 Okay, it's okay. One day at a time. Yes, ma'am. I did not. No. Right. Let me figure out if it's okay for you to write this down. No, write it down. Okay. Oh, all right. Okay. There's nothing there, so I'm assuming we're going to say five. And, you know, maybe I'll just... I'm sure... I'm sure we can do it. I'm sure we can do it. I'm sure we can do it. I'm sure we can do it. Everyone wants Monday. I know. This is maybe so long. Right? Okay, are we ready? Yeah, we're ready. I remember best. Thank you, see? Sorry, I can't be here for more of it. It's coming for someone. It's coming for somebody. Okay. Oh, so you gotta get up there. Years ago, they used to say it's like 11 o'clock. Do you know where your children are? They used to say that, and they don't say that anymore. I guess they just let that go. It's five o'clock. Do you know who you are? Why are you here? I was in a conversation with Ryan a second ago, and he was talking about showing up for himself, which is so important to see if you're an artist, or a person, or both, showing up for yourself. And that's kind of what this is. This is like practice. You can practice showing up for watching your work. It's a way to practice showing up for yourself, or the writer in you, or the artist in you, because we're not just about writing here. Right? We're not. We're not. We're not just about writing. Although writing is the majority of what we do. But we're not just about writing. We're not all kinds of what have this, that are difficult. So does everybody know what it's everybody wants to do, or does anybody need a preamble, an explanation? What's your name? Garrison. Garrison? Oh, Garrison. Okay, hey, Garrison. Where are you from? Here. You're born here? No, no, I'm from San Diego. Oh, so you're living here now? Okay. Well, okay, so here's what we're doing, Garrison. And anybody else is wondering. And we also have people who watch us online, which is really great. This is called Watch Me Work. It's very misleading, intentionally. Because the me and the title is you. So what this is about is about your work, and your creative process. Okay? It's not about my work and my creative process. Okay? So this is what we do. What we do is we make a play together, and we do that by first we do the action, and I don't know where I want to come up on stage and do anything. I don't like that kind of theater anymore. I'm like, I want to pay, I want to sit in my seat, I want to be left alone. But what we do is first we do the action of the play together, which is that we all do our work together. And they do the dialogue in the play. And that consists of you guys asking me questions about your work and your creative process. Okay? So it's a play. And it's all about you. And where else can you get that in your world? For free. I don't know. But I hope we do it here. So every Monday, almost every Monday, there will be a couple of plug-ins off in the next step in the first couple weeks of May. Happy May Day, everybody. Congratulations on making it through the first hundred days. That's not so much better. I feel great. I feel terrific, actually. So congratulations for making it through. And we will continue. We will continue. We will persevere. We will get our shit done, because that's what we do. So what we're going to do when we do the time, and also for people watching this on the Internet, if you just want to have a camera in the gym, it's going to tell them how to get in touch with us. Hey, man. You guys can tweet us. Please tweet us, actually. Please ask your questions at Wash Me Work SLP. And then I can ask them at the end. I cannot ask questions if there are no questions. So it's a myth of it. Yeah, but you can also make sure that's true. Yeah, if you want to make sure that's my voice. Yeah, you can take it. Yeah, you can take it. Okay, so we're going to do that. We're going to work between this and Gemma and I are going to time it together. I'm going to get it to my own phone. There we go. Ready? Okay, here we go. I'm going to go ask this, how's that? You have to be more comfortable. Okay, how about you wear yours? Does anybody have any questions about your work and your creative process? Oh my goodness, I have a few. Do you have any questions about your work and your creative body? Any answers? And you suggest, oh yeah man, remind me of your name. Henry. Henry, hey Henry. Hi. I'm really caught between the creative side just wanting to make stuff and just wanting to write stuff and then almost having to deal with so how do you find a balance? Great, great, great questions. So Henry, did everybody hear? Henry's really caught between, I'll just paraphrase, yeah? You've got two jobs as well, you know, being an art person or a person building, especially artists, you've got two jobs. You've got one job of making your creative stuff, right? And then you have your other job of actually getting it out there which it almost seems like it takes a whole other person. You're all too ego, right? You get the stuff out there. You write the stuff and then you have somebody who gets the stuff out there. It's really, it's really difficult. I think it's a career-long exploration of how to balance those two things. And I would say, I mean, sometimes, you can find sometimes a good day that are better for certain activities like some of us, we like to do our creative work in the morning maybe, right? And then you do your business work in the evening at night or switch them around, right? Or if you have a day job and you have creative work in between then your business work, your career, maybe actually come home like that. So it's always a balance. But I would say both are very important because no one will get to know your work if you just write your stuff and put it in a drawer or whatever, right? Most people get to know your stuff. So it is a very important aspect of your artistic life. I mean, just make it fun. We have a stage of yoga and I don't think there's a Sanskrit stage for this. It might be, but I don't know it. Make the pose you hate your favorite pose. There's some Sanskrit, you know, I'm sure we'll just do it, but, you know, make the pose you hate. If you really don't like business side of the artistic life, it's gonna be great. And conversely, if you really don't like sitting down and writing or whatever every day, make that. You don't want to be one of those people who's really good at cocktail parties. They're, like, really, like, so swift. They're, like, oily and disgusting. And they know exactly what to say to everybody. They seem always to get the gigs. They are not working at a quality level. You don't want to be that. You also don't want to be, like, oh, I want to be discovered on a hundred years after I'm dead. Because that means I'm legitimate. Like, I'm not going to be that person. So it's a good question. Hi. Hi. Good seeing you again. I'm in a difficult place. I had a reading of one of my pieces. And the feedback that I got was the characters are well developed. The dialogue is engaging. They didn't discern what the agency of the lead character was. They didn't feel like there was sufficient agency for the character. And I'm caught between feeling there was agency, but it was a woman's version of the agency. It was more I'm caught in the editing phase right now because I'm asking myself how do I define agency from my viewpoint? Because I do feel she had an objective. I do feel that it fueled her journey from beginning to end. But it wasn't that she was constantly stating it. It was subtle. And I felt the subtlety suit of the piece, but I have to hear what the audience says. And if the audience is full of writers and they're saying I don't see the agency I'm caught in the place of tearing the whole thing apart because I'm trying to put a spine of agency and I'm losing my play. And I don't know telling me I have great dialogue and awesome characters and wonderful story and then tell me there's no agency I'm like, but how could it be a wonderful story if you don't feel that there was agency? Right. So first of all, it's a great question here. Does everyone know what agency is? You want to define it? Because it's not doing a secret agent. The mission of the character what is the arc of her journey? What does she want and how does it stay the same or altered by the end of the play? It ultimately has an ulcer because there's that one point of no return that makes her journey new but there is a definite point of no return and all those elements are in place and the definition of agency I don't know if it's more gender based or because of women in the audience that I saw it and the men in the audience that no I didn't see it and so I don't really feel an audience should be separated based on gender so I am kind of trying to meditate through this process of reducing the notes and trying to see the truth of the piece but I'm tearing it apart. So you get you kind of read your workshop or whatever or you edit or read your work or whatever whatever happens and you get some notes right? It sounds like most of the notes are great and thumbed up and right on and the complementary notes that doesn't say you're doing a great job are easy to take so I'm just listening to what you're saying the notes that you want to read with are hard to hear many because they're not being articulated in a way that's helpful okay? Now I'm a big believer in architecture and I do believe, maybe I'm wrong that architecture transcends gender culture class just the architecture of a well-made thing I believe it transcends that because we get into a truth of the thing if the fill of the blank folks in the audience get it and the other folks don't get it at all then either we say I'm only, I don't care you know what I mean it's cool it's only written for folks it's written for everybody but who's ever going to get it this good and happy or we start to change it and we don't want you to rip up this play I don't want you to do that I don't want you to be able maybe to meditate on it to hear the note in a way that can be helpful to you okay? because maybe there's something in what they're saying that might be helpful that there was something that had to change okay? so telling me that is like okay then maybe that's the thing that is bothering me about the piece I felt that there was an arc but maybe the agency wasn't clear enough there you go there you go and that's all that's all so maybe maybe it's the agency is all there but maybe it's at a volume that is not audible it is series of gestures that are not visible enough to folks who are familiar with a character like the one you show on stage so maybe you have to show a larger series of gestures okay? it's not a larger I'm going to change the way I'm talking I'm just going to make my voice a little more audible so I can be heard and that's okay and maybe you can float the belief that you might make your words better maybe you know from people it felt good they understood the character they understood the story they're into it they just can't quite hear it so instead of doing a gesture like this not a different gesture just a larger arc a little more visible you might make it better so you have a choice you have a choice as you always do either you take the note you believe it just like it is and maybe have a reading for another there's some people who might be like don't stop, don't change the fence if you felt you got there was something you needed to do then meditate on that note and see if you can bring it in a way that makes sense to you because that's the ultimate thing you want to know what makes sense to you you feel not like you're just doing something that somebody wants you to do you're actually doing something and maybe your character is saying you need to be a little more visible you need to raise the stakes in the scene in that scene so that it's very clear and that might improve your play if it doesn't you borrow what he's got the draft before you can go back to that yeah you don't want to tear it up don't be tearing anything up we're not there, we're not like burning you know I'm just sitting there for a while a week or two put away a link down for a while if that's what you're trying to do it's very true and a larger work that's cliche even if there's some of this book-length nonfiction one of which is you know like when we look up at the stars at night by the time the light reaches us they already expired that concept seems so familiar now that talking about the stars and what's alive and what's dead seems a little bit kind of corny to me but there's something actually true about it that is part of the larger theme of what I'm working with so I'm trying to find a way to incorporate not just that but some other kinds of things that make it sound sappy so you're working with a bunch of things that are very important work but maybe you're concerned that some of the things sound sappy how far are you in the writing of this work you know a thousand pages finished a draft 90 rough pages are you finished yet? how many pages do you have to go? 100 more pages I would say keep writing again you're having this all of us have these concerns some of us get 90 pages in and we think my mom is going to hate this part I can't keep writing different people have different concerns you're like what are you talking about some of us say my mom will hate it my dad will disown me I finished writing this play or my husband will know he will hate whatever or some of my metaphors are sappy it's your fault I don't go there what happens is we're halfway in and we get scared and this is what's coming up for you I say keep going and at the end of 100 200 pages the worst thing about what you've written is that one of your metaphors or two of your metaphors are sappy or better things it's because the point you're making it sounds like is deeper than the surface we have no more power the point you're making is deeper so you can easily switch it out for something better to go through but if you sit here now and try to figure out what that thing is you're going to be staring at something that you don't even look at right now keep writing all the way to the end and then your more appropriate metaphors will appear if necessary and you just have to realize that that maybe on the next project it's going to be something else it's going to be 90 pages and it's going to be like my mom hates me now or whatever or this is dumb or this has been written before or I'm always going to miss my play or I have 100 characters and I'm always going to miss my play things happen, things happen you know terrified as some shit starts going in our head just keep going keep going, keep going, keep going it's a big question now it's very big it's a situation where I'm working on a play and I'm in a situation where I don't know and I'm on like draft to a better way and if I've finished it I don't know if I can really draw an audience and what I'm kind of going through right now is the play where I think that kind of the core of it is the audience and the actor and whatever if I potentially would never be able to stage it or consider whatever is it worth working on a piece if it's just for me right, so this is exactly what I was just talking about this is I mean, okay so you're two drafts into a play right, and it's about some well, family things, right, okay and you're considering that should you finish it and get it to a state where you can say it's finished what if it was finishing because it's so kind of revealing about your personal story that it might not be appropriate to show to people so here you are halfway in and you're like shit, maybe I shouldn't write this at all because I'm so personally revealing that I wouldn't want to produce it anyway so you see what I'm saying don't you, people have to be okay, you're not worrying about your metaphors being savvy you're worrying about being too revealing so what's going to happen is you write it and put it in the drawer right, you write it you think, no, no, actually I'm not going to produce this until you know, until I'm you know, 80, you know what I mean and I'm not going to put it in the drawer right, and that's what you might want to do after you finish it but you're in the middle now right so your job, again your job, like for a job come on, until the end do the great works that you've got to do and don't let the concern of being too revealing keep you from writing because that's just some shit in your head let's try to keep you from doing your job you understand, okay you don't have to show it to anybody when you're done okay, you don't have to show it to anybody in being too revealing if you don't want to but you do have to finish it you can't do different okay, so just finish it and then you can print it out and put it in the drawer it's cool do you have a long day's journey tonight? do anybody ever do a long day's journey tonight? we haven't been to the last 100 days that's kind of a long day but no, that's when you want to play he was like, I'm writing this and don't produce it until like 100 million years after whatever he said, they produced it and I'm going after that, I'm going with that I went along, whoa, it's such a great play so I might turn on one of those, I don't know, but your job is too great he hadn't written that but I don't know if I can say that I don't know, he wasn't like that, I'm sure but he would never have written it right? okay, so she told you somebody's worried about what your mom's going to think about you yes, hi hi I think it's pretty common which is, I wish I had enough time for my writing there's never enough so, I'm about to get four weeks where I get to focus on nothing but my writing so I feel like I'm preparing like my plan I've got my projects, I've got the details my notes of what I'm going to do but these opportunities don't come around all the time so I want to make sure that I make the most of my time and my writing process has changed, like I have so the last time I got four weeks what worked then might not necessarily work now so I'm just wondering are there, besides like going in with my drafts, my notes my organized things, is there anything else that I should keep in mind to make the most out of this gift that's really good did it already here? you got some time to do your writing what a gift, that's really fantastic and you really want to make the most of your time and that applies to a nice time of time, like four weeks or it can apply to the first hour, the morning before your kids or before your little dates or whatever, this is my writing time I want to make sure that you are really maximizing that precious time so a couple of things some of you got a great plan and plans are great so you make a plan, you've got plans and those, game plan do you have, you print it out a little calendar or you can say this is what I'd like to do or okay it's okay, it could just give yourself a sketch but week one I'd like to be here, week two I see myself being done with this by week three like that you can even break it down in terms of days if you want, every day make sure okay also really important is to be compassionate with yourself and know that whatever you get done is exactly what you're supposed to be getting done that's the biggest one right? but sometimes things happen or maybe more done or maybe you don't get that hundred pages maybe you get eighty seven pages you know what I mean? you've got to be happy about getting eighty seven pages done or you want to get five hundred pages done maybe you get four hundred fifty done you know you don't get on Facebook or social media do you? do do you? you haven't yet good, good leave social media, leave alone okay, leave alone, big time stuff okay, so just leave it alone especially through your special time just be compassionate going there with the best plan and also helping yourself to love yourself and you're going to show up for yourself every single day even if it's just you know and prayer you can do that not like oh go on assist in chapel you know oh great spirit that brings wonderful things be with me at the beginning of the Odyssey oh whatever you say yo I'm here here I go you can say that every day you know okay is that helpful? just enjoy yourself enjoy yourself, congratulations you can rest and see have fun have fun you ready? yeah, what do you mean by that? something is a play right right comment do you see the ending why we do this why we do this I'm trying to avoid right right but that's good is it a play or is it a movie right? and that's okay that's actually okay if you write a play you can easily turn into a movie they're not so different okay right so you want to get them transformed you want strong characters you want characters and agents you want to show those scenes that display that agency and tell that story and it can either be a play or a movie I would say when you so you see the first scene of your what does it look like is it on stage or is it on screen it's on screen okay then it's a movie it's a movie oh you're going to join yourself write a movie if you see it on screen then it's a movie if you see it on stage then it's a play and you can always change if you write a draft of a movie and you want to play that you can just change right write yourself a movie you can see it oh yeah did you yeah I did I did a workshop at Art Noble last week as an actor oh really with a wonderful playwright he wrote every day so when I found myself more fascinated with her writing process and if I get home I would write you know there's something very different I find being an actor than a writer in the sense of it's the same place that it comes from the process is different it's not as emotional I guess writing I mean though it's emotional but it's caught up in the emotion that's like putting down exploring the emotion that's a difficult time switching gears so so Lynn did some work as an actor last week and then she would she would find it difficult to switch gears because acting and writing for me is a different thing I don't think I think it's similar but I have to help to find sure the thing is that the acting that I'm most familiar with is actors work in community you're not alone you're an actor for the most part you're working with others as a director, designers or other singers of the company if it's a traditional or a traditional situation someone else the writer has done the really hard work for you okay and writing you know it's pretty much you're sitting there writing by yourself and you're doing all that difficult work that hurt but you're breaking ground and you're doing it alone and you're making something out of nothing an actor if they're looking to take a Shakespeare wow! Shakespeare is broken by ground and acting craft is a brilliant trap I don't want to practice but I admire tremendously I'm also aware that writing is very difficult so if one shall process five days if they see a writer who is writing a shirt was fed by what was happening sure think about that a lot I think it's stopping to go home to writing and you can't I'm trying to get past it you have to hypnotize yourself and for your question one of the answers to the answers all the time you have to hypnotize yourself into a place of possibility you know like what's her name but that is generous not Simone but Danny that's her too the woman who said before she did that cool thing I got this and became this whole social media thing I got this you have to encourage yourself into a place of possibility and even if it's just as you're walking home from your workshop where you're working as an actor I'm so happy to get home and work on my play I'm going to sit down and I'm going to feel a whole bunch of energy you tell yourself that instead of the opposite the notes they gave you're going to make sense to me I'm going to know which ones are right I know they're going to know which ones are right you know I'm going to sit with this and the answers are going to come we have to hypnotize ourselves into a place of possibility what we most often do is hypnotize ourselves into a place of negativity I don't know what the problem is I don't know what I'm doing I'm going to walk around like that all the time all the time is gone we have to just turn around we have to wake up it's not enough to just wake up once you have to wake up every fucking day right we have to we have to wake up every day we won't even get out of bed we'll wake up every day every day every day every time you hear that negative thing in your head you have to turn it around and out of your mouth direct it at somebody people ask what can we do we don't feel like we have power we're shits crying every person you meet you can offer an example of righteous behavior can't they see what person you meet can we do it can we do that I don't know it's hard you have to wake up when so many things in the world are approaching us to go to sleep but I just buy something just take some medication just binge watch everything you know what I'm saying you have to constantly wake up and that's not bad to binge watch something or you know there's nothing important for shows genius empire I have a follow-up to that how do you encourage yourself how do I encourage myself listen to what you say so I walk around saying I want to say I brought her from home I can't remember her name she says I got this does that work? or I'm so glad to be working on this one standing right here because it helps me with my crosses oh gee it's sunny outside today what a great day oh shit I got so much shit to do running and I'm the president and I'm fucking alone who cares what do we gotta do you know we don't need to like only focus on that we need to focus on so many other things so I just constantly possibly listen to myself and if I catch myself saying some negative unhelpful thing I just turn her around before it gets too far out of control right you just need to wow I need to and you get back on the good foot or whatever you say or hang out with some friends who like you man go around pretend you were flying you I don't know what your job was and they were like Harrison come on you're wonderful work hard just keep working you know read some quotations from your favorite inspirational speaker read some Maya Angelou or some Erison or some Thoreau all these people who like suffered and died so we would be here we gotta lean on them now and each other so all of that is available to you think of the time you did well right was there a time when you did well in something right go back to that if you did that you can do whatever you need to do tell yourself that it's true why not and it doesn't cost anything that's what's weird about this you know it costs you to be kind to people and to be feeling like a good person I don't have so many other but thousands of things just to keep myself my mother teacher said one thing she said we're not interested in perfection can I believe the kind of yoga people are you know the kind of yoga they're like scary ass yoga right so she said she was seeing me trying to do some yoga pose and she said we're not interested in perfection we're interested in stilling on your lines and making it through that was like the line stilling on your lines and get through the lines we have one and see how a burning question like oh my god yes wait I'm right in front of you she's right in front of me fourth draft and I need to take it from 2 hours and 15 minutes to 2 hours and 15 minutes great great great how do you cut because I want to explain everything great great I can't do that no no have you gotten noticed about what you could cut I'm using those 2 hours and 15 minutes 5.0 she wants it to 2.15 have you gotten noticed about what you could cut do you know in your heart of hearts that you need to go do you know what you need to go do you have a feeling about what you need to go yes you don't need any more shows no no no no you know you know you know what needs to go to do this magic this is great you cut it you put it aside you take the 2 hours and 15 minutes if the people or whatever want a little more you go but you just cut it out put it off to the side and then it'll be 2 hours and 15 minutes they'll give you a reading or a production or whatever they want more they'll ask for it they want to do a whole other thing in my experience isn't what happened cutting to train your own work is an act of supreme courage you're a ninja do it, try it if it doesn't work it's always put it back in no no no it's not a good thing but it feels like it's not so we distinguish but it looks like okay let us try it where are we going to be back we are going to be back we are going to be back on Tellner June 5th June 12th and more to come look at the website the website will tell you everything thank you guys for coming you guys are great, thanks