 thanks to the Public Theater and thanks to HowlAround for helping us organize this beautiful Zoom party. Susan Laurie Parks, we've been doing this show for about 11 years. We started in the lobby of the Public Theater, live and in person, and now we have migrated to Zoom where we were during the first days of lockdown. We were every day or five days a week. And now we're back to our Monday schedule, Monday at five, Eastern Standard Time. So what we do basically, watch me work there's a little trick of a title because it's all about your work. And what we do is we work for 20 minutes together and then I take questions from you about your work and your creative process. And so if you have questions about your work and your creative process, you're free to ask at the appointed time. And you can, Audrey is gonna tell you how to do it. Look, you don't have any glasses on today. Look at that. I know, it's crazy. The little plastic in my eyes, it's bonkers. Hi. Hi. If you would like to ask a question and you're inside of the Zoom, all you need to do is click on the raise your hand button, which is in a reactions tab, which is likely at the bottom of your screen on a laptop or on the top of your screen if you're on an iPad or it's tablet. And we also take questions from Twitter. If you tweet at at watch me work SLP with the hashtag HowlRound, H-O-W-L-R-O-U-N-D or you can write to the public theater's Twitter or to the public theater's Instagram. Oh, are you ready? So that's pretty much everything. And we're gonna start the timer so we can get started. How's it going? All right. All right, all right. We have some time for some questions. People, anybody have a question? It's like we don't at the moment. Oh, Shelly, are you raising your hand? Yes, okay, great. Let me, you, hold on one second. There you go. I was looking for my hand razor on the bottom. I'm new to the process of writing and having a wonderful time with it. However, right now I find I'm constantly having to go back and Google things. Is that something that, cause I'll write about something I think, but I don't know enough about it and I have to go back and research it. Is it best to just carry through and then go back? What's your process? Yeah, that's great. That's a great question, Shelly. My process right now is your process because we're talking about you. So what are some good ways to deal with that? To deal with stuff that you're writing about and you don't know everything about? It's tricky. It's kind of a mindset thing because even if you write about quote unquote, what you know, like say you're writing, say you used to have a VW van in 1999 and you drove it across country, right? Say that was your true life. If you wrote about that, you'd still probably, if you thought, I don't know everything about it. You'd still probably wanna look up various things, right? So you have to get into a mindset where you just, I would say plow through as best you can and maybe set aside certain time, like say write for 20 minutes every day, just writing on the subject and then spend 20 minutes a day researching, you know? But don't let it, don't think like I have to research and know everything about a topic to write about it because you don't, even something you've actually lived through, you'd probably wanna research, you know? Cause you'd wanna, I wanna get it right. So, so I'm up for it. So facts, certain facts are elusive. Yeah, so you can afford to, in your private writing to get them wrong, you know? Cause what you wanna establish is a writing practice, not a researching practice, right? And a writing practice is very different from a researching practice. You wanna practice showing up at your notebook or your laptop or your whatever, you know? Your index cards and writing for a certain amount of time, preferably every day, you know? You sit there and you write, say 20 minutes and then you stop. Okay, now I'm gonna research these seven things that are kind of nagging me, you know? Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Great, great question, great question. Hey, Shelley. All right. I see MC has got a question. Go for it. Great. So hi, I'm writing a novel with a lot of different characters. And lately I have been feeling like I'm holding myself back from writing about who I'm not. So I just hear the voice of something, somebody out there who says, you know, so I'm writing, I have a voice of a small biracial child. I also am writing about a Chinese immigrant. I'm writing about a gay black man. I'm writing about this minister from Scotland. So I've been throwing them into situations. But then I hear this voice that says, and I know I shouldn't because, you know, right now I'm just creating, but like, oh, who are you? What gives you the right or the authority to write from blah, blah, blah, this perspective or that perspective? So I'm just grappling with that. Even though I know I shouldn't write at this stage, but still it sneaks in here and, you know, stops me. Yeah, it's tricky. So when you listen to those people, I was trying to guess who you felt like you had the authority to write from and who you felt like it didn't. I don't know, you know, D, you know, I guess you'd get. Okay, you've got the omniscient narrator, me. Right, and everybody else is not you. That's right. Right, and so, and the entirety of at least fiction that I'm familiar with stops. Dickens shouldn't have written anything. Shakespeare shouldn't have written a tello, you know? I mean, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think you should just keep writing. Again, it's always gonna be something, right, MC? Right, Shelley? Like if it's not the research that you stop to write for, it's the voice in your head that says you shouldn't be writing these characters or it's your kid kneading or whatever, and Melania's laughing because she knows she's been there, you know? It's something, it's always gonna be something. So it's, and just recognize that whatever it is, if it weren't that, if you were just writing about, and I'm just barely seeing you there, whoever you identify with, whatever, whatever, right? If you're just writing about someone who's just like you, there'd be something else that would stop you from writing, right? Got it, yeah. So go ahead and write the characters that are coming in your head and in your heart, do your best, and then get off of Twitter and don't read the freaking comments about people saying you should stay in your lane. No. Okay. You know what I mean? I mean, because hopefully you're writing respectfully and with great sincerity and all the, and you've, you know, you've, you know, you're not claiming to know everything about the character, you know what I'm saying? I mean, it's just, it's getting a little, you know, I mean, what started out as some really just basic, like you need to show respect, because I, in my opinion, has turned into like an over-policing and it's not helping the arts. All right. Okay. Thanks for the encouragement. Thank you. Sure. Thanks, MC. All right. Lou. Hey, Lou. Hi. Hi. Hi. It's great to see you, everybody. Great to see you, I'll tell you. My question is a little bit, this is where I'm at today. I'm having a question about if a tree falls in a forest, if a story falls in a forest, if a chapter falls in a forest, if you write a thing that never sees another human, what's the value of the art of writing it? And this is where I am in my process right now. And I had a memory this week about how my grandmother who immigrated from Latvia like a month before she died in Yiddish wrote like 50 pages longhand in Yiddish of like her life story. And I have those pages. And then before my mother died, she had promised her mother that she would translate that Yiddish into English. And I was in charge of typing up the translation that my mother could only speak as she was sick. And those two stories exist in a file folder in my closet in Beacon, New York where I live. And they're so important, they exist to me. I'm the tree, I guess. And I'm writing personal stories. And I get really caught up on if anyone's ever gonna read them or if audiences will love them or be embraced by them. And I think there's like some value to going down that road. But lately I've been thinking about the value of just committing myself to making the story and having that be the art and the process that's important. And I think that's something I've really extrapolated or interpreted from being a part of this room with you for as long as I have. But I just wanted to sort of bring the question of the story falls in the forest, you and to this place because it's making me, I'm sort of surprised at how joyful it feels to talk about the concept of it because I have often been more interested in proving something or tweeting about it about my success or whatever. And like I care less and less and less about it. But I don't know if I guess, okay, so let me try to pinpoint the question. I don't know if I wanna let go of it completely. Like I don't know if there's value in letting go of it completely because maybe I wanna let go of the idea of no one will ever see this. Like maybe there's something good that comes from imagining who might see the thing that you're making. But lately I feel really unattached from it. I just wanted to hear your thoughts on that idea of audience or no audience and the art of making things and the process of making things and the value of them. Just a great question. It's such a great question. I mean, I think like when no one's, there's a show stop when no one's watching or does the show go on? I mean, I think that we might be, I mean, either we're more ourselves when no one's watching or we're more ourselves when people are watching. You know, it's probably both. That's why this is called Watch Me Work. I mean, is this real or is this something or is this a series of behaviors that we're doing? I don't know. But that's why we're doing it because it's interesting to contemplate, you know? So if you write something and no one sees it or reads it or it never makes it to an audience, what's it for or what's it, you know? And I think it's a great value because you did it, you know? I really think that's a huge, great value. I don't think things, because there's a level, you know? Are things only valuable if, things are valuable if you write them. They don't become more valuable. I don't think if they get a production, you know, off Broadway, I mean, just to say their plays, get a production off Broadway. If they get a production at the public theater, it's even better, they're even more important, really? If they get a production on Broadway, oh my God, they're really important, really? Have you been to Broadway lately? Sorry, but you know, right? So, you know, to rank shit or if it gets nominated for an Oscar, really? You know what I'm saying? I mean, really? Because the marketplace, are we really gonna allow the marketplace to really be the only judge of our value? I mean, that's the real question. And I hope the answer is, oh no, I mean, we can participate in the marketplace, but I think it's tricky to give them the only say, the only say, you know? So there is a great value in, because we get so far away from the value of just sitting or standing, in my case, at your desk or area, and creating something. You know, that in itself is such a powerful act where there was a blank page, right? Now there is something. And I mean, you're talking about memoir, but now there's a memory of it. Or now there is, you know, those of you who are writing characters, you know, the Scottish preacher or whatever, MC's character, who's that? You know what I mean? Boom, it's out of her head. Very interesting, right? And so we are, I think we continue to, like challenge the marketplace, you know? We continue to like throw the marketplace curve balls, the marketplace doesn't know what to do. It just wants something, oh, in a package. You know, it wants us to stay in our lane and you know, beyond the little assembly line, we're like, no, we're alive and we're human and more, much more various. And we contain multitudes. There you go, MC. There's your quote, Walt Whitman. I contain multitudes. What did that mean, right? I knew I'd get to it in a minute. You see what I'm saying? So we have to continue. So it is a great value to participate in the act of creating something. And for the marketplace, and we have to be just mindful that the marketplace wants to tell us, it's only good if it gets on Broadway. Ha ha ha. You know, so, you know, there's a lot of value in just, you know, that you said your grandmother, that your grandmother wrote, you know, but she wrote tremendous. You know how hard that is? You know how many people don't do that? Yeah. You know how many people are silenced and think, oh, I better not say, because then, you know, right? To have the courage to step into print, even if it's just your own handwriting and leave a document. This is how it was. You know how brave that is? You know, we can't discount any of that. So yeah. Yeah. Makes sense. Yeah. Her bravery is one floor up in a closet. I can feel it vibrate down here. The tree falls in the forest, you know, and nobody's there. Does it make a sound? Yes, because trees can hear. The trees are there. What? We're the only people who would be only say, oh, if I'm not there, then it doesn't exist. The trees are like, bro fell, sister fell yesterday. Man, she fell. She was good. She gave a good life, man. Yeah. And all the little rings of, I mean, really? Have you ever been in the Redwood Forest? So, you know, right? I mean, gosh, they got it going on, you know? So yeah, so yeah, it does make a sound. A sound, a sound. I don't know, you know, audible to the creatures who can hear on those vibrations. That's it too, isn't it? Yeah. Right? You know, you know. Yeah, so the marketplace is so intrinsically meshed with like humans thinking, we are the world. You know, there's another quote, I think by, maybe it's Emerson, I am a God in nature. I am a weed by the wall. You know, both, you know, I am amazing and I am a small little thing. Both. Good question, Lou. Thank you, I love you. Yeah. It was beautiful. Thank you so much. Thank you. All right, we've got just about 20 minutes left. Let's do an old school hand waving. Oh, thank you. Are you really? Is that where you were just doing something? Are you cleaning your screen? Oh, there you go. No, because I forgot where the raise your hand is. That's cool. Sorry. Just like Lou, but I wanted, I wondered if you could talk about the slowing down. Because does that make any, do you understand what I'm saying? I'll keep talking, I'll keep talking. I'll keep talking. It's, you know, the writing process, when I slow down a bit, then it opens up. But if I'm just writing, writing, writing, I don't get to the good stuff. Does that make any sense? Yeah, yeah, it does. So is there sort of a process you know of to slow down, to have that slowing? That's a good question, Lynn. It's like, I mean, and I would say, you use all the tools in the toolbox. So writing sometimes we have to go fast because we have to out sprint the sensor, the part of the mind that says, don't, like MC, don't, you're not allowed to, MC just blow past them, whoosh, there she goes. And they're like, what, you know what I mean? You're writing so fast, you don't give a fuck, talk to the hand, eat my dust, goodbye. Okay, so many times we have to move very quickly to leap over our own shadow, to out sprint the sensor, you know what I mean? You have to write fast. And where does the slowing down come in the rewriting? Slowly plotting through, reading every line, you know? And then, and actually you want your critical, more critical mind to say, oh, I don't know, I think there's a better word for that. Yeah, okay, circle it, keep going, you know? Without such a heavy critical mind, so slow that you're agonizing over each word. You know, you don't want to go that slow. You know, you just want to move along. So I think the slow, I think rewriting is a wonderful time to slow down. Thank you, that's good. You're welcome. Yeah, thanks. Thanks, Lauren. Ah, Melania. Melania, it's all you. Go for it, yay. Here I am, hi. Hi, hi. Good to see you. I love what you're, what I am listening here. I feel that they are speaking my soul, each of our, yes. Isn't it cool how that works? It's wonderful, because what I am wondering, and I came today with this, is that I am, I feel that I am in a moment in my life where I don't, I don't know exactly who I am. I don't know how to explain this, is that my mind functions in Spanish, because I am from Argentina, and there is some part of my life that is in Argentina. That's the story of me that is there. And here in the States with all these new things, also trying to create things, trying to know my inner voice, finding myself in the writing. And sometimes it happens to me, as I was listening to do, that I don't know sometimes the purpose, if there is no money involved, or there is not like a, okay, I do this and they pay for this. And so sometimes I feel that I am losing time. At the same time that I say this, to me writing is like reading. I need to write, I love writing. There is a part of me that says, okay, I am 43. And I feel that I don't belong anywhere, is that I am not in Argentina. I am here, but it's not the place where I was born. I am trying to write in Spanish. At the same time I speak English. I, in Spanish, I have a lot of words in English. The words are less, you know. And in this situation where I try to be with others, because life is in community. But at the same time I feel that I need to be by myself in order to listen, to listen to God. I love to pray, to meditate. I have my moments during the mornings because I have this situation with the children. And there is a lot of noise sometimes I feel. And I try to find this silence inside of me, but when I am in silence, I get a little scared about all the things that I don't know that I feel that they are not resolving my mind and in my heart. So the writing goes in the middle. There is some expectations that I feel people have. And I would like to know what do you think about this kind of journey? And how can I process this through my writing in a community, but at the same time trying to listen to myself? So you write mostly in English? No, I write in Spanish. Okay, and then do you translate yourself? No, not usually. When I write in English, I write in English. And when I write in Spanish, in Spanish, and sometimes it's both because my house, for example, is that my husband speaks English, but I speak Spanish and we talk the two languages in the house. And at the same time, I think that this is something, I saw this as something that, oh no, I don't know what it is. And at the same time, this is a nice adventure. It's something different. But because there are people that not understand the situation, I feel so, what is this feeling of, what am I doing? I don't know. And I am trying to be myself, but at the same time, I don't know how to do that. And so I write and I begin with things and I can't follow through. I don't feel it. Uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh. Yes, that's- Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. There's a, you know, in English, the word yarn, you know, yarn, like, you know, yarn, and it's also the story, you know, the story, you know. And there's that, the maze of the minotaur, you know, the bull, you know, and all the people who went in there and they got sacrificed and they got eaten or whatever. They had a lot of lost. And Ariadne had the yarn, you know. And I always think of that. The ball of yarn she gave the young man and he walked in the maze with the ball of yarn. The yarn, the yarn, the story helped him get out again. I always think that, of course, it's, you know, it's a story that's originally told in ancient Greek. So I'm sure it's not the same as it is in English, but I always think of the English, you know, like, she gave him a ball of yarn. She gave him a yarn and he found his way out of the maze. It's like you can write your way out. You can make sense. You can weave your story, you know what I mean? And that's what you have to do. You just lay, you tell yourself stories. It can be simple. It can be the story of your growing up in Argentina. It can be little, not little stories, meaning not important, but short stories about your childhood, plays about your childhood that you write in Spanish, you know what I mean? Basically you're putting together a tapestry, a yarn, or a series of yarns that are gonna help you navigate the maze, you know? So just think everything you do, and it doesn't have to be just stories. It can be a painting or a song or whatever. You're creating this mosaic to sort of help you navigate. So I would say just keep adding things onto the pile of, you know, so you write a play. I mean, you've been in this workshop for a long time. You've written lots of plays and lots of beautiful things. You just keep adding to the pile. Does that make sense? It's an accumulation over time. That's the most important thing. So when you are, you know, you said you're 43, you look back when you're 50 or 60 or 70 or whatever, and you look back and you see either it's published things or some published, some not, or a pile of manuscripts, you know, and you can even write the names of the manuscripts on the spine and pile them up. And along with other things that you do in your life. You have kids, you have a lovely family, you know, this is what I did. I didn't just, I mean, sorry, but I didn't just sit around and watch TV. I didn't just go shopping when I felt bad. Do you know what I mean? And there's something to that. It's a beautiful thing that, you know, that I lived my life and I contributed and I made something that was hard. And I know we're both moms and I don't know if there are any other parents in here, but writing is harder than having raising kids. It's harder, it's harder, you know what I mean? It's not just biology, you know, it takes whatever that other thing is, it's, I mean, and if you're doing both, you're next level, you know what I mean? You're totally the next level, you know? The creative act is a really intense thing and it's not for everybody, nor is parenting, by the way, or more people should not parent, but those of us who are doing that, we know what a great gift we're giving to others, you know, those coming up. And if you're writing and creating, you're just next level. So I would just say, take joy and look at the works of your hand, look what you made. Last year, maybe take, look at it. Try yourself on the back. It's amazing what you're doing. Yes. It really is, it's huge, you know? You know, I don't mean just, I don't mean to diss any parents who did this. I'm just saying, having had the experience of both, you know, it is to face the blank page and to come away with something, right? We know this. Oh, yes. We've been there. It's beautiful. With this. So, I don't know, when I speak my mind, I think people go, oh, now she's... Thank you very much. Yeah, but okay, so just, you gotta just keep adding to your pile, Milani. You just gotta keep adding to it. And the questions will resolve themselves if they are meant to resolve themselves or they exist to keep you engaged in the asking of the question which keeps you working. You know? Yes. Yes. Okay. I like that. Thank you, Susan. Yeah, thank you. Thanks, Melania. Rachel. Hey, Rachel. Go for it. Welcome back. Thank you. I agree with Melania that everyone's questions and your answers are really resonating with me today as well. My question is about structure. As I talked about last week, I was feeling lost in the woods and still a little lost, but I think there's light at the end of the tunnel. I tried taking the different plot points or scenes and putting them on cards and arranging them and I think that helped a little bit. But then I came back to just writing a paragraph summary just to come back to the original idea and I think that helped as well. I think what I'm struggling with is because I'm writing non-linearly or at least the story I think is not gonna be linear. I'm finding that I'm writing flashbacks. I'm finding that I'm writing... It's becoming like a prequel of the original idea and I know some of that can just not necessarily be in the script. It can be just backstory that comes back into the script. But I'm just... It still feels like just a swirl kind of a mess in terms of how to organize it. So I'm still feeling like a little bit of a struggle with what do I write as a scene, what becomes backstory to include in a scene in the story later? Does this make sense? So I wonder, yeah Rachel. So I'm wondering, do you have a card for every single scene possibility that you can think of at this point? Yes. You have every single one, it has a card. Yes. Okay, and so when you have like a bulletin board or a wall or you can even hold them in your hands like a stack, right? Put those on a stack. So as you flip through them, right? Can you ask yourself what jumps out at you more and what kind of just leans back energetically? No. Yeah. So the ones that kind of go, ooh, those are scenes. The ones that kind of go, that might just be a line of description or backstory or something you might not need to include at all. So you can sort them out like that. Write me. I wanna be sick, you know? Yeah. They have that different kind of energy. So number one, first make sure that you have every single possible scene that you could possibly think of because of all that, put it on cards, flip through the cards and put them into two stacks, one or the other. No, there's no middle. There's no mister in between or miss in between, okay? It's just, are you a scene or do you want me to write you or do you not want me to write you right now? Mm-hmm. Can you get two clips, you know, binder clips, clip them? Mm-hmm. And then you can take the ones that wanna be scenes and go, okay, who wants to be the first thing that we see, flip through. One goes, I am first. Okay, great. Okay, you're first. Then what happens? Who's next? Yeah. You know, they'll start to sort of like, hopefully, you know, start to organize themselves a little bit. It might not be perfect, but you have some sort of strung together thing of the ones that want, and then you can put them in order. You can even write little numbers on them in pencil because they might want to jump around later. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Meanwhile, you're having fun, you're using your hand, you're doing stuff with cards, you're not sitting staring like, nah, you know what I mean? Yes. No, so that could help. You know, then you have some kind of an order of your cards. And you go with it. Mm-hmm. Just try it. Mm-hmm. You can also flip, after you get an order, you can flip through it a couple of times, going, is this the best order? Well, how's it feel? How's it feel? Oh, no, I want to be next. Okay, great. Okay, you're good. You know? All right. And flip through it. Okay, great. Okay. Yes. That's a great idea. Thank you. There you go. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, my gosh. All right, we've got about 3.5 minutes left. I think, this is a perfect place. And I think we should say, so next week I'm going to be busy and you guys are probably going to be busy too. So we will come back on the, what is it, Audrey? The 11th? 11th. With more dates, so watch for the work. Okay. Thank you, Justin. Thank you, you guys. Thank you, people. Thank you, thank you. Yeah, anything else we need to say before we go on our merry way? Why are you not wearing glasses today? Oh, wow. You're going to a party. I am going to go have drinks with our dear casting friends, Heidi and Kay. I thought they can't see me in my glasses that they do everything. Yeah, I thought you were good. Yeah, you look like you're going out in the town. All right. Going to Brooklyn. Fantastic. Fantastic. All right, but yeah, we'll see you and the sign-up sheet will go out hopefully pretty soon. Yeah, all right. All right, all right. Thank you so much. You're the best, SLP. Thank you. You're the best. Thanks, people. Thank you. Have a great week.