 Hey, James, so sorry, having some technical difficulties, but I'll be with you in a second. SLP will be here in just a few moments, and then we'll go going. Hey, SLP, you should be able to unmute yourself. Hey, everybody. Lordy, hi. Hey, I think we're ready whenever you are. I'm sorry, my camera isn't working. I'm trying to figure it out. Oh, ha ha, oh my God, I'm listening to this other weird, crazy thing. Hold on. What? Hold on, I've got some weird, crazy thing. There. You know how things run in the background? Yes. I'm doing this anyway, blah, blah, blah, long story. I'm gonna sneeze, and then we're gonna get started. How exciting. There we go. Thank you. Okay, so welcome to watch me work. Sorry, I'm late today. I was working. And hi. So this is how we do it. We work together for 20 minutes. And then I take questions from you about your creative process from SLP. Audrey's gonna tell you how to get in touch should you have questions. Thanks, friends. Hi, if you have a question on your inside of the Zoom, all you need to do is click on the raise your hand button, which is in the reactions tab, likely on the bottom of your screen, if you're on a laptop or on the top, if you're on an iPad or a tablet. And if you're watching on the live stream, you can also tweet at us at watch me work SLP with the hashtag howl round H-O-W-L-R-O-U-N-D, or you can tweet at the public theater, or you can write to our Instagram. And those are the ways. And tabulous. Okay, we're gonna start. I can't see Audrey, but I'm guessing it's gonna start. Now. Now. Thank you. Did it work? Yeah. Mix this. Oh yeah. No, it's all good. I'm just in many other programs today. Okay. Hi. Hi. Hello, beautiful. Hello, beautiful people. Okay. Any questions? Only answers. Today, only answers. Hey, Ryan. Good to see you. Hi, Ryan. Do you have a question, Ryan? I will- I'm sorry, I was just saying, I was just waving. I was just saying- I mean, we see all our fabulous people like Milani and Lou and everybody else. Steady poor. I love you. And MC, we see everybody, but then it's like Ryan, we see like every like once a month or something. Yeah. So I said hi. Oh. Oh, all right. Let's- Ryan does have a question. So I go to Ryan. There you go. Oh no. You're so funny when we can't see you. There you go. Yeah, wait, yeah. Okay. Yeah. Oh, it's good to be here. Yeah, I didn't realize that. Yeah, y'all been at it. It's good to see- Yeah, yeah, we have. It's good to be here. Well, I guess, I mean, yeah, I'm always up for, I always have some questions running through my noggin. I guess some, so yeah, the last time I was here, I was like, I decided or was very helpful to decide that I was editing or if I was still writing or like just not doing one thing at a time. And so I've been like going through my piece and sort of assigning the choir of characters and that sort of been like, I was looking at that as editing, but it is the rewrite or it is writing. Yes. Not even, yeah, it's the original writing. But I found some pieces where I didn't feel like it was applicable. I wasn't hearing the voices that I'm sort of molding. I wasn't hearing them in some of these chunks and I'm trying to play more with the idea of, I guess, a narrator as opposed to a full choir. But I just sort of was being really hard on myself. Like nah, you have these characters and you need to like get each, you need to find them in each piece. And I think I, yeah, I guess, yeah, my question I guess is more is like, I guess it's more of like the idea I've heard before in the space of like lowering the bar to be like, no, if it flows like this, it flows, it doesn't need to, you don't need to force it. Yeah, don't force it if it doesn't, if you're finding that it's still, you can still go forward. I guess it's sort of, I guess it's, I guess that's the writing space I'm in now. That sounds good. That sounds good. I mean, and just to your point, Ryan, wouldn't, isn't a narrator a character? Hello, yeah, yes, yes. So you added a character to the choir. Yes, I think I was really trying to be like, no, this is like a whole choir, like there's no narrator. I think I was just working against that idea when it just made more sense to work with it. Yeah, yeah. I mean, constantly you have to like reframe, right? You know what I mean? I think, yeah, a lot of the difficulty comes when we say this is how it is and I made it my mind and now it doesn't fit and oh no. And it says, oh, maybe it's like this. Yeah, yeah. But narrators are characters too. Yes, yes. And but yeah, I know it's good to be our, I guess more in my, the writing space is too, I guess I'm trying to like really look at more compassion or like with the self, which is so much easier said than done. Because I think I'm also, my one other big work that I'm still trying around town with comes from a place of writing, not to go too into the work, but writing from like a place of survival. And I sort of, my next piece is like, I tried to document a year in the pandemic. I took, maybe I took a 365 note, but I tried to, I was like, okay, I want to document this March, 2020 to March, 2021. And like, but I'm also trying to remember, I don't need to, again, with being compassionate. You don't, the stakes don't need to be so high. Right, right, right, right, right. And I think it's just, I always think I'm a compassionate writer to myself, but then I really clock, I'm like, no, you got, you can, if it's like, if your self critiques can prevent you from going forward, that's not, that's the tricky place to stay. Exactly, and that's a great thing to say, Ryan, that if your self critiques prevent you from going forward, then they're in, you know, we have to find more compassion, more helpful ways of critiquing ourselves, more helpful notes really. If your notes are constantly shutting you down, right, then we have to, we have to really become better note-givers to ourselves, right, I mean, and again, you can think of anything you want. Think of, I don't know, can you ride a bicycle? Yeah. I mean, or when you learn to walk, I mean, I don't know what your childhood was like, I have no idea, but I have met you in person and I know that you can cross a room on your legs and feet, you know, okay. And when you were learning that, I mean, I don't know what your parents were like or your caregivers, but there was probably some kind of encouragement or yay or look at, look at them go or something that made you, somebody in there encouraged that activity, you know, and we, you know, who have kids who learned to walk fairly recently, we remember what it was like. Yay, YouTube, go, come on, yay, look at them go, take a video, you know, all that kind of silly stuff. And that is the kind of encouragement we need to give ourselves when we're writing. And it's not fake and it's not a lie and it's not how could, I mean, I was, really, and it's widespread. I was talking to some of my students at NYU just today and I talked to one, you know, wonderful writers, you know, and I, hey, what do you think about your play? I don't know, they were like, I don't know. So wasn't there one thing that you like about it? No, really, you know, we get in these loops of sort of, you know, and they finally said, I don't wanna presume too much, but I think maybe I like my characters. Like, whoa, you know, so that, you know, we gotta work on that, you know what I mean? And we have to give ourselves encouragement and you can err on the side of feeling good about yourself. That doesn't mean that you're not gonna take any notes, you know? Okay, yeah, I hear. I did feel like this past weekend, I did catch myself when you read something back and you can be that sort of hype person you need for yourself. I was like, you need to remember that feeling. And when you find something like that, where you're celebrating yourself to like, but then I guess I was a little trickier to being like, okay, but only if I'm celebrating myself like that. But yeah, I think it's, yeah, a little, yeah. And even, yeah, even just speaking and now, yeah, to make it more, a little, yeah. Just say what you gotta tell yourself to, you know, get yourself out the doors. Like, you know, you're sending your kid off to school. You're going out on a date with someone not, you know, you're just trying to do something good. You wanna give yourself some encouragement, you know, to just get to the next day. It's really, it's, the more we can get in that practice of doing that, the better off, you know, we'll be with ourselves and with each other, you know? Yes, yes, yeah. And I saw, I saw a strange loop this weekend. And that, yeah, it's for like everyone in this space like that, yes, that, yeah, yeah. It is, it's about, it's about it. Uh-huh, uh-huh, fantastic. Fantastic. Okay. Ryan, thank you. Thank you. Oh, I muted you too soon. I am so sorry. It's been a rough moment. All right, let's go to Chris. No camera, what's going on with your camera? I don't know. I've tried to turn it on and off many times. I think it's just registering the wrong camera. Uh, go for it, Crystal. Hi. Hi, Crystal. Hello. First, thank you for your support and encouragement from when I was putting my play up, The Father Chronicles. That happened last Monday. And- Congratulations. Thank you. And I was very pleased with it. And it was, it was, it was, you know, there was also a Q&A and it was, yeah. So I was afraid of that too. And get this, I was supposed to get a, do like this interview with like the Queens radio station. And then they were like, oh, we can't have our interview with you because we're interviewing Chuck Schumer. So, I was kind of like- That's okay. Okay, it's fine. But it went really, it went really well. I was, I think I'm like, I think I'm probably ready for it to be done again and to be done in other places. And I think, you know, I think, I think I'll be okay, you know, if that happening. So thank you. Cause I'm very nervous about how to be. My question, now we have to go back to my Zephan Violet play. And it's more of a question of when, you know, I've written many, many drafts and I've been on this since I started, since I started Watch Me Work. Right, yeah, I remember. And when, when is like, not rewriting, but like revising or like looking over, like when does that become like almost like, I don't mean to be gross, but like picking a scab. Like when does it become like, we're just picking at it for the sake of picking at it. And it's not like really productive. Right, right, right, right. Let's see, I feel like it becomes picking a scab. When, and it's great when you're not allowing the thing to gel, think of it's a scab. I mean, you answered the question yourself. So when you pick a scab, you're not allowing the body, the great writer, really the spirit, the work to pull itself together in a way, right? You're becoming impatient and you're picking at it because, and you're nervous or it feels good to pick at your scab or whatever, but you're not allowing the process to do its work, the process that doesn't actually take your actual sitting down at the typewriter or the computer and doing it, right? The bigger process, the natural process, the body to write itself, right? So I think it's not picking at a scab. When you're actually, you have a list, it can be five things, 25 things or one thing, an action list, things that you wanna work on, you know? I don't know if the beginning of the third scene and the second act is really, you know, I don't think that the action is clear, you know? I really wanna clarify so-and-so's journey through the play. I really wanna make, I really wanna earn the ending or whatever your notes are to yourself or the notes you've collected from various readers that you think are appropriate, you know? So when you've still got a list, you've still got work to do. And as long as you've got work to do, it's not picking at a scab. You don't have really any work to do, you just don't know what else to do with it. And I think I just get in there and do stuff. Then you're picking at a scab. Does that make sense? Yes, yes. And I think it comes back to that old fear that we already talked about. And I apologize for bringing the fear, the fear that we already discussed about like, you know, I've just been told, I mean, without people really reading it, that like, if it's a two-person play, it needs to be shorter. And right now it's like at like 105 minutes. And I'm told- So how short are they talking? 90. 105. So what's the difference between 105 and 90? 15. So is that a note that you think is valid? I don't know only because when I look at the, because they're in three different parts, each part has a beginning, middle, and end. So how long do you know it's 105 minutes? Because I mean, because I have 105 pages, that's how I- What's the font? 12. Can you make it 11? Make it 11. Can you make the mark? I mean, really. Can you, I mean, you can do two things. You can go through it with a pencil and go anytime I sort of feel like, I heard that already, circle that passage and cut it for the moment, right? You can do that. After you've done that and really cut down to the bone and like, oh, this speech is four pages long. Guess what? I can do it in two. That gives you two pages. After you've done that, really cut it down to the very essential, right? Then if you're still six pages too long, change the font. You know what I mean? Yeah. Okay, change the font, make it 11 point. Make the margins a little wider maybe. Really, if they're really look, if they're dismissing your play because they look at the page numbers and go, it's too long, you know, then change the font. Oh, okay. Yeah, but first you're gonna go through it and cut. You know, first you're gonna go through it and cut because I bet you, bet you, bet you, there's stuff that looks like, you know, in all these memories, you know, we're looking at our watch, do we really need to hear all that, you know? I bet you there's some places in there. So let's take the note, right? Let's take the note and go, okay. I'll give it a try. But then after you've gone through it and if you're a few pages over, then change the font, give yourself a break. Okay, you see what I'm saying? Absolutely. Okay. Okay, I can do that. Yeah, see, it's easy. That was very easy. It usually always is. That's what's weird about it. It usually always is kind of like just. Yeah. Yeah. Don't do that. I don't let you know how it goes. Okay, okay, but it'll be fun. Just circle anything that makes you feel like, ah, I'm bored. This is boring. Circle it. Okay, anything. And also, after you get it in the festival, you can always add those pieces back. Oh, okay. That's good too. You're like, we love your play. Okay, let's have a reading. Great, okay. Have a reading and add some stuff. I'm adding some stuff here. Actors, oh, great. Awesome. Okay, I'll do that. Thank you. You're welcome. Thanks, Crystal. Thank you. All right, Jesse, you were clapping. Did you have your hand up also, or is it just clapping? Just clapping, great. Thank you. Oh, Melania, go for it. Melania. Hello, Suzanne. Hello, everybody. Hey, how are you doing, sis? Fine, I'm doing fine. And I have a question about trusting myself when I write. There was, we talked about synopsis last week. I knew what you said about trying to do it like I am telling to a friend the story. And I had a deadline that was there. So I was in a hurry and I tried to, as I said, to go fast. So I couldn't listen to my fears. And I went and went, and I knew that I had problems in the story. There were situations that, but you didn't have the time. So I said, okay, I keep going, I keep going. When I go to submit the work, they extended the deadline. So I have one more month to work. Love it. Yes. So there was a part of me that said, okay, this is great. And there was a part of me that said, oh no, because now I be without myself about the story, the characters. And I am finding myself almost trying to change the story. And I don't know if there is a part that there are things that I need to figure it out in the story, in the plot. Or if I would like to do another thing in this month and I was so in a hurry that I couldn't change before. So I don't know what can I do to talk to myself and to the spirit in order to know what is the way, what is the path that it's better to take. Because I am open to do, but I don't know if I have to insist in the story or I need to try another thing. No, no, no, I hear you, I hear you. And I feel like because you felt when you had no time to do it, that there were things that you would like to change. Yes. I don't want to honor that feeling. That was probably a real feeling. You felt like darn, there are things that I want to change. And now that you have the time to change them and work on them, you're like, ah, because it's hard, it's work. Yes. Go ahead and take the, you know, take the, take, you know, do it in two weeks though. Don't take the whole month. Okay. Take two weeks to do it. Okay. And then use it to other two weeks for something else. Don't go all the way up to the deadline. Cause then you'll be in the same place you were last time. Ah, I didn't get all the changes done, you know? So give yourself a deadline of a couple of weeks. And in a couple of weeks, you're going to turn it in, you know, you can have it ready. And be very clear on what the things are that you want to change. Again, you don't want to be picking at the scab. You actually want to, may have a list. I'm going to do this and this and this. Those are the three things you're going to fix. Change, remedy, rewrite. And then you're going to let the rest go. Okay. I like that. Yeah. Okay. Good question. Good question. Thank you for always helping us. Thank you. Well, thank you for asking such great questions all the time. All you, such great question. So helpful, you know? And we know that like other people, are we recording this one, Audrey? As we do often? Yeah, yeah. It's great cause other people, you know, can listen to this and be like, oh, I have a question like Melania had. I have a question like Crystal had. And they can, they can sort of, you know, Ryan, that's what I was thinking about my own work. And they can feel, you know, less alone. And they can encourage themselves. And they can, and whatever they're doing, whether they're writing or knitting or doing deco parts, does anybody do that anymore? You know, or a combination of all three, macrame, interpretive dance, you know, they can encourage themselves. So that's kind of, we're all providing a wonderful service for people. And we have about 10 more minutes to do that. Wow. So look at your sit here. Talk about Audrey's camera. Oh, Lou's got a question. Oh, Lou. Hey, great to see you. I love the idea that what we're doing here will just like reverberate through time and space. So I really appreciate that. So my question today is I wanna finish what I started. And boy, even though I want this, I could come up with so many reasons to start anything. Some of these things have bubbled up in this room. It's like, you're the same. I could start a new thing. I could start a thing that will help me understand the thing I wanna finish better. So I should do that. How can I finish this thing? It's the biggest thing I ever wanted to do. There's so much to think about more. I wanna tell you, it is time to finish this thing. And I wanna find a way to finish it. So what is my question? How do I remind myself every day that right now I'm clear talking to you? I always get clear when I'm here. And then I leave and then... That's why you have to come back. I know. That's why I keep coming back. But I want, this is my wants. It's my, and that's why I'm afraid to do it. Because I think it's the truest want of my whole life to finish this thing I'm working on. And when you give it to yourself, you won't have another true want? Maybe not. Maybe it's like, I just wanna stay in it. It's like, it's the want that I want, not the work or something. It's like, it's become addictive. It's not healthy. I know this, it's not great. That's helpful, that's helpful, that's helpful. I mean, because it's not, because what it's not like is a wonderful relationship where you go, this is my significant other and we're good and we're together. And so there's no, right. But you're saying this is a work relationship or relationship that I have in my work that feels good, but I want, you wanna get done. You wanna cross the finish line. I wanna get done. I was really- Do you care? So if you were running a marathon, would you care what it looked like when you crossed the marathon, the finish line? No. Great. So you could be like the original runner in marathon and like, fling yourself. You don't have to be like the winner. You're like, it doesn't have to be graceful. It can be, it can be just sloppy or just throwing yourself. You're finished, right? If you get to, and then, well, you know, when you get to the finish line, is it a finish line, is it a first draft finish line or is it a finish line, finish line rewrite? It's a first draft. That's a first draft finish line. That's just the beginning. Yeah, this I know. Did you go to high school? I did. Great. Okay. So when you- I mean, I know we all looked at high school when we were in high school going, oh, I graduated. Right? And you graduate and you're like, geez, it's just the beginning. I mean, it's not even the beginning. It's like, not even the beginning, but it's just the starting line. You think it's some kind of glorious, you know? And then you look back and go, gee, that's just kind of where I started. So, and maybe that's what's concerning you, but let's say we don't care about what's really bothering you. We do, but we won't worry about it because we'll be picking at that scab, like trying to figure that out. So let's just say it could be a number of reasons. So let's find a number of tools. Let's find a number of tools. Okay, one of the, one fun tool is the five minutes a day method. Five minutes, five minutes on your timer. You're only gonna work on it five minutes a day, inch forward every single day without fail, inch forward for five minutes, inch forward for five, working it for five minutes. Right? You have a number of pages that you think, I write these number of pages and then I'll be done. What's, how far away is the finish line? I have an outline that's pretty strong and what I'm trying to do is now beef out the outline so it's real, because I have the flow. Right, okay. So I think, so it's not pages, I think what it is is meat on the bones, I wanna hang the meat on the bones that I have. Okay, five minutes a day, every single day without fail. I can do that. Yeah, good. Okay, and when do you think you'll have enough meat on the bones of this outline to then start writing it? Is that the next step after you have meat on the bones and you start writing it? Is that the next step? What's the next step? Well, I have a couple of chapters that some of the meat is meatier than there's some just bones without meat. So it's a little half and half right now. There's like 50% meat. Sorry, I'm probably being confusing with my metaphors. No, it's okay, it's okay. Here's what I will say, I owe it to somebody who's really important in its potential to see the light of day on May 20th. So the outline is sort of due to somebody who could affect this getting in the world. May 20th. Yeah, 18 days from now. 18 days from now, okay. So what is how many more hours do you think you have left to work? I mean, how many more hours before you get to finish like realistically? I think if I'm hurling myself and not being precious and weird, maybe like I could do it in like 30 or 40 hours if I was just like, you know, just like doing it. So that's like two hours a day? Probably, yeah. Is that like, I don't know, I'm not doing the math here. Today is the second we're talking the 18 days. 18 days. That's gonna be, you know, 36 hours, right? Yeah. It's kind of, I don't know, whatever. Yeah. You can work that out on your own, but two hours a day, let's just say, right? So instead of five minutes a day, you've got two hours a day. So can you do four 30 minute chunks? A day? Yeah. I can't do two solid hours, but I can do four, but I know, but in my mind, you're helping me. You have the time during the day to sit down and do 30 minute chunk, you're done. 30 minute chunk, you're done, like that. I do. Can you print out like a, I mean, I don't know what you like. Paper calendars, I don't have one right now, but you know, I don't have one right now. But you know, a piece of paper, like, you know, a blank paper calendar and write every time, you know, you can check the boxes. Yep. You can write four little squares a day and just check the boxes. So you can see your progress visually. And it actually works to print it out and do it manually, then like do something on your computer, your screen or something like that. And you just kind of trudge along. Yeah, I can do that. Okay. And you're gonna alert your friend to be ready to receive it on the 20th of May. They've been alerted. They've been alerted already. So they're expecting, they're expecting it. It's a deadline with my agent. Good. Very good. Okay. So you can send them an email like today and go, get ready because that's gonna remind you they're really expecting it because I just told them again. Get ready. It's coming. You know what I mean? Okay. You know what I mean? So you could put some like pressure on yourself, 30 minutes, four times a day and just be single-minded. And guess what? No other idea is interesting. Right now. I got real distracted this past few days I was looking all around. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you're just bullshitting yourself. Yeah, I really was. Yeah, and that's okay. It happens sometimes, you know what I mean? We are just, if you check, if you think, oh, I'll be, I'll do this. I'll take a course back writing, you know? No, no, it's not as interesting. I'll do, I'll paraglide. And yeah, that's gonna, yeah, no. Powerlifting. No, no, no. Sorry, sorry. Gardening got really interesting. Gardening! Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. Just no, no, no, I'm bullshitting myself. I'm bullshitting myself. You can make yourself a sign. Yeah. Finish by the 20th of May. Anything, if you do anything else, you're bullshitting yourself. That's it, that's it. There's no other reality. Yes. I'm gonna come back. I was looking at the schedule. I'll come back and tell you when I sent it. I'm gonna tell you. Good, there you go. Yeah, thank you so much. Thank you. You're welcome so much. Thank you. Great question, great question. And just know that there's someone out there, you know, in the community somewhere who's really helped by that. Cause I, you know? Yeah, thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Hey, thanks, Lou. Thanks. All right, friends, we've got about 30 seconds left. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. That's all, we're good. Excellent. Well, we'll see you next week. Well, maybe we'll see you. Maybe we won't, maybe you'll have your camera. Ah, ah, ah. I love you. I think I know what to do, but I couldn't do it in the middle of the thing, you know? Understood. Understood. I think I... We will see you next week. See you next week. Okay, bye. Thanks everybody. Thank you, bye.