 or yeah so we're back and this is our first one for the new year so this is watching where we're back if you wonder where we were where were we we were somewhere we were we were it was there and I'm sure everybody else was because that's what January's all about right the GSD month so February we can enjoy a black history month it's gonna be black all month long everybody says like maybe you don't want to be we're like yeah no we're gonna be yeah we're going on there this month like we've never gone there before sorry but what does this have to do with getting your work done as well I don't know so watch your work for those of us that does anybody not know what watching work is or yeah everybody knows okay everybody knows we all know what's working what we're going to do it's about getting your work done basically what we're going to do how we do that is we have a we do a performance which is we do the action and then we do the dialogue and first what we do is we write together writing and writing is your thing where you can do your choreography over there now you guys look yeah there's an answer, worry not, she's getting ready we're going to do our work for 20 minutes together and then we're going to do that that's the action and then we'll do the dialogue together which is that you guys y'all people and and those folks on live stream can ask me questions about your creative process and that's very important so because watching work with me in the title here we will spend 20 minutes working and then we will spend 20 minutes dialogue about our creative process with the goal to help you get some work done so Audrey help us for those people you need to know alright I'm touched so if you are watching online how you can write in to ask questions and there's actually a bunch of ways now if you're watching at howround.tv there's actually a chat feature I'll be monitoring that for the chat there's a, our twitter handle is at WatchMeWorks.ly you have to get howround.com and you actually can now write it to the public here's internet or facebook or whatever and we are going to be writing to that so that's so cool so we'll begin for anybody wondering how long will they join us it's like a long time at this point 2009 so it's 10 years we're 10 years old that's so exciting we're trying to go longer than Hamilton Hamilton's cats what did you get Hamilton's cats Lion King that's what I was trying to do but she's Hamilton's cats actually alright we got it think about it the ruler and the thing we just got cats alright alright I mean fur is kind of a curiosity okay so we're going to get serious now and we're going to do something, ready? cat okay so now comes the part where we're going to talk about our creative yeah so um if anybody has a question I might come up with an answer I'll pretend I don't have an answer it usually works we have questions from the area all over the internet just send a question and I'll repeat it how about that sure so Grace wants to know how you write when you're feeling uninspired Grace wants to know how you write when you're feeling uninspired does Grace say where she's from? she's from she's from everywhere she's from everywhere Grace is everywhere um how do we write when we feel inspired but I don't forget her well a lot of people say and I think I believe this writing is less about feeling inspired than it is just about working you know I think there's that myth you know for those of us who have read about the romantic poets or watched that movie what was that movie? Dr. Travago where the house is frozen and they go into the house that's the only part of it I've ever looked at you know they go into the house and the house has been frozen in a cold place they go into the house the guy goes to the desk and he opens the desk and he gets his pin in the ink and he starts writing because he's so inspired he doesn't even matter if the ink is probably frozen too but we don't mind but he's so inspired and that's what people think that writing is all about but in my experience writing is less about being inspired and more about wanting to work so I would just say just write a little something with these timers I'm a big fan of timers because a lot of times when I don't feel inspired which is pretty much most of the time I say well I'm just going to write for you know 20 minutes blah blah blah blah or 10 minutes blah blah blah or like 5 minutes 5 minutes is great and I just go on to something else obviously just get a timer not not necessarily this one these are really good your phone, again we said this so many times your phone is cracked if you don't know that it's beautiful, it's cute and it's trying to control you so get one of these because I don't think this really wants to control you it's just a timer it just counts minutes and seconds and you turn it on for like 5 minutes and you write and the inspiration in my experience comes from working it's like you have to make the spirit and they'll make you halfway so they're not going to come all the way down you know you have to like reach so putting in 5 minutes 10 minutes is like well it works for me and I get a lot of writing done a lot of writing yeah anybody else yeah can you talk about your editing process what's your name I'm Amara ending you say editing do you enjoy rewriting is that what you're talking about Amara can we talk about the rewriting process what's it like for you how's it going I get less sure of the story oh you get less sure but the more you rewrite like what do you mean what do you mean oh wow what kind of cool jobs are bad I mean it was a bad for the giver or the receiver did you ever watch the video of the woman teaching you how to break through the man I'm past the point I didn't watch the instructional oh you know like in the oh yeah the movie girls trip two years ago before I saw girls trip it's about somebody who has an allergic reaction to the graveyard it's very short it's like write it the more I go at it I'm like oh this is the thing but then I get less sure of the words when they come out and I can't imagine the characters anymore so let's for a minute although it's very tempting to like just talk about the subject I mean yeah I guess you have to ask are you allergic to rape? well that one are you allergic to nuts but uncle wow that's the yeah I knew I didn't think about it yeah yeah yeah if any of these subjects are offensive to people I apologize there's no one but I can't get to it right now so we can talk about it already so let's just talk about something say you're writing about X, Y, Z how about that and so every as you rewrite you get less sure of the stories okay why is that do you think? this is going to make it great and I'm like oh no this is not it right as you get notes is just like the possibility of starting to focus I think for me is that fair? no it's not everything aww man was that in general? okay a couple things do you rewrite without getting notes from other people? okay but are you able to read your work and give yourself notes? right step number one develop that habit yeah I would suggest that we all develop the habit to be self-reflective are you of course you walk down the street you have a conversation with a friend are you able to as you're walking away play the conversation back in your mind and go aww maybe I should have been more sympathetic okay okay so you have the ability to be self-reflective right self-study you can look at yourself generously, compassionately and critically and sort of correct yourself you can self-correct okay same thing with your writing right all you do is you start to read your work you are your best perfect you more than anyone else in the whole universe knows the story of your play okay you know it the best okay so let's say that so one thing we're gonna start doing stop doing is stop reaching to kind strangers less than kind strangers powerful people we know helping with my play that's great they're out there waiting to give you advice and it's all very most of it's very loving but what I want you to start doing first is learn how to reach your work yourself and give yourself feedback both positive and critical okay okay so that is so when you finish a draft of your whatever it is it's any kind of running your novel your essay your play your screenplay whatever now you put it in a folder if you have a drawer handy like your sock drawer or you know whatever you put it away somewhere a file cabinet somewhere right and you take it out a couple weeks later have you done that before yeah they taught me that for a reason so you put it away and then after a couple weeks you take it out and you read it with fresh eyes right you should be able to read it with fresh eyes as if someone else wrote it kind of cool and so you've got to put it away long enough to create that magical thing that happens and you read it and you go wow someone else why I can fix this, this, this and that okay another thing you can do is write a synopsis of your story just to keep you on track do you know what I mean so regardless of all the awesome input people are giving you, you're going to stay on track this is what my story is about this happens, this happens, this happens and in the end this happens so if you feel like you're getting on track you know okay so those two things just try those two things I would suggest not showing it to people until you feel pretty confident because what we do is we write something you know what I mean you know what I mean Jimmy is the recipe for meh you know you want to feel good about this, yeah I like this I'm eager to hear your thoughts you know sure I've worked on it a lot there's some more work to be done take a look friend so we're not looking for someone to do the work that we need to do first okay so that's key that requires something cold you know the more you work it the more it grows alright and you can always come back here and we'll keep telling you probably the same things because we love you and we want you to succeed okay so keep coming back okay anybody else from the Twitter people I don't know it says it's Melania from Miami I love you you're back how do you hear she says I have several dramatic images in my mind but when I try to organize them my play gets stuck I sit with my notebook and I begin to feel lost I don't know what to do do you have any suggestions she has several dramatic images in her mind and she puts them in her notebook when she tries to organize them the play gets stuck and she sits with her notebook when she tries to organize them the play gets stuck and she starts basically she starts to feel lost and doesn't know what to do so the play gets stuck because perhaps there's a play gets stuck because you're asking yourself what the story is you've got several dramatic images in your mind and you're wondering perhaps how do these fit together in some kind of cohesive story right so what you can do, what I do and it works a lot of times I pretend like I'm telling a story to like a 7 year old right so if you could make up a story if you had a 7 year old you could make a story out of anything so you have like a truck once upon a time there was a truck with that image number 1 then there was the second image maybe a mermaid the truck was driving out of the room one day and it saw a mermaid in the middle of the highway actually it was a mermaid you can pretend but you can just and the most important thing about writing I think is it's okay to not have it be very good especially when you're starting out in the first draft so it's okay if you're telling a story that sounds and you're stringing your images together and it sounds kind of dumb it's fine I think pretty much all of us have written first drafts that sound kind of men or dumb that's what happens when you write the first draft so I would encourage you just to string the images together as if you were telling a story to a small child and maybe your story would get started you notice how he's saying story instead of play because the play in my mind usually starts out as a story some kind of story and then you can once you get your story organized you've got your story synopsis then you can sort of step out and create more rounded characters I'll try to do like fast things but try and try that just like we say we've said it here and you've been two men a long time along lower the bar you've got your bar way up here I want to put these images together and it's going to be awesome but maybe not in the beginning maybe you've got to lower the bar always then be all the way down there and the goal is just to write a sentence and I've been there so if you're there you'll see me writing my next draft just to write a sentence just set the timer for five minutes and work on it make sure Milani that you're putting the time in a lot of times we say I get stuck I'm confused I don't know what to do and we're not putting the time in every day at least 20 minutes or so more time if you've got it you know that's why we love you guys because you write a nameless person wants to know about distraction why do you choose to go online and move up instead of writing why do you nameless person I love that you have people you've not published your name why do you and this is so they're asking me why they choose to actually do great why do we choose distraction you're never distracted why do you choose distraction we're like I don't know what to write next so instead of actually sitting down and doing the work it's just like oh with on Instagram exactly so when it gets hard when the going gets tough the writer gets distracted I mean that's a rule right you never get distracted of course not but it's easier it's easier it's easier and writing is like painful sometimes not all the time sometimes it's like oh it's like you know it's like the blow job I mean not like that I was a good one right not the one who gets on your ass and if I've offended anybody I know there's some shit but I don't know we're in a wonderful institution I don't want to hurt anybody's feelings it's really difficult you can't just lie there and have someone right but actually back to life it's harder than that you have to and wow going on well going on Facebook is actually more painful after a while because then somebody posted like Jacob was saying I just finished a new draft of my fabulous thing and he was like mother fucker but then doing your own writing is less painful than going on Instagram about Jacob's latest accomplishment and just don't want to do that but I have my husband is a nerd and I have had him he went on my computer at my request and took I can't get on anything whatever you do but I don't know what he did but I said honey make it make it so I can't when I go pet pet pet I go rats why do you make it tame nothing comes out it goes like so I had him do that to my whole computer no really he didn't do it to my whole home I had to go to the bathroom but um yeah so that's why we do it because writing is hard it's really difficult it's really really really difficult and rewriting is difficult and it's all very difficult so welcome to the welcome to the oh yeah ok oh look there's another but i could have that mine I meanowser 10 yes yes over or more researching is also a distraction I mean you're distracted yourself So, and how do you know you're over-researching? How do you know? My head that says, okay, this is getting more social. Right. It clicks to your head that says, this is getting ridiculous, or you don't really need to read that next book, or get off of Amazon, or get off of Elizabethan, you don't need to put it in your hand. There's a voice in your head that says that, and you say, not an eye, really! Like that. And you know then that you're, yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Very good. That's exactly, exactly, exactly right. So, yeah. Yeah. I appreciate it, yeah. So, I feel like at some point in my life, I've gotten the advice to solve every problem. But often when I run into a problem, I go, I have no idea which advice to use, or like I forget immediately, right? So as soon as I know how to deal with this, I've talked about distractions, but as soon as I'm distracted, I go, well, I'll deal with that part later. Right. Or writer's block, or editing, or whatever. Like, how do you take stock of, like, okay, I have this problem, and how do I figure out, how do I map the information I have with the problem I have? Right. In any given situation. In any given situation. I am really abstract. No, no, no. So, Dana says he's probably received, I'm just kidding. He's probably received answers and solutions to every possible problem he could possibly have as a creative person. At some point. At some point in his writing career, except for the answer that tells him which to use when, which solution to use at what time. Which is the key to all of the answers. And we're going to give it to you right now. I don't know. Give it to you before. But we're going to give it to you right now. Because imagine if you were like a warrior and you had a clover of arrows and there's the dragon or whatever on it. And, you know, you'd be like, which arrow do I use? Right? And the dragon is advancing. Are you stupid? You know what? Any fucking arrow. Just grab a fucking arrow, use your skill, and boom. And if that one doesn't work, guess what? Oh, you've got another arrow. So, oh, use the timer. That doesn't work. You know what? Go for a walk. That doesn't work. You know what? Call a friend. You know what? Write anything. You know what? Hop around on one foot. Throw some music. Dance. Take a bath. Just try everything. You're mine. You're mine. The mind. It's almost like one of those video games or one of those mythical monsters that whenever you find a solution, it's going to work into something else and it's compatible to that solution. Right? So you're just going to have to just... And you're... Because the ultimate solution answer is, I will not be moved. I will keep on keeping on. Ain't nobody going to turn me around. That's what you say to this thing. Ha-ha! You will never write. Ha-ha! No, I actually will. I will. I'm here. Like Buddha said on the Bodhi tree, you know, touch in the ground. I have a right to be here. That's your solution. And no particular... No particular arrow is going to solve all the problems. It is your willingness to keep on doing the activity. That's me shooting an arrow and living a monster. You know what I'm saying? You know? And that's... I think that's what it is. It's your determination. It's your fear. The love of your community. You know? And that's what we use to just... And all you got to do is like get through another day. That's all you got to do. Just do that. And then we start living together and you call that, you know, your life. And it's something to see. It's what I'm seeing in ages. Does that make sense? You know? Anything will work. It all works. What's your name, others? Graham. Graham? Graham? Like me, like now? Oh, I see. Yeah. I just, like, invariably, like, my own opinions and biases will halt in kind of just reread what I've read and then like, wringe a little bit because that's what I think. Sure, sure, sure, sure. How do I avoid, yeah, making your plays like, you know... Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I feel like, and this is, you know, especially these days when we have a lot to say and we have a lot that needs to be said. Okay? So we live in a slightly different time than we did, say, you know, two years ago. Or maybe not. Actually, not, but whatever. I feel like as long as, what you have to say, let me hear what Graham's going to say, how to avoid like, having the characters feel the way, as long as it's firmly grounded in the character, sometimes, you know, your characters might go off and just talk a lot. And as long as it's grounded in what the character wants, right, and not so much about what the playwright wants. The playwright might say, I want a big speech right here about, you know, your nut allergy. You know, I mean, it's like, oh, maybe not, you know what I'm saying? But if the character has a desire to talk about it from nut allergy, then I think it's okay to put it in your head. Because you've got to earn it. You know, it's just like everything in your play. You're going to have to earn that speech. You're going to have to earn that moment that you have to make that beginning. If you're like, if you feel like you've been mastermind writing most of my writing has been solo performance pieces and I remember having the, like, aha moment of writing this. Oh, this is my voice. And this is how I do my work. But when it comes to writing, I feel like I'm only using it as, like, a touch now. As if I'm, like, a stick. But it's like, I feel like I'm not challenging myself outside of it. I don't know if I should go forward with the way I'm using my words, or if I should challenge myself to, like, soon to switch it up. I know right. Because Brian's like a really hard working writer who's, like, anything until, like, you found your voice. I think I'd better do something else. Yeah, that's you already. That piece you were working on last year and the year before that, you were playing. You know what I mean? You're still writing and you're finding things out and we all have our things, you know. And sometimes we stay with them for a while. Some writers write the same way they did in 1910 or whatever. You know, they write the same way all the way through their careers. Some writers change up every change. I'm a change-up writer. I can't, I don't know what I have no idea what the next is going to look like. No clue. I can't seem to repeat myself. But that's me, but I don't encourage other people to try that. If you find a groove and you like it and it feels good, work it. At least get to the end of your next couple of pieces. And then you can say, it's like you're, I love snakes. You're like a snake, right? The snake is like, when am I going to grow out of the skin? When am I going to grow out of the skin? It just happens. And suddenly they're out, they're thrown out of their skin and they're in a new skin. If that's appropriate for them. That's a worry. It'll not just keep writing. You don't want to just like, you know, but you don't. You're not doing that. Hey man, how are you doing that? That's another incredibly big question. In terms of sort of how you know you're done, because I feel like I can go and rewrite the dialogue from the 74th kind, but at some point it starts to feel like research, right? It starts to feel like a thing that was valuable at one point and now I'm just doing it because I don't want to actually have to send this to my rep to go out into the world. Like how, like at what point does it become self-protection and therefore not actually helpful to just keep going over something and going over something. And how do you know sort of, okay, this is, I can stand behind this, even though you know that next time you read it, you probably tweak a little something here. So, right, so I started with a story about Brick, you know, you kind of know how to wrote, you know, I didn't until I hear the click. I probably said, and that's there's a click, you know, you write, I write until I hear the click it goes, okay. And because I know you a little bit, I'll just use this analogy. So, what we're trying to do is writers, and this is maybe also for choreographers and everybody else in the universe or on the planet. We're, what we're doing as creative artists is we're aligning, uh, we're creating patterns, right? We're creating patterns. I mean, to speak of your work is creating patterns. So what you're doing is you're taking a character and give it a set of circumstances, and then there's dialogue that happens, and you're trying to align a certain set of patterns, right? And you'll get to a certain point, listen for it to click into itself. And when it's clicked in, it's good enough. There's something that we can toss out the window next to perfection. It might exist, but if it does, I don't think it's very interesting, you know, but really, really good, writing really, really good is interesting. And that's what we want to go for, right? We want to write really good, and we want to be fearless about editing. I would say if you have the tendency of writing, writing, writing, writing, you're not sending stuff in, but it gets to the point where you haven't sent anything in, and again, that small voice within that tells you that you're rewriting too much is saying send it in already. Because you know you'll be able to fix it. Right? Okay? And if people judge you because like three words in a third act on page 179 aren't perfect, fuck down. That's what I say. You know what I'm saying? Like, you don't want to be, you don't want to work with them anyway. I mean, who are they? Who the fuck are they? To judge you like that. Hello. They've probably never written anything, and they're probably just painters. Do you know what I mean by that? Really, everybody who's really in the creative field, really in it, knows how hard it is to make anything. And when you're sending in your play or whatever, they should approach it with generosity and gratitude that you put the effort into it. And also they know how hard you work. They're your reps. They know how hard you're working. You see what I'm saying? So as they say in Germany, good enough. Hand it in. It's, you know, you're out in the real world now. You graduate, you're out there. It's weird. Okay, but we'll talk more about patterns, because I don't want to think about it. It's just I don't want any pattern. It's really that impersonal. Yeah? Yeah. Okay. Too bad. Anybody have a primary question? A stunning realization. That it's broken. Somebody was playing with this up in my office. I've owed something, so I can't. It's okay. I've owed something. I've owed something to those of the public. Anyway. I reached the end of the first draft a couple weeks, and I bring it out and it's just, you know, just a mortgage. It's garbage. What do you, what do you do? I know. I know. Right. I know. I know. So did I lie to you? Yeah, you write it, you put it in a drawer and then you read it, and it looks like it's like, shit, what did I do? Deplicate to the drawer? It's horrible. Oh my god. Welcome to the club, brother. It has happened to me many times. You write that draft and then you think, I'll put it away and I'll love it more. You pull it out. It's like horrific. Right. Right. So what do you do? Find one thing. Can you find one thing in your draft? Sometimes for me, it's only the title of the play. That's it. That's all I can hold on to. But that, I love more than I hate the poopy draft that I just wrote. And if that one, if you can find one thing, then you could go back and say, okay, let me find one more thing. That character's name. That's two things. And you start to piece together and then maybe you have a synopsis of what the play is about, and you look at that again and you go, okay, how can I make a kind of work on that scene? Does that have to be an order? Work on that scene. That one or that one. Or that character. Maybe I can find out more about that character. And then you find, just start with that one. Okay? That's what I do. It's six o'clock? It's six o'clock. When are we coming back? I think it's really soon. It's the first Monday in March. The first, we will be back on the first of March. The fourth of March. We will be back on the fourth of March. Thanks, people. Thanks for coming.