody yes everybody has to read that play seven spots please oh white type all is published uh okay i believe hold on now now i'm pretty okay now i'm sorry definitely seven spots on the side and on the it's okay i didn't mean to put you on the spot but it's good to see i just i was trying to remember i was like wait yes i think it was but definitely seven spots on the exit right well it's good to see you again if i'm in chicago to see family of course i'll hit you up yes and give my best to kelly and stay safe and yeah thank you thank you and we'll we'll have to bring you back to Pittsburgh and take you back to the aviary or something yeah loved it all right uh thank you marty thank you see uh take us out thanks everybody we will see you on monday for herbert yeah yes herbert see ones up see you monday folks