 Hey Jeff, I'm remembering your name a few minutes ago, are you going to do watch the work or does anybody want to have a watch the work explained to them, everybody know what we're doing, Jim knows what we're doing. This is your last week, Joanne, I'm still at school. Okay, so does anybody have any, would anybody like to explain to them what we're going to do? I'm jumping in, so. You're jumping in, I read the writing page online. Cool, cool, cool, it's real simple, it's real simple. All I do is I, it's basically about you in your work. It's, but you can participate as much or as little as you like. I'm going to set my timer, we're going to work together for 20 minutes, so you're going to work on your own thing. Okay, and then we're going, when the timer goes off, I'm going to answer your questions about your creative process. Okay, so the main title is you, watch your work, that means we're talking about you. Okay, all right, easy, easy. So I'm ready, Dan, or somebody. Okay, because we're also streaming online and a post-partum contact. So I'm just going to tell them, and then you go to me. And now I'm going to answer. Miranda. Miranda. Oh, like in the textbook. Yes. There you go. Okay, I got it. You missed your phone, where are you? Where are you? Turn up the microphone. Miranda's been telling you how to get the coffee. Yeah, go for it. Yes, so you can go to howaround.tv which is where we're streaming live right now. And there's a little comment section where you can write in questions, or you can tune in on HowlRound's Facebook page, or you can write questions on the Public Theater's Instagram at Public Theater NY, or you can go into it. And tweet a question using the hashtag, watch me work SLP and the hashtag HowlRound, H-O-W-L-R-O-U-N-U. Thank you. Miranda, I've got your name in the box. It's really good. Okay. This is my brain. I don't have your name. All right. So, Brady, you're going to set the timer? Yes, sir. And I will set my timer, too. Oh, okay. Here you go. You usually use a typewriter. I'm not going to do it today. I'm going to read some papers. So, hopefully, we got some work done. Someone got a TV or some monitor or something. They went downstairs and I came up to the box. Oh, wow. That's cool. Anyway. So, somebody got something. So, now here's the part where I listen to your questions about your creative process and offer up some answers. Anybody have any questions, thoughts, problems, difficulties or exciting things are happening in your work that you want to share? Do that, too. I'll just sit here and balance. It might be. But we have a question on Instagram. So, what is it? Anastasia. Anastasia wants to know. Anastasia is a famous person in Anastasia. They want to know if I have any advice for someone who's performing their work, writing their work and performing it. Advice like what? Good. Yay. Great. That's really great. The only time I do that is when I do music in my band. So, I don't know. It's very difficult, but a lot of people do it well. So, it's definitely worth doing. What's great about writing your own work is you get to, you know, you have more creative control. She can also have more, like, she doesn't have to wait around for the perfect circumstance to do her work. But I don't know. Does anybody here write or perform? Oh, yeah, singing. Oh, gosh. I hope she shows up and there you are. Does anybody have any thoughts? Does anybody here perform their own work? Yeah? Right. How are you? It's great to see you. No? I don't know. I don't know. Maybe if she could come back with a more specific question, you know, you know, if she's watching, she might, because it would give her lots of encouragement, but I'm not sure what to tell her other than write it and perform it and, you know, try it out with her friends. I'm sure everything I have to say about that she's probably already done. That's my opinion. But I'll write this back with a more specific question and we'll drive back into it. Anybody else? I have a super big question. What are we going to do? No? You're just stretching. Oh, it's on. It's way to big. It's on. Great. What's your name? Ben. Ben. Okay, Ben. It's your cue. Ashton. It's about images that, like, affect you when you're writing. You'll write something. You'll write an image that you are affected by. But then it takes you to a place that you start judging. I guess, like, do you balance, do you have a way of dealing with that judgment that comes with, like, finding something that you feel like might not have anything to do with what you're writing, but you're still affected by it? Like, do you have a place where you take that and put it, or do you accept it and then let it change the course of what you're writing? So you're, so let me just go through it. Let me make sure I understand. So Ben is writing something. He's writing, writing, writing along. And then he includes an image. And then so far so good, right? You're writing, you're writing, and you include an image. Good. But then comes some judgment about the image, because it doesn't really have anything to do with what you're writing about. Okay. Okay. Judgment, like, what does the judgment sound like? Can you just, like... Yeah, so the judgment, I guess, like, what the judgment sounds like just now was, I was, like, writing along, and like, I think this is a poem. Okay. But it was like, wait, like, this sounds like it might be from another poem, an entire poem. Like, maybe this is something that doesn't belong here. Okay. Well, that kind of judgment. Like, maybe this is something that doesn't belong here. Kind of judgment. Yeah. And maybe it's not actually serving. And maybe it's not actually serving what I'm writing as a story. Right. Okay. Okay. Yeah. That kind of judgment. And what I suggest, something that a thousand people down the stairs, it's like a conventional saleswoman or a man. Super fine. What I would suggest is, like, keep writing. So, you know, but it's like, if you're driving along, or you drive then. Yeah. Okay. So you're driving along and you see, oh, look, there's something. Stop the car. Get out of the car. I don't know if that tree is really supposed to be there. You stop the process. Right. That's not a great analogy, but you stop the process. The idea is to keep going. Okay. Maybe it's going to take, maybe you come to a fork in the road and you take it and you go. Okay. Post-its are also handy. If you really think, oh, this seems like it's not part of, you can write it on a post-it or a separate notebook. You have a notebook there. You might have a separate notebook for just random things that don't belong. Thank you. Great. Bring it down there. What? Is that, could that be helpful? Yeah. Post-its are fun. You can just, I mean, get ones in the color that you really enjoy. You know? Because the judgment thing, it sounds like it's stopping you. And then, yeah, and then, and then you're not writing. And then you don't get to cross the finish line. Are you? Yeah. Start writing slowly. Okay. Okay. Okay. Post-its are great. Or just, yeah. Yeah. But those, the sort of voices that question whether or not you're on the correct path. Those kind of voices need to be, you know, where writing fast helps. You know, writing, that's why we write with a timer, you know, in this workshop. And this is, I finally remembered to bring this. It's a timer. And you know the difference. I'm going to show you two things, and you're going to tell me. Okay. Because the following is like, I am your B all in all. Look, I'm even pink-sparkling on the back. And a friend is texting me. Wrong. This is the timer. This is really good. Because it only does, you know, a couple things. And they're all related to county up or down. And you set it for 20 minutes. And then you can focus and get your work done. These are really good. And they're not that expensive. You've got to be operated. I bet you can get a solo power at work. You know, so. Okay, that's a good question. We all have that. A lot. Yeah. Yeah. Cool. Anybody else? Yes, Abana. That was really simple. Oh, good. I love simple questions. I actually don't know what you're writing. What is my writing process? Yeah, because I don't want to feel right today. What's your writing process? You type out as much as you possibly can. And then you go back to where you were. You type out as much as you possibly can. And then you go back to where you were. Yeah. Or just, like, get out the box. I don't want to really have the bad structure of it. Okay. No, no. I don't believe that. But yeah, you try to, like, blur it all out. Right. Go back. Right. So you outline after you've written a draft. For me, it's, like, more about, like, getting specific themes I have in my head out. Right, right. I love, like, dialogue and, like, writing characters. Right. So I try to get that out first. Cool. Because that's, like, the way of it. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Yeah, I mean, I kind of did the same kind of thing. I am only, I kind of try to combine the two things more. Yeah. Because my favorite thing about writing is being in the flow. You know, her girl felt that. Yeah. You're like, we were just, like, cruising along. Woo-hoo! You know? And to do that, we were talking to Michael about that in class today, right? To do that, you have to combine the sort of organization with the stuff you really like. You know? You know? You want to be organized. It's like a road trip. Again, just driving. If you're driving on a road trip, you know where you're going. You're going to California. You're going to get there to the Santa Monica Pier. You know? And you can just kind of relax and enjoy the scenery. Because you know where you're going, kind of sort of. And you can enjoy your trip, you know? Sometimes if you don't have a plan, you just kind of, yeah. You kind of wasn't around. No, in writing anyway. Maybe not the road trip, but in writing sometimes, you know? You might be just avoiding something that you don't like to do. Which is, it might be structure. Not that you don't like to do that. But so I would say when you're thinking of scenes that you like, put them down, type them down in outline form. What's wrong with that? Like, oh, I've got an idea for a scene. Cool. I know where it's coming. I don't know. I'm going to put it on the page. Number one. Oh, I've got another idea for a cool scene. Again, great. I'm going to put it on the page. There's a couple of four after that. Number four comes with four. Oh, so that's number one now. Oh, I've got another idea. It comes after the two of them. Oh, it comes in the middle of the two of them. Oh, great. Then you start to see the structure. See, so it's fun, you know? I'd say hold off on the dialogue. If you like the dialogue a lot, hold off on it until you kind of, because of dialogue, I mean, you write beautiful dialogue, and it comes easily, more easily to you. Maybe then save it. It's like, there are people who say, you know, life is short, you deserve first, you know? But I'm a parent. I don't, I don't think so. I think that. Do, you know, we tell ourselves, do your academics, then you can watch your idiot machine, we call it, which is another word for the iPad. But, you know, do, you know, do your homework, and then you can. So do the things that might be a little difficult, maybe. And then you can get into your fun flow with the confidence that you've got to kind of figure it out. You've done the hard, you've done the difficult work. Does that make sense? It's a lot, you know. Is that a ball of overtime for you, or is that? Is that a ball? Did my practice evolve over time? Yeah. Was that way, sort of how you approach playwriting, or it's like writing, you know? I know. This is about you, though. I know. Watch me work. This is about you. Yeah, but watch me work. This is about you, though. I'm coming for the preamble. I'll let you tell you. See, this is what happens. I don't bought it from, like, outside, from the street. You know, we hang out on the corner and shit. And I need it. You missed the preamble part. Watch me work. It's kind of like a weird title, because it's actually about your work and your creative process. But I can talk to you. I can talk to you. Sidebar. We can sidebar on the corner, on the streets. Am I standing on broken glass? Yeah. Talking about it. Anybody else? I don't know. We'll figure out. And we'll tell us if they relate to each other. She'll tell us. So be right back. Like, relatable, like, real. Like, what is that even? What's relatable? Maybe you know somebody explain it to me. Somebody knows. Relatable. Yeah, tell me. Relatable character. Yeah, what's a relatable character? Well, after that, we see that we... because it doesn't feel like they're so far from us. So a person that we feel like we can see on the street. A person that we feel like you can see right here that we can talk to and not someone that has been so crafted that they're not a real person. Not a real person. A person. Right. A relatable character. It's such an interesting concept. Because I think, like, like Meghan Markle, for example. I know. She just had a baby. Which is great. All right. Is she relatable? Do you think? I know. Some people say yes. Some people say no. But she seems relatable, doesn't she? This is a long way around of acting out of the stage. It's a really good question. Because what you want is something that seems relatable. Like, Richard the Third in the play. You know, not the real Richard the Third. But Richard the Third, the character. Is he relatable? He is in relation with other... I think what we do is we get these concepts in our mind that make it difficult to write, you know. So what you want to do in a stage in everybody's, we want to fill our characters with specifics. And maybe the character is relatable, like Meghan Markle. She seems relatable. And maybe the character is relatable, like Richard the Third. He's in relation to other people and other things. I would just say, get real specific about your character's story. Get real specific about what they want. Why they're in your play, for example. Get real specific about what your character wants and whether or not they're going to get it by the end of the show. Just get specific. And... Because relatable, it means different things to different people. There's a joke in White Noise where the character rouse a white guy. So, yeah, yeah, I changed all the characters. Black characters, I made them all white people because I made them more relatable. So for this white guy in that moment, a white character is more relatable. Some people don't find people of color relatable. So it's tricky. I just say make them good. And, you know, but it was a really good question. Does that make sense? Yeah. You know? Cool. Anybody else? What's your name? Nell. How are you? I'm well. Nell? So, yeah, I came and I thought, okay, I saw online that you... And I didn't show up the first two because I didn't know about it. And I thought, I'm going to try to give some structure to my... I have a goal. I want to write a musical theater. I want musical theater. Okay. So here I thought, okay, I showed up with nothing, right? I have notes in my... So I looked, okay, let me search for this. And I realized I put together... I'm trying to blend structure to things a lot. So I feel, oh, it's going to motivate me. So you're kind of answering, chiming into it. Like, my creative challenges, process challenges along these questions, right? So I see, my calendar was two years ago. And then things took over where I had to... I made money on other things and nobody's paying me to do this. So I guess I'm going to kind of get down to brass tax. Like, I feel like if I'm on a job and I have to deliver for somebody, I, man, I deliver. And I write that piece or I write that thing. I hear you. And now I got to impose that on myself. So it's a mind-blowing thing and it's historic fiction. Right. Right. And really I can sense the whole and I get these, you know, really magnificent, you know, images, sense, feel, hear, see. But then when it comes to, man, I have to chip away at this. That's where I get, like, wow, a little overwhelmed. Right. So I guess that's relatable because maybe... Totally. Yeah, man. Right. Break it down. Yeah, so you've got, see, isn't that great? You know exactly what to do. Yeah, yeah, yeah. In theory, then I got to sit there and actually write it. And imagine, like, I love that you say, get real specific. What do they want? Who are they? What's the package? Right? That's what I want to be in that world and I want it out. But I guess, you know, I have a question for you, but it's about my process. It's almost like, okay, somebody's paying me. I'm under deadline. I got to deliver. So now I got to give it structure. Right. And nobody's going to pay me just yet for this because I might show some evidence. Right, right, right. So I kind of want to ask, like, how did you go from once nobody was paying you, then somebody's paying you? Right. And that's still the thing that nobody pays me for. I don't pay commissions for plays. Oh. And I write, so when I write songs for my band, people don't pay me. I just sit down and write. So there's lots of things that I do that people don't pay me for. Right. See, that's correct. Yeah. I can be legal. But I think underlying everything for me anyway is this organizational structure of things. It helps me get shit done. Shit your own. Uniforms your own. Like you just... Yeah, structure it. I don't know. I sort of, you know, it sounds like that 1984 novel, you know, what is it? The contradiction of liberation is... Light speed. Yeah. What I want to say is underneath everything, I have structure through this. That's mad. That's really... This is medical. And it doesn't cost a lot of money. And it's not your phone. I'll just say that again. It sounds so silly. But that phone, which is a great, wonderful device, hooray! We love our phone, hooray! It's, you know, it's crack, right? It's not, it's... So something like this, which is just what it is, crack is simple, simple, right? Yes. And it only does the thing that you need it to do. That's cool. And you can watch the numbers go down, which is kind of fun. Yeah. It's a little game with ourselves. Exactly. Exactly. It's not like tomato. Someone says, there's an app. You can do it on your phone. It does the same thing. It's not the same thing, because it's on your phone. So this kind of thing, what you do now is set it to 20 minutes. That's a nice amount of time. That's what we just did here, right? Set it to 20 minutes. And you sit down and you write, every day, on your project. Your project. Your wonderful, loving project that you love so much, right? And 20 minutes seems too stressful. It's like you're married. You're going to be a marathon runner, right? Right. Then you start out with a little less. You run for, it's right 10 years. We lower the bar. We just lower the bar. We get it so low, you can actually be successful every single day. You put in your 20 minutes. And it accumulates. Right? Like compounded interest. Yes. Over time. You know, if you do that for a whole month, you know, wow, you will have assimilated all this work. And it doesn't matter what, you can have a notebook and write longhand. Ideas on my project. You can have, you know, oh, I see. She got excited by scenes. I'm sure we'll maybe put them in outline form. You know? Yeah. Bonnie, you can even, if you like scenes, get index cards, the small ones, the three by five. And write your scenes on index cards and then organize them and you're outlining them without actually doing them. The chronological, right? The outline thing. You might, it's like, man, somebody don't like that. So, right? Yes, really. And you just, small, small steps. Incremental, like when kids learn to walk. It all starts out very slowly. Yeah. You know? And then, yeah, we still might get overwhelmed, but, but, it's only 20 minutes. And if you want to turn on your timer and go, for 20 minutes, that's okay too. That's perfectly fine. Or go, for 20 minutes, that's fine too. Or the, like this, the down creeps in. This may not be good. This may not be good. Well, let it come in. I know. That's kind of what's in here. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, well. So what? I'm going to keep going. Right. Talk back to it. It's, you know, if you're, if you're, it's talking to you, you can talk back to it because it's all in your head. So, you know, have a conversation. Not too long. Just like, shut up. Talk to the hand conversation. Talk to me after I'm done. Or write down what is going on in your head. 20 minutes. Because I don't like being motivated by fear. I don't want to do that. You know, I've been there and I don't want to, you know, like reform, reform. Okay. Chip away. 20 minute increments. Sure. And if that takes too much, 10 will also, 10 minutes will also work. Pick a time during the day that's going to be your writing time. Do you have a time during the day? I have a lot of swing time. So that's what I, part of my equation, like I have to, okay, when am I going to dedicate time to that versus, you know. Great. So prioritize your writing and just wait time. If you're a morning person and afternoon person and night owl, answer it. Okay, great. So after use your time, you know, whether it's right after your lunch break or whatever it is, right before your lunch break, you know, you go to lunch and the first 20 minutes is writing and then you have, you know, prioritize it like that. Yeah. And just try to see what happens. Right here. So, and at some times it seems like five minutes. Right. But today I was like, really, set this up. So, what I, what helps me is to start to doodle. So that I, I don't want to just stop. Right. Right. Because then I feel like I can't get it going. Right, right, right, right, right, right. So then to just keep going, I start to doodle. That's good. You know, and then the doodle got me into the next thought. There you go. Right. That's great though. Doodling is also encouraged. You know? Or you can just write the same, I mean, it sounds like the shining, but that, you know, you could do that. You know? I mean, you could write something like, you know, I'm waiting for the next word on that. I'm waiting for the next episode. Where is it? And then, or you could just write stupid shit. I love doing that. When I don't know what to, you're like, what's the next scene? I don't know. I just write some stupid shit. Like, oh gee, yeah. That's cool. And then I get to do the scene that I really like. You see, just like, right, or, or, judge, it's stupid shit. Ha! Yeah, great, it's stupid. Yeah, that's stupid shit. Okay, keep going. You know what I mean? And then, you might look back when you rewrite or you look at the outline or whatever, and you go, oh, you look exactly what's supposed to be there. You know? Yeah. Okay, yeah, that was last night. You were dancing last night, weren't we? Right there. Yeah. And that was the worst. I think that Oscar did dance. He's like, he'll never give you a dance unless you're in it. Five minutes. You're going to look happiest. In half a month. He was, he was, he was a good dancer for somebody who said you can't dance. Okay? Okay. Oh, good. To know if you had any advice for young writers who are struggling with blank pages. Get out of the blank page. Get out of the blank page. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I have the same answer to everything. Just at the time. You know, because I think that people, we have blank pages because we're telling ourselves that it's not any good. Right? I mean, it's not like all of a sudden, Carl, having lost the ability to, you can't type anymore, you know? You know what I mean? Is that, oh no, I broke all my fingers, you know? Or you forgot how to form blank pages. This is probably not the show that can help you, but if it's just, I have blank pages because I'm sitting there going, hmmm, then I just say, so write some shitty shit. You know? Write some shit. You know? Because I think the word that's missing from that is not just blank pages, it's blank pages that I think are really good. You know? So write some blank pages and aren't you good. And join the club of those of us who write shit. Come on. Right? Yeah, right. Go. Question from Howard? Yeah. How do you start working on a play that you get out of the drawer after a long time and what's finished and rewrite that? Oh, that's great. That's a great question. How do you work on a play or anything that you, that you wrote a while ago, you put it in the drawer and you want to rewrite? I say read it aloud. I would say, and just to, put yourself, I say, stand, stand up. Get off your behind. And stand at whatever you're writing. I mean, I would not suggest doing this in Starbucks or whatever, because this thing might call the police. It's part of what those guys are doing. We're doing a play, no. But you stand at your desk and read it aloud or walk around the room and read it aloud. But definitely, I would say read it aloud. You can start to hear it and start to get into the bodies of your characters and think that's super stupid and helpful. I always remember work aloud or, you know, always, always. It doesn't have to be a special occasion. It doesn't have to be a play to read it aloud. You can start to hear it, you know. Feel it. You read your work aloud, don't you? Okay. Okay. I'll tell you to read your work aloud. Read your work aloud. Your sister tells you to. That's her, like, number one advice every time. Oh, yeah. Yeah. That's true. But reading it aloud helps you feel it. And if it's a play, it's going to help you take one more step toward what it's been doing, what it's produced, something that said, well, my son came through production of how he knows your work last week and he said, and he looked at me and said, mommy, they're saying all the words that you say. Why are we doing it? They're copying you. And I was like, yeah. I mean, it was really sweet because he'd heard me say all the words out loud in our apartment. I'm reading them and I'm doing all the speeches and he's like, mommy, why are they copying you? Yeah. So, yeah. You're allowed. And it's okay. That's why we're here. I guess this is sort of, like, okay, this happens to me, but I'm asking you if you do it too. Okay. So, the things come to you that you start, it actually starts out loud. Like, it starts, you're saying something or you're, like, moving and you find something that you want to get down on the page or maybe, or you find something that you, like, think about, like, wanting to perform at some point. Right. It just happened to me yesterday. Okay. So you were buying your business that you were moving around and you said something. Yeah. But I think about it. Yes. And then you went, huh. And then what did you do? I recorded myself. Good. And then what did you do? I sent it to my partner. Good. And then... And now I haven't talked about it. Okay. Well, you can listen to it transcribe it, right? Yeah. Okay. And it can be the beginning of something. Yes. That's a loud. I guess it just, but it, um, it felt like a one-person show. Like, when I was just, like, in my apartment doing it. Okay. But it's a stay that way. Okay. Why don't you start writing and sing? Because a lot of plays start with just one person on stage. I was wondering about this content. Right? Which I'm a third. And then a whole bunch of other people come on. You know? But it starts, I think, pretty much. That is, right? I'm pretty sure. Um, so you don't know. It could just be the beginning of it. You know? Or it could be a one-person show that you can perform. You know? Yeah. It doesn't have, I mean, you know, ideas come from all over in all sorts of ways. So any way is valid and good. You just have to take the next step. Because it's not going to write itself. You know that. I mean, it's going to be okay, but it can't, you know, it'll hit you halfway. You have to do the work now. You know? That's exciting. Yeah. Anybody? I have to figure out how to do certain, um, habits. No, no, I said today I think we should check right because last time we really got funny. And then I spent too much time discussing with the rhythm. So I just did my little book today. She's working on stuff. I do, you know, like structural things and I'm trying to figure out how to do this. It's like, blah, blah, blah. It just can happen there, there. Very good. That's really good though. That's a great, that's a great idea, that's a wonderful idea for the person, Carla, or some of, Carla Minstone was talking about the blank page. That's a great idea, a great thing to do when you're sitting there with your blank page, your blank, and you're thinking, I don't know, you know. What's right? Right? Gratitude list. That's a great idea. Just list all the things that you're really grateful for. That's a wonderful way to sort of fill that page. And that can also maybe just sort of reduce your anxiety about where you are in your life and then make some cool thoughts and ideas that could come from Mom. Out of that which is really lovely. I really feel it too. Great. Poets, poets, poets. Yeah, a lot of them. There's a great book by who's a poet, Donald Hall. He's written a book called Lightwork, which is, it's not a poem, it's a book about his, well, his working life, which is, I love books about working life where they talk about the process, which is probably why I do this, because I love reading about this. I just love talking about the process. But, you know, people like, I'm trying to think, Susan Howe. I love language books. Susan Howe, Emily Dickinson, Ann Carson. Those are, she's really great. She has a wonderful book called Eros, The Better Suite, which is about desire and language and probably all sorts of things. Eros, The Bitter Suite, Ann Carson A, and E, Ann Carson, great writer. You know, Nicky Giovanni, great writer, so many great poets. The Lost Poets, you know, jazz musicians. You can listen to a lot of jazz and sing it back. That's like at home, you know. Beep, beep, beep, dee, dee, dee, dee, dee, dee. Just for rhythm and timing to get that into your body is really invaluable, and you can do that just by walking or driving a car or riding a subway or whatever. It's really important. It doesn't mean to stand in front of you all the time. At the time, anybody have a brilliant question, you go home and you go, what did that ask her? The answer to everything is keep writing basically. So if you don't have, keep writing, keep writing. Get one of these if you feel like splurging, you know, 10 bucks or whatever they are on Amazon, you know, and I don't own the company, so I can't make money from them. But just keep writing and just be brave enough to write in cheerleading. Write some shit. Just write something, you know. If you feel happier having written something than having written something. So are we back next week? We are back. Did you have next week? Sorry. So we're back on the 13th at 5 p.m. Anything else I have to say before we go away? Okay, thanks for being here. Thank you. Thank you.