 Okay. Hey, it's five o'clock. It's time for Watch Me Work. I'm SLP. We are getting organized for another session. My lighting is a little weird. I'm happy. It's Lincoln's birthday. We've been doing Watch Me Work for like 14, 15 years. We started, I keep saying we started in the lobby of the public theater, but actually Watch Me Work started in a little theater on Fourth Street as part of a theater festival. And then we moved to the public theater and now we're on Zoom now and forever like cats. And so what we do is we work for 20 minutes. And then we talk to you about your work and your writing process. While we don't have time to have you read from your work or perform your work, we do have time to talk shop with you because we love you so much. And if you want to get in touch and ask a question, Zoe will tell you how. How's it done? Hi, everyone. Welcome to Watch Me Work. My name is Zoe. I'm the New York Development Manager here at the public and Hi, I'm Hayley. I'm the New York Development Fellows. Yeah. So after the 20 minute work session, we'll go ahead and ask it to please use your raise the hand function on Zoom with the question. That way we can get a nice cue going. And then from there, we'll go ahead and call on your name and ask you to please unmute to ask your question. And that's how we'll go about it. Fabulous, fabulous. And we had so many questions last time. If you want to, you know, think like, I have a question now, you want to get in the queue now, that's also fine. Is it also fine, Zoe, to do it that way? Yeah, that's also fine. You're also welcome to put your question in the chat. And I can monitor that as well. And I'll monitor the timestamp. So thank you. Awesome. Awesome. We want to give a shout out of thanks to the Public Theater for hosting us and to HowlRound for hosting us. I also dropped something in the chat again, advertising my test kitchen, which is my band. Go to the link, sign up for our website. We'd love to see you at some of our gigs. And without further ado, here we go. And here we go. All right, folks, it is time to put away your guitar and talk to y'all about questions concerning your creative process. Welcome to all the people who are new, who have never been here before. And welcome back to the folks who have been here before. Who do we got? All right, Tanya, if you don't mind unmuting yourself. Tanya. Hi. Hi, how are you? I know you. Oh, thank you. It's good to see you, Tanya. So I am wondering, what are the strategies you use when you're evaluating an early draft, like when you're in the process of rewriting, what are you looking for in your draft? Great. So how long has it been since you've written it and put it aside? I had put it aside for a while, but now I'm diving back in. It had probably been a few months. Great. Okay, that's a good amount of time. So you can read it. Have you read it yet, or are you about to reread it for the first time? I've read it, and I've made some changes. But I'm kind of just looking for ways of how to make sure I'm not escaping my own attention. Right, right. Well, have you tried reading it aloud? No, I have not read it aloud yet. That's always a fun thing to do. And I would say, to make it even more fun for extra credit, you can stand up when you're reading. Again, just things to spark your attention. You don't have to read it all in one go. You can read a scene at a time, standing up. You can walk around your apartment or you can just stand still. That's really helpful. But also, I like to read things and pretend that someone else wrote it, because then it gets me out of the sort of, oh, that was my favorite part. I was really proud of myself when I wrote that. Oh, that was a hard part that I couldn't quite figure out the first time I wrote it. That's helpful. And then basic things like, does a story make sense? Is there any place where I go like, is there any place where I get bored? Like, hey, like that. And if there are places where my attention flags or fails or kind of wanders, then I just circle it. It doesn't mean that it needs to be cut. It doesn't mean that it's wrong or bad. It just means that in that moment, it wasn't holding my attention. Are there any places where the story just doesn't make sense? Are there any places where I go to myself, hey, I don't really believe that would happen, like that. I just circle those places. Or how could that possibly have happened given the beat, the story beats before? Just those things like that. Just assuming that the story is something that would make sense in our construct of our universe kind of thing. Those kinds of things. Where do I laugh? Where am I really enjoying it? Where am I having a good time? Where am I? I really like that part. Good. Good. Good job. Always working with some of the critique, some of the things you've got wrong, layering lots of compliments, but you got right. Really, the main thing is you did it. Hooray. That's more than I'd say a lot of people. Tonya, how are you doing, by the way? It's good to see you. It's good to see you too. I'm doing well. Thank you. The light is bad. Yeah, there you go. Yeah, it's really good to see you. Yeah, but always, when we reread our work or revisit our work, make sure that we compliment ourselves just to keep the spirits up, because that's what we're going to need to go back into the rewrite. You're going to need to feel a kind of buoyancy, a kind of, I can do this. I got this. I can do that. And also try to just, again, like I said, when we had classical, hypnotize yourself into at least entertaining the possibility of good things. I love the idea of compliments too, because you do sometimes need that motivation. So thank you so much. It's super helpful. It's so nice to see you. Likewise, Tonya. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Thank you. M.D., you could unmute yourself. Hey there. Hey, M.D., how you doing? Doing good, SLP. How you doing? Great to see you, bro. See you. So I was speaking to one of your students, Tyler Scheider, and he sends his love. But he mentioned something to me that's sticking with me. I want to get your take of how do you know, in relation to Tonya's question, how do you know when that piece is ready to be brought out? Because the way that he said he learned from you, don't put your babies out, your fresh babies out into the world, because they don't even know how to go war yet. But how do you know when those babies are ready? That's a great question. Yeah, or we could say, don't eat the pie before it's cooled. You don't like the baby analogy. And also, don't be in such a rush to put it out there, soliciting opinions and notes from all kinds of people before you've had time to give yourself several rounds of notes. And that's the key. I like to give myself several rounds of notes. And when I feel like I got it as good as I'm going to get it for right now, then I will send it out to people. Not a big send out, but like a good friend who said that they would read something I wrote, you know, and they have the time, make sure they have the time, not a busy person who's like, yeah, I'll get to it. And then you don't hear from them for a year. And then you imagine the worst, you know, make sure your friend or your colleague has time to read it. But give yourself several rounds of notes. And when you really read through it, and you read through it, and you read it aloud, and you're pleased with it, and you're you're feeling good about it, and you've really done some ask some hard questions, you maybe read it to your spouse or a trusted friend, and they've given you notes. So a very small group like a one or two people who've given you notes, you've done that a couple of times. And you're not so use the word like desperate, like, have any of you ever gone on a date and you go, ha, this has to be the one like that. That's not a good time to go dating. You know, I'm saying, I need, I need this person so much. That's not a great time to go dating. It's better to go dating when you're like, you know, whatever, right? Maybe some of you don't go dating anymore, but whatever those of us who don't, but you remember what it was like, right? And you want to send your work out there when you feel cool about it, like, I feel good. You know, does that make, does that is that helpful, MD? Okay. Incredibly. Thank you so much. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, MD. Right. Next is going to be Crystal. Hi. How are you? I'm good. We started a conversation last week. Yeah. Conversation. Yes, I remember. And I'm trying to see if I can better my question. I, okay. So I realized some of the references maybe that could be helpful is like for me in, as far as not wanting to mimic or mirror is like a Shriekarnian desire and carousel, like these characters who are kind of like, you kind of expect them to be brutish and to possibly do something, you know, wrong, really wrong. I, I didn't want to do that. I wanted to have all the characters have, you know, a strength of humanity. But I knew that this one character has been really difficult to write as far as like making him not look like he's like the foreshadowing of a really, really horrible event. So I guess my question is like, what are the questions or the, the layers I should be thinking about to make it so that he doesn't come off like this, you know, big, expectant kind of villain, you know, because I didn't, it's, it's still kind of sort of supposed to be like a little like, like naturalistic, you know. And so I think it might be harder to keep it in that realm if, if he's kind of like this, just, I don't know, bigger than life in that realm. Am I making it? I don't know if I'm making it. Well, you know, it's really, I appreciate that we're continuing this conversation from last week because we were right down the wire and it was really tricky to kind of, I didn't want to just give you an answer, you know, that kind of thing. So I really appreciate that we're continuing this conversation. How to, let's just say, let me see if I heard you correctly, how to write a villain or someone who does bad things or someone who might do bad things. Right. It's really helpful to me, you gave me two examples. Did I hear you right when you said carousel and street card name desire? Did you say? Yeah, I did. Because I know both those plays or both those shows. Okay, carousel. Right. And this is, I think these examples that you state, that you gave me hold your answer. Maybe carousel, right? The musical everybody, if you don't know it, you know, whatever it's okay. But the guy whose name I can't remember the main character. Oh, not the me guy. Okay. The guy, right? Carousel, dude, right? I forget his name. It's okay. Point we're making. He sings that song at the end of Act One. My little girl. Remember that song? Oh my God. Here for you. My little girl, pink and white. My little girl is half. He sings this whole ass song about the child that he, that he's expect, he's expect, he's an expected father. Right. Is that true? He has this great song. Okay. Okay. Somebody look at us. Somebody help me. Anyway, what is it? So it's not just focusing on, he's a bad person. You know what I mean? Even in Oklahoma, a musical I know a little bit better. The song Poor Judd is Dead. Judd, the character, is a bad name, right? He goes around doing that a lot. But he has this, they sing the song, Curly and Judd, saying Poor Judd is Dead. And it's an amazing moment where Judd is, yeah, he's got bad qualities, but he's also a dude who spends too much time alone. Right. And he has hopes and dreams. Okay. Also, streetcar. I don't know an actor. I haven't yet met an actor who would turn down the part of Stanley. Sure. Right. Because Stanley gets to say Stella and he gets to say that and he's screaming for his beloved woman and all this stuff, even though he does, you know, horrible things, right? There he is in the rain or whatever in the movie anyway, screaming for his dear, dear beloved Stella. And in those moments, the writer is including something very moving in the portrait of someone who does something very bad. I'm sorry, I didn't catch that. The writer is including something very moving, something very like Stanley Kowalski loves. The guy in Carousel, he's a dreamer, he loves, he plans, he hopes, he has hopes and dreams. Doesn't excuse his bad behavior. Doesn't excuse his horrible behavior. We're not, you know, quite washing or anything, but it does remind us that he is in the, for lack of a better phrase, family of man, family of humankind. I see. You see? Yeah. So perhaps that could, I mean, those are your examples, you know. Yeah. I think Oklahoma is the better example. You know, you know that moment of Judd where Judd, you know, they sing that poor Judd is dead. And Judd goes, and so clean. You know, he's singing along to his own song. You know, that whole thing, that's amazing. Cause you go, oh my God, Judd is just some like dude who like needs more friends. He doesn't get them. And so he does bad things, but you know, or however you read the story anyway, he's the outside, whatever. I'm not the literary critic examining Oklahoma. But does that make sense? Yeah. Yeah. I can explore that more. And it's not again, it's, it's humanizing someone does not dismiss the reality of their horrific actions. It just, it just reminds us what it is to be human, which includes a lot of fucked up shit. Yeah. Sorry, excuse my language. No kids here. I know your kids aren't going to get good. Does that make sense? You know? Yeah. That makes, that makes a lot more sense now than when I was trying to make sense of it, or even the question last week. So I can definitely explore that more. Yeah. Yeah. I'm not suggesting we run around and humanize all the villains and all that. I'm not suggesting that, but I do feel like if one is appearing in your work that you are writing, for example, and you need to include them in your story, then you need some strategies. And that's one strategy. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. Now we'll go listen to Oklahoma. Yeah. Thank you, Crystal. Also, Celine in the comments says the song is soliloquy sung by Billy. Thank you. Soliloquy. Is it the end of act one? Anybody? Is that the end? Is that the act one closer? Yes. Yes. Right on. Thank you. Yeah. Soliloquy. Thank you. All right. Raise your hand if you'd like to go next. Awesome. Graham, please unmute yourself. Sure. I just wondered if you could talk about how you select your next project. I finished my first play a few months ago and it's feeling like you're ready to write again, but I kind of have the opposite of writer's block where I just have 10 ideas that seem like they could be fruitful. And I just wondered how to choose. Oh, wow. That's exciting. That's exciting, Graham. Congratulations on finishing your play. Thank you. And congratulations, yeah, on like being excited to write again. That's like the best feeling. I would say maybe, I mean, you could spend like a little bit of time with each one. Right. Have you written all the, do you have titles for each one? I have titles for about three or four of them. Okay. Okay. So we just say the ones with titles are a little, as we'd say, further along. Yeah, absolutely. Okay. So we want to make, we want, we'd like to choose on probably that's a little further along, right? Okay. So of the ones further along, maybe just, it might be fun to like write the titles out and just like tape them to your wall or something and look at them and go, you know, you can be, it can be like the bachelor or the bachelorette. I've never watched these shows, but you know, one gets the rose or whatever. You might just see which one is vibing at you most. You know, which one is like calling your name? You know, just write them out like, you know, take a Sharpie and a three by five, you know, index card or whatever, you know, and just write the names, paste, you know, tape them to your wall and just like, have them up there for a couple of days and be like, ooh, that one. You know, that's a great idea. Thank you. It's fun. It's like a little game. You can have a little game show. You know what I'm saying? That's right. Make it fun for myself. Yeah. Well, that's, I mean, the whole thing is make a game out of it. Game, you know, game your head, like game yourself into like doing your work. I just thank you. Sure. Thank you, Graham. Great question. That's a fun question. Thanks, Graham. All right. Next is going to be Rocky if you could unmute yourself. Thanks for doing this. Okay. So I have kind of an interesting question. I'm like a writer. I'm an interdisciplinary artist. I do a lot of things, but I'm a playwright in a lot of ways. But then this documentary came into my life. So now I'm almost done editing it. And I have this like, basically, I have the audio track done. I know what everybody's going to say. But now I'm in the place where I have to superimpose some videos on top of the audio track. And I have like, a bunch of videos I want to superimpose over it, over this like, two hour movie. I'm not really sure how to start getting into that process because it's not necessarily like linear. It can, I don't know whether to contrast the videos or to like make them more similar to what people are saying. I don't know if that fully makes sense. But it's just like an open ended. Like where would you start on this new kind of journey? So you have the audio track and it's from start to finish. You know what's being said. Yes. Right. Okay. That's really great. Okay. So, you know, what's cool is that you figured out part of it and you're kind of like, it's not, I know it's not locked or anything, but you figured it out pretty good. Right. And now you've got to just go back to the drawing, but you just got to start trying things. You know, also, so it won't be too overwhelming. Maybe limit the time you work on it. Like, say, I'm going to work on it for a half an hour right now. Maybe you maybe four half hour blocks through the day so you don't get too overwhelmed. Maybe just start, have you grabbed the images in the footage that you might want to superimpose over it? Yes. Great. So you might want to just spend an hour or 30 minutes just throwing stuff down, trying stuff out, be okay with it not really working. But if it's a short amount of time, you won't feel like, oh no, it's just not coming together. Little bits of time, spend an hour, fiddle with it, play with it, throw some images on it, take a break, go do something else, come back to it, 30 minutes, play with it. You know what I mean? Gently, gently like, and then it's going to accumulate. I like that. I like starting with that image. Great. Then I'm going to put this one down. You see what I mean? Does that make sense? Yeah, totally. I'm going to try that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just short, I would say short blocks of time so you can just feel like you're going forward. Okay. Thank you. Thanks, Rocky. Thank you, Rocky. Hi, Rebecca, if you could unmute yourself. Hey, Rebecca, how are you doing, sister? Oh, I'm doing well. It's good. So good to see you. Good to see you. Doesn't worry. So I've been working on a submission of, for a call for essays for a book. Yes. And so I gathered all my previously published essays. And I was surprised to see that I actually had a through line and sort of thematic coherence across just a lot of years writing. Uh-huh. And I'm a little concerned because I'm doing cleanup now on the essays. And some of them, I went back to original submissions where the reader for the publication, it just like left out several pages because it didn't fit what they wanted. But I do have some things that are very repetitive and I'm having a little trouble figuring out how to manage that. Uh-huh. The repetition is about some events post Katrina that Harry threw to 2017. And different publications, different, you know, each publication had a different focus. But I'm feeling a little uncertain about how much repetition. And so it's like describing, because it's different publications, it's describing the post Katrina and ongoing situation over and over again. Right. So can you, yeah, so it's, so in several different, if I understand you correctly, several different essays that have been, you know, their homes in several different publications over the years might be described, have been, are describing post Katrina stuff in each essay. Oh, is that correct? It's describing, so that situation informs different, different aspects though. So some of those aspects are about plastic and some of those are about this thing called petrocapitalism. And some of them are about just how black folks are treated in the South when you live near an oil refinery. So, um, but it's that first thing that gets into the essay that shows up like six times. Could you, could you, okay, so you got right. So, so could you pick the, could you choose which essay you would like to be the, the essay, the mother ship essay, right. The first one, right. Have it appear in that one, right. Have the, the, the description, the post Katrina stuff, the wealth of it appear in that one. And then in the other ones, could you say, as elaborated in my essay, you know what I mean? And you can refer back to the mother ship in all the subsequent essays. Yeah. Yeah, I think, I think that could work. I probably want to kind of reiterate maybe twice just because, you know, it's over a hundred pages. So, I mean, it's not, it's not only about this one community, but the other pieces that circle around some other issues and events. Those, those three lines are cleaner. Okay. I think of them as being cleaner. It's like, and, and a little more cohesive. So, but I'm, I'm happy they all relate. And I'm, and it's just one that is, I'm finishing up, that is brand new. And I'm trying to avoid, I'm trying to avoid it being a wrap up kind of, because it has its own, because I'm, I'm sort of, I feel like I'm trusting myself to let it sort of be what it is and that it too has the thematic, it fits with the thematic sense of the rest of the essays. So, I understand. I understand. But that's, that's a really helpful idea just to refer back and, and not again, not to, you know, say less than you want to say, but to keep that feeling of, you know, I just want to get, you know, as much as it's appropriate to, to what you've already written. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Cool. I'll try that out. Thank you so much. That sounds good. Thank you, Rebecca. Right. Max, you could unmute yourself. Max. Question about how you write some of your lines. I want to say that I heard a quote once really interesting quote about how humans spend 50 to 70% of conversations repairing them, because our ideas are so broken, especially when we are getting full of passion, reason goes out the window and we lose clarity. So I want to actually, I was hoping I can read a couple of lines from scene three. I think is this act two top dog underdog? I'm not sure. I actually don't. Before you do that, you know what the rule of watch me work is? That it's about you. Of course. Of course. Well, my question was, when do you know when your characters are done talking? Right? I was going to say there's this one line where your characters are repeating what they're saying, because obviously the first time they said it, it didn't get through. And it seems like they're saying the same exact thing, right? And I'm, I'm curious. And you know, I'm writing my dialogues and I'm wondering when are my characters done? I know. You know, the thing is they're never done. They're never done. They're talk. It's like, it's like, it's like a beam of light or particle of light. It's still going. It's continuing, right? But we do just switch our attention. You know, yeah, the weird thing about, about getting talking to your characters is that they're never done talking. It's a very intense relationship that you have with these people who don't exist until they do. And anyway, let them, let them talk as much as they want, Max. If they need to repeat and repeat repetition is, in my experience, is kind of a cultural thing. Some cultures repeat more than other cultures. You know what I mean? And some neighborhood settings encourage repetition more than other neighborhood settings. Some people talk over each other, which isn't something I grew up with, but, but my husband grew up with it. So different cultures have different ways of talking to each other, you know, different peoples in different cultures. So if you're, if your characters need to talk a lot, let them talk. Some people do think about what they're going to say while the other person is talking and some people don't. Just, I would say get into the body of your character more than outside of the body of your character thinking about it. Crawl up in, crawl down their throat and inhabit them or swallow them whole and let them vibe with you. Walk around in their shoes, you could also say, you know, and get in the groove of their story, which is like a, the groove is like a riverbed or a groove of a vinyl 40 vinyl record, you know, get in the groove, get in the riverbed of their story and like be in it with them. Don't think too much about how they're going to stop talking whatever. Listen to them like you would a good friend, right? Have fun. I can't hear you. Sorry, sorry. I really like what you said about understanding, especially the cultures that they grew up in, right? That would have a big influence. That's a very interesting thing to research when I'm building my characters. But yeah, otherwise I get what you're saying. Thank you very much. Yeah, bro. And you don't have to research it. I'm just saying like, you know, just, just feel it. Yeah. Feel it and guess and it's okay if you don't get it complete 100% right, you know, because it's going to be wonderful. Okay. Thank you. That was a lovely question. Thank you. Thanks, Max. All right. Kimmy, if you could unmute yourself. Hey, Kimmy, how are you doing? I'm hanging in. Thanks. And congratulations on the drama desk and happy, happy Black History Month and all that kind of stuff. Black All Month and honor Black History Mom and Black All Month. I posted your face on Instagram as one of my people. I'm doing a different person that has influenced me every day. So thank you for that. I was wondering about, I haven't even read the book. I just happened upon a title. It sounded very interesting. I was wondering, how do you go about adapting? How do you get permission? Or how do you at least find out if somebody else has done it or not? I don't know how you get permission. I guess you would ask a lawyer or an agency or something like that. I don't know. Things I do have already been cleared. So they come to me like, hey, we'd like you to work on Native Sun. Someone has already done the legwork on that. Okay. Yeah. But how you go about actually adapting, I would say as much as possible. In my experience, I have a lot of respect for the original writer. And I always want to feel like I am walking in their company. Not standing on their shoulders. Oh, wow. That's really important. I'm walking in their company. So when I adapted Native Sun, I was walking in Mr. Wright's company or their eyes are watching God. I was walking in Zornel Hershwin's company or the Gershwin's porgy and Bess walking in the Gershwin's company. Not standing on their, and me, the standing on their shoulders thing is interesting, but it's not my style. I love your style. And would it be inappropriate? I mean, I'm brown, but I'm not black. Would it be inappropriate if I wrote a story, even though it's from a black woman's perspective, if I'm not a black person, would that be disrespectful? Not during, you can't do it during February, but not a lot of new during February. Only you can give yourself that kind of permission. Okay. It is definitely not appropriate for me to be thinking that I can give you that kind of permission. I can give you, I can encourage you to give yourself permission to write, to create, to do your work, but that kind of permission is something that you give you. All right. Thank you for that. I appreciate that so very much. And of course, I appreciate the laugh. Love you. Thank you. Great. Thank you so much, Jameson. Let's go. My first time here is an honor. And I guess my question, you kind of answered it when you were answering Max's question. I just wanted to know like at what point do you stop researching just write? And for me, I'm a new playwright, a playwriter. And I was just wondering if it's like when you know the story fully or is it when something in the story inspires you? Yeah. Great question, Jameson. I would say we, you get that feeling like, come on, bro, it's time to, you know, it's time to write. You don't have to know everything. Oh my God, I know everything. Oh, I can wrap my head around the universe. Oh please. It's never going to happen. Don't even worry about it. But when you're, you know, be like, hey, you need to start writing now. Yeah. Okay. And you always, you know, research a little bit more along the way. Yeah. You're not going to go away from the internet and stop looking things up. You know what I mean? You need to, there's a certain point. You're walking along the shore or walking along the beautiful lake. And you know, you need to, you know, you need to get in the water. Yeah. You know what I mean? So yeah, just, just trust, trust. That's a new word now. My 12 year old uses that word all the time. Trust. He's like, trust, trust. Okay. So Jameson, trust, trust. Get in there. Make a move, you know. And if you need research assistance along the way to know that that is available to you as you're in the water. Absolutely. Thank you. Congratulations on writing your, your new play. Yay. Thank you. Thank you. Yay. Okay. Next week, we're going to be celebrating the president. So Zoe, tell us what's in store. We're not going to be here next Monday, but the following Monday, the 25th, we'll see you right here. Same time, same place, same great people. Okay. We love you all. Have a wonderful week away. We'll see you soon. Thank you for coming this week. Thanks, Zoe. Thanks, all around.