 I was just in a three hour zoom meeting that is egregious I'm so sorry about COVID on the film set or lack of COVID on safety precautions yikes yikes yikes yikes anyway anyway America's getting back to work um so uh speaking of work it's watch me work my favorite part of the day and I'm SLP we've been doing the show for 11 years and three hours no I'm 11 years and we started in the lobby of the public theater um with just a table I had a type writer and I figured that it would be good to show people what work looked like so that I could inspire them and encourage them uh the public theater has been supporting us since jump and howl around came on three or so years ago to help us livestream from the public theater now they have come on board um where we've been going full speed uh for almost five months I've been on hiatus for my film job for five months since the 13th of august um so it's been great having you guys along with this journey um and I hope we've done some good so what we do what we do is we work together for 20 minutes and then we talk about your work and your creative process it's all about you for the next hour and if you have a question Audrey's going to tell you how to ask it go Audrey thanks SLP um so if you have a question you're inside of the zoom all you need to do is click on the participant tab likely at the bottom of your screen on a laptop or a top on the top if you're I tried to change the cadence and I messed myself up on the top if you're on an iPad or the tablet if you click on the participant tab uh it'll open up a little box you click the raise your hand button in that box a little blue hand will pop up and I'll call on you if we've got time um if you're watching on HowlRound.tv you can tweet at us at at watchfework SLP with the hashtag HowlRound H-O-W-L-R-O-U-N-D um and you can also tweet at the public theater at public theater ny uh or you can write to the public theater's instagram that's those are the ways those are the ways these are the days next 20 minutes here we go all right here we are here we are here we are do we have any questions right now oh we can just keep working yeah i'm like we've got two questions all right julia you are up first hi hi everybody hi be here hi yes i'll hey um i the last couple of sessions we had especially with our incredible guests last week so many things sort of fell in place for me um and and i just i wanted to to thank you because um there were things that i didn't kind i thought i understood that you were saying but i didn't like i thought when you said show up for the work it i was so grateful when you said don't just write anything like like show up for the work that you're working on and it was so helpful to me because i was i kept getting kind of panicked about when i was working on and so i thought well if i can't i'll just write and um and so i stopped doing that and i also realized that one of the reasons the reasons why you said to use cards index cards wasn't just so that i could have them in a pile i kept trying to do rewrites and i had like five or seven different things open laptop and i was getting so confused and so i just i i realized i could do this and um and i just i wanted to say that um for the last like four days i have a first draft that's due on friday and i actually uh am gonna make it and i went from being so distraught last week because it's autobiographical and we know one of the things that she had said about um incorporate into your writing practice being you and observing you was incredibly helpful to me and and just it seems like every single thing that you've said from last week until this week has been amazing and um and and i just i wanted to thank you for that and and say that um i think that really i don't actually get every time i talk to you i start crying and i don't see this in my real life but um i think it's because of this that i actually am where i am and i can't thank you enough and i can't thank everybody in the group for this like intense 20 minutes of really supportive energy that just comes just changes my whole apartment gets is so alive with with everybody's creativity so that's it that's all okay thank you too we are we're so happy for you we're really happy for you all right up next we've got laura you and me did laura i'm gonna click again how about now yeah there you go there we go so yeah so um yeah i just want to actually um uh say the same thing that julia just said about the energy it's it is so incredible to work with everyone in this it is an amazing 20 minutes and you can feel the energy and it just carries you along and and i want to thank everybody for that as well it's it's really remarkable um my question is a structural one as i continue to work on my memoir um and i my guess is well anyway let me just ask the question so um so i go along in the story at the moment in a chronological manner and it's told first person towards the end of the story of this portion of my life in this memoir i actually do have journal entries because it was a very intense time and so i started to actually insert actual journal entries i mean i slightly edited them you know but structurally i haven't been doing it throughout it's just all of a sudden at the end i start adding them in and and i'm wondering if that's really copacetic or if i i need to just take the journal entries and continue in the structure that i've been in that's the the question how does it feel Laura when you read it you know i haven't actually read it aloud um in that section yet so maybe i should do that i think the reason that i wanted to do that is there was an immediacy from that time because this time period was 20 years ago and so when i reread those journal entries i just thought to myself there's such a power in that there's such an authenticity in it that i didn't want to change it i'm not suggesting that you do i just was asking you how it felt yeah no i'm not suggesting that you change it at all it sounds fine to me i mean there yeah i think uh for me personally that what i always think of if it if it in literature and art if it feels cool it doesn't have to adhere to any rule that one might have that one might pick up in some kind of an academic program or teacher on the court you know i i i'm not one of those kind of artists you know yeah so if you're feeling it in the groove maybe you're you're you're doing something that hasn't been done before or at least you're doing something that you haven't done before and but if it feels like it could work it's worth trying okay thank you yeah yeah cool thank you yeah thanks all right thank you um all right up next we've got john are you there john hi hi yes opi um yes opi i have a question about my writing style i want to thank you first of all because i um did your thing with coming to the screen every day i've cranked out a webinar um i talked to each page and says what is it do i want to do i've even done the dancing thing i'm an old motown fan so i um i'm fond of the four tops and that kind of gets me started before i get writing um i'm the problem with my right advice it is this i had somebody who go through it with me and read all my writing and said you've got a lot of good stuff going on here but you need to make your writing more conversational i tend to be in in Spanish called a tumba borros which is a burro if you're a burro in the Spanish language you're dumb the tumba borro is the guy that carries his dictionaries around one on top of the other and they're so heavy they knock the burro down i tend to talk like that i tend to converse like that and it's seasoned to my writing so can you give me any ideas as far as how to um go back look at my writing again and again and make it more conversational because i don't want to sound like that school mom with her hair tied back in a bun and that type of thing um so how could i what could i do to make my writing more conversational more loose and not reflecting the the education that i have if that makes any sense sure sure i mean john the way you were talking just now did not sound like a school mom with their hair tied back it sounded like you know someone with their hair down now i mean your regular talk just right now you sounded very conversational i and i you know you've asked questions on several occasions i do not recall you using a vocabulary that was not suited to the the question that you had at the point you were trying to make so i think you're very judicious in your use of language what you can do though since you like the four tops since you like to dance right get up and and read your things aloud have you have you do you read your things aloud on your feet see how it moves if something sounds a little like like or oh i'm trying to impress somebody there with my vocabulary that's probably a way a placed trim or reshape but you want your you want your language to move if you appreciate that person's feedback then then get on your feet and walk around dance it dance around with your pages you know does that sound like fun yeah that sounds like what i need to do because i want to i don't want to be the school mom i'd rather be the nut dancing around there you go so you are you well john i tell you you are the nut dancing around you just need to put brother lean into a giveaway over to it you know have some fun okay thank you s lp sure thanks john thanks s lp john um all right up next is danielle are you there danielle hi hey s lp thank you so much for this space um so my question is about i think bernay brown calls this a vulnerability hangover um it's i like that term and i had one this week and i just wanted to sort of ask your advice so basically um i'm working on a pilot for something that is quite autobiographical and personal seems like that's a theme today and i'm part of a writers group so we're sort of bringing pages every week which is great and so motivating and i'm so grateful for it but um last time i shared pages like these are people who knew me from way back when and it felt so like exposing just like showing them my intestines and um and like not particularly motivating in a way like i i felt like i i was it was hard to sort of stay in myself in my own perspective and i was sort of like in their perspective judging it and it's like so early it's first draft so i'm just wondering like basically like does that mean i shouldn't share the work does it mean that like it's great it's like i'm it's keep going or like i'm just get curious to hear your sort of thoughts about that geez that's a tough um i it's kind of the reverse of what i said to laura or maybe it's the same thing if it feels and it doesn't make you feel like yeah i can go back to the page you know um then i would say slow down your sharing you know which doesn't mean that you don't appreciate your your writing group which doesn't mean that they don't give great feedback it means that the process for you and what your writing needs to be on a slower share right yeah and so maybe um every i don't know what do you every week you share every yeah so maybe every once a month you share you know what i mean yeah and you only you know you only share a little bit if you are relying on their feedback to encourage you i don't know i mean do you feel kind of motivated i think the deadline you're encouraging like knowing that there's a place to bring pages is encouraging but i could probably stick to those goals without necessarily sharing everything yes yeah that's it that's exactly right danielle you you make the go you stick to the goals make those finish lines and don't share awesome just hold it close that's all i mean it's not don't share you know it sounds me but just hold it close you know what i mean um deliver the baby when it's due or however whatever metaphor that works you know what i'm saying yeah yeah and then and then gradually maybe if you have you know three pages or five pages to share and it's been a month you'll build up your stamina for the sharing which is what actually you're working on sounds like the writing is is going well and it will continue to go well if you protect it and um work on the bound the other boundaries the boundaries that you have to work on awesome okay so much and you can tell your writing group that too yeah you know you can say you can say how much you appreciate them and all that and say i just need to go a little more slowly and then they'll really love you actually you know they'll be like all right we're gonna support her that way you know what i'm saying yeah yeah yeah give us more time for other people to read too yeah that's true yeah that's true thank you so much thanks daniel thanks daniel um all right thanks you've got you hi uh first of can you hear me i have a fan on i can hear you you have your fan club yeah uh an aside to john uh for my senior prom my very small school rented a section of the latin casino in south jersey to see the four tops and it was one of the great concerts i have ever seen so eat your heart out uh this is somewhat appropriate because this is a musical question but it might also be a technical question as i said i've written the draft of a seven scene play three of the four characters are performers in a retirement home for retired performers they break out in song often i hear that i'm not a musician and you are i've both seen you perform and heard songs in your plays that are sometimes very different from the type of stuff you perform in your band but this might be a question other people know either or an answer a technical one are there things like computer programs i know a few weeks ago you mentioned you frequently will sing a rift into your phone and i could do that because like i say and and they're very short simple mary had you know mary had a little lamb type of things these are not sophisticated things but even those of you who are parents might know that if if there's some sort of computer program where you teach young kids music that might help this very old kid get those musical and like i say they're just riffs or phrases or motifs so so i can just get them out and down there so that beyond my head and if this ever goes into a production phase i can help those people know what i mean i i wonder jim if i think doing your phone i mean this is my take on using your phone right now if that is easy for you is the best thing to do because it's probably the most familiar device you would have today you know what i mean and then you would be using the voice memo thing on your phone and perhaps learning how to use a computer program i mean there are lots of them there's uh do you play um a keyboard or you have a little keyboard or i do not and i'm old enough that when i was in grade school you have to learn the very rudiments of of reading music oh i think i can revive that but it's but it's it's no it's totally possible i'm gonna be 69 next month so we're talking a while ago yeah no but jim it's totally possible this is what you do you can record the the tune the riff the bit in your phone right okay that's that's that's easy and then you can do a couple of different things one you can outsource it you can hand it off to a friend who can write music and you can have them transcribe it if they do something they have a program like finale or something you just basically you play it off a midi keyboard into your computer and it makes the notes here's the great thing about music you don't need to be able to read even though you do read music you don't need to be able to read music to write music that's the thing you i mean music will notation yes but you can write a song without reading music or ritha franklin did it paul linen and mccartney did it so you know great songwriters right um sure it's nice if you can but you don't have to be able to so i would say record it in your phone and then you can hand it off to a friend you probably know somebody you can who is you know defted that kind of thing and if you don't you can just have voice recordings so when your play goes into production you can play that for the actors and they can learn it off of your phone okay so it doesn't have it doesn't have to be complicated in the script you can notate you know they sing the c voice memo and date it and then you can also text the voice memo to yourself or to your email so you can have a copy of it you know so it's super easy um for you no no no just like sing it like that whatever okay thank you yeah you're welcome thanks jim um all right we don't have a question at the moment just double checking i don't like you were gonna say but but i was like but uh i'm gonna but i'm gonna check twitter uh does not seem that we have a twitter question at the moment oh we got a question from crystal you doing girl hi how are you good how are you doing um today it's a little bit of a little bit of a low day um yeah i have to i think i told you i was gonna come with a different question regarding the father chronicles um because um i'm trying to meet a deadline for um that's at the i think at the end of this week actually for a play festival um so okay so someone use the term vulnerability hang hang hang over and i feel like that's kind of yeah yeah and um and as i've been reading through i've been i noticed that okay when i wrote this this was when i started writing this i had just lost my father and we have very very complicated relationship and um as i'm reading through and reading through it's like oh ouch that kind of burns you know like oh that's things oh that's um that's a lot and i feel like i want to share it you know um i think i'm i'm having trouble with reasoning and how i revise because um i think stuff still hurts and so where i was going with um sorry um oh okay where i was going with the demagogue it was required of me it was and an ask and a set structure and where um with this it's a lot more um it's a lot more my heart there for everybody to see and i'm okay to share that i'm finding to share that i think i'm just trying to figure out how to um how to revise in a way that's still practical or not as emotional um i don't know if that makes sense um we can't yeah sorry sorry sorry um so this is what happens when i write like this particular piece there's no there's no room for filter there's like no room for any kind of strainer to like to hold back there's no room for it there's no opportunity to and so i feel like i can't take i want i want people to feel i want people to feel what i'm writing and i want them to see the good the bad the ugly the hurt the forgiveness the non-forgiveness the the closure and the non-closure but i i don't want to i don't want to write like it like like a teenager who's just emoting and just i don't want to write like i don't know i guess i don't want it to seem like it's just a journal entry i mean there's scenes and they're monologues and there's a beginning middle and end to every piece um i just think that every part of it that's been written has been um very much on the line of of how it's been my morning it's been it's been how i've been processing my morning and i know it's not fully finished but i wanted to take a portion of it and submit it you know a portion of it and call it a short version and submit it as a short play um because i don't i don't think it's meant to i don't think all of this trial and tribulation of writing this is meant to be just stay in the computer yeah when's the when's the when do you have to turn it in crystal by the 17th which is what day i think monday so turn it in crystal yeah i mean you can you can even write like a like a little you know i mean do you have to submit an artist statement with it or could you i i you could you could you could you could say or a letter you know like a an email to accompany the piece you're just going to turn it in are you going to like i'm going to go here yeah okay well you can you can i mean you can read through it and edit it as you can but i don't think by monday or whenever it's due you need to really you know trouble yourself getting it to like finished you know you can write in an email or a cover letter this is still raw you know i'm writing about my dad or my relationship with my father just like you said we had a complicated relationship i want people to see the good the bad the forgiveness all those things you just said to us right it's it's not there yet but i'd love to get an opportunity to work on it with your organization or whatever you see what i mean yeah there are lots of plays that are that need work you know that need that that will really benefit from a workshop process and your place one of them and i think just being honest and telling them where you're at the what i'm saying is if it did not feel good submit it right now then i would say don't submit it but since you feel like it would be helpful to you then i think you should okay you see what i mean yeah yeah and don't worry about getting it like you know perfect is there is there when i guess when something is so personal it's like very very very personal is there how do how do how do you approach how do you approach the continual process of i haven't written anything this personal because this hasn't happened to me before so i feel like the way i approach it is is very different from any other piece that i've worked on is there like a a certain way that i should approach it just whatever the process may be going forward other than you know vomiting everything that's going from heart to tears to paper yeah sure i mean it's going to take time you know you're going to you're going to need time to get some perspective on it right and you need more compassion for yourself than you probably would if you're writing just some you know work for hire that didn't have anything to do with you do you does that make sense you know so when you find yourself apologizing for feeling whatever you're feeling you know go hey i'm allowed to feel things when you find yourself feeling whatever it is you're feeling you're allowed to have your feelings and you're allowed to struggle with them and all that that makes sense you just need more compassion when it's closer to home right yeah it's a lot it's a lot but i think it's really great that you i mean come on this week has been a great week for you you know turned in you're getting another one turned in on monday and and you're really with some big things i know i just i guess i didn't expect today to be one of those days to kind of sneak up on me you know because i did have a really great day i had a great weekend and so it just feels like why you know why when i turn to this piece that it just it brings out a lot of it's just over it's overwhelmingly overwhelming you know um and and i still want to feel like i'm a writer like i'm still a writer like i still have it to get together um but it feels like um you know like when you're like with actors when they're acting and sometimes they touch a nerve and you kind of get concerned for them you wonder if they're if they touch a place that's not really safe emotionally and they're kind of harping on that and so you kind of see them bleeding a little bit and it doesn't feel safe anymore as the audience member like i wonder i wonder if that shows in my writing that it that it's like we're touching things and oh like this writer's she's not safe or she's she's she's on that line she's on that line maybe you know what what you want me to tell you to stop welcome to the club crystal you know we that's why we weren't we that's why we show up and that's why we're consistent we rely on our craft and our faith and our community to keep us going and yeah so you're exposing some raw nerves welcome to the club keep going okay uh huh i mean yeah take care of that's why i said you know double dose of compassion for yourself you know take care of yourself do something nice for yourself today that doesn't have anything to do with getting your work done okay you know you know what i'm saying yeah eat some look somebody said eat some ice cream there you go eat some ice cream and i have ice oh there you go have a have a some a little bit of ice cream you know take a bubble bath do something go outside twirl around i don't know yeah yeah be grateful to the play you wrote it you know you're not sitting there going i'm constipated creatively you know yeah that's true that's true yeah okay okay i'll eat ice cream thanks crystal enjoy the ice cream um we've got about five minutes left and we're gonna go to Lorelai hi SLP hi Lorelai uh crystal i just admired everything you just said and um i'm wishing you strength for this difficult time um i my dog is uh she hears me speaking and she's like oh what are we doing um so uh i the last you know a couple weeks i've been on watch me work i've just been doing research and reading but i opened up my draft today um to work on it and i noticed that it says uh draft date 622 20 and i just i was like man i haven't written in this thing for two months and um i um and i um and it's just how do you how do you move forward with um with i mean it's done it's a full draft but it's just how do you move forward um with something that you feel like i've been working on this thing for over a year two years a year and a half maybe um and it's and it's done and i but it's not ready and i i need to figure out how to go back into it but i don't i don't know how to leap back in because i'm feeling so stuck and unmotivated it's a great question so you have a full draft and you haven't looked at it in in almost two months so that is that correct correct okay so you want to what's great about it is you can you have a full draft and you're going to be able to read it hopefully as if someone else wrote it yeah right because you were a different person two months ago right so you're going to get that perspective you're going to get that you know you're going to get a little you've gotten a little distance on it you've created that for yourself and now you're going to read it as if someone else wrote it and you can do a couple things you can um i would suggest reading it out loud standing up okay okay because you you know out loud standing up yeah okay so um i would also suggest i'm guessing that you have you printed it out have you had an opportunity to print it out i haven't my printer software is all messed up and i have a lot of yucky yeah um if you can before you read it i would say print it out just get distance from the machine you know um if you can print it out and then or maybe send it to a friend or you know cove would say friend or friend in your pod or your bubble and and um print it out go to staples whatever how well however you can do it i print it out and then then you have pages which is a different it's i'm trying to um encourage you to do something different with your body then you probably were doing when you wrote it yeah so you're going to be standing energies different you're going to be holding it in your hand that's a different thing turning pages like this actual pages and you're going to be using your right right to read it out loud okay um and that can give you a sense of like you know what how's it feeling you know um you can have a pen in hand when you read and circle places that are a little draggy and not quite there you know you can put smiley faces on the in the margins of the places that are really clicking for you yeah okay and just do that and you know do it if you can in one uh writing period yeah um but if you can't you know divide it up um you can do one scene one you know a scene a day or i don't know what it is is it a play or it's a uh film okay okay so you can do you know 20 pages a day if you want to take it slow or you can do it all in one in one standing sure yeah it's tricky because i i know what needs to be done i know and the plot is good it's it's all formed out it's all flushed out it's good but i don't need any new characters in fact i think i'm gonna cut one not a not a very important one um that would be a huge change but um um it's like i know what i need to do to certain characters but i'm just worried about lengths um to what do you mean too long too short too long um how many pages is it 139 okay so don't worry about length until it's time to worry about length okay it's not time to worry about length yet yeah i remember now i remember i remember you asked a question a couple months ago and i was like i cannot remember our last question and you were you also asked about length length when tony was on yeah yeah kushner ha you asked kushner about length i did well i did you know don't worry about length i know that's what he said he's like you're like yeah yeah don't worry yeah really don't don't even worry about length i mean you know and i've even had hollywood director say don't worry about what are you worried about lengths just write it just write the characters um so um go ahead and write it you can trim later you can you know do what you got to do to it and then once you put everything in there that you need and cut the character that you need to cut and all that then you can read it again for length and think okay how can i you know aside from using the tricks in the whatever program you're using final draft for example there are a lot of tricks you can do to get more lines on the page but aside from that you can think how can i economize but this is not the draft to do that okay okay yeah but definitely read it out loud especially if it's a film you know yeah great thank you okay thank you thanks it's six o'clock it's six o'clock it's six o'clock yay yay well you know the drill everybody sign up by three p.m eastern every single day oh that we are here and i'll send you a link between three and four thirty yeah we'll see you tomorrow thanks s lp thank you thanks Audrey thanks everybody great to see you great questions bye