 Is Lolly here? Yes, that's me. Oh, okay. Oh, see, I wasn't reading the names right. Hey, hey, hey. Good to see you again. Hey, thanks for coming out today. Okay, sorry I'm late Lolly. Let's just dive right in. This is a watch we work. We do this almost every Monday. And I'm SLP and we've been doing this for like 12 years. First we started in the lobby of the public theater so we give thanks to the public theater for sponsoring us and also to howl round for helping us out, especially with this live stream that really got off up and running in a great way during the lockdown and we're we're doing it still most Mondays at five where you can talk to me about your creative process. While we don't have time for you to actually read a presentation of your work, we do have plenty of time for you to ask me questions about your creative process. So what we do is we work for 20 minutes together and then we ask questions and Lolly is going to tell us what to do if you have a question while I get my timer. Go ahead. Sounds good. So if you're in the zoom room with us. You can ask questions by clicking the raise your hand button, which should be in the participants tab likely on the bottom of your screen if you have trouble finding it. You can private chat me and I can help you out there. Thanks for watching the stream on howl round and you have questions feel free to send us questions via the public theater Twitter or Instagram account, or via watch me works Twitter account which is at watch me work SLP, but the hashtag howl round that's hashtag H O W L R O U N D. So those are the two ways that you can ask questions. Again, if you have any technical difficulties just private chat me and I can help you work those out. That's fantastic. We are going to go into the work session. The, and then we'll go in the action session as we call it and then we'll go into the dialogue session so let's do 20 minutes here we go and Hey, that's my timer going off everybody. So that's our 20 minutes. So now we can open the floor for questions and for discussion. So if anybody has a question, just use the raise your hand function and I will ask you to unmute yourself. happened I got so into the work. Okay. Okay, now we're here for the questions. Let me put away my work and turn my brain on to yours. So if people have questions. Let's talk. Totally. Okay, it looks like we do have a question someone's having trouble finding the raise hand but shelly, I will ask you to unmute yourself now. Hi, thank you so much for doing this is such a huge get you know what a huge gift it is but I've I've never written and I've never thought of myself as a writer. And I don't think of myself as a writer now but I am writing with such delight. It's giving me such joy. These these things I've got about 40 pages already and I'm amazed. My question. It's thank you. And you started it. It's all your fault. Thank you. And actually friend my friend who told me about this workshop. It's her fault mostly. The question that I have is as you're writing I just I don't have I don't have training as a writer. And I found myself I was talking about the Himalaya Mountains and I must have used magnificent 14 times. And I thought just keep writing just keep writing. And now I'm going back to try to refine and repeat. My question is a very technical thing. When you are working. It's best to just plow through with an idea, or should you stop in the moment and reconfigure and we end and fix things, hone things, make them better. It's great Shelly I mean congratulations without your training I think you without your training I think you're getting your training from the doing of it, which is, I think, one of the best ways to get training in anything by doing it. I think you've hit upon exactly what you should be doing, which I would have suggested when you're writing right, and then when you're rewriting rewrite. So we don't worry. I don't, you know if you use the word magnificent 125 million times doesn't matter. And hopefully you've gotten to a the end place with what you're working on. Well I've just of the chapter of this chapter. Okay, I then I would suggest I would suggest that you keep writing, and put up, you know, I mean if you want to print it out and give yourself a post it and say, find another, another word other than magnificent, you know, and keep writing forward, because I think you're in the flow of writing. And I think my feeling is, fix, you know, find a better word later. That's what I would suggest. Keep going, keep going, you know. Thank you so much and it's a little check in a weekly check in. How did I do this week some weeks are better some weeks are not as good depends on what's going on in life but I'm loving it. Oh, great. That's the idea. Thank you. Thanks. We have Timothy next. Yeah, Timothy. Hey, how are you. I'm well happy to see you. Yeah, back at you. Thanks as always for doing this. I had a question. I've been working on a lot of projects since the beginning of the year, and they're all at kind of a kind of a put it down point. So I'm kind of between projects. And I was wondering, is there, what do you do in acting they talk about like, you know, keeping your instrument open. And I'm wondering what, if anything you can do to keep yourself open for, you know, to keep your writing instrument open so that, you know, when the idea hits you you'll, you'll, you won't pass it by I guess. Great question, great question. Yeah, so you should put a down point meaning you reached the end point of kind of. Yeah, I mean it's kind of it's it's at another stage. You know it's, you know, they're they're all either plays or screenplays and, you know, they're ready for actors they've been a couple have been rewrites a couple have been new. But I, you know, again, it's at the point where like any, I would like to hear it now so I'll round up some actor friends of mine and we'll kick, we'll kick it around. But you know they're also sort of, for the most part their versions of things I've already been working on and I'm kind of got the hankering to write something new, you know, like, like, like a new story. That's cool. Packing out at all the other, you know, just like, I can make this story better. Yeah, but that's a great moment, Timothy. I mean, it's like, it's like you've kind of graduated. And that's how you keep your instrument open, you could write something new. You know, you could. And I don't know, is that a piano in the back of you or is that my. No, it's not, it's not your imagination. It's, it's a piano. It's actually a really nice picture holder. But it's, it's nice. Nobody played it. Nobody played it in ages, but. Okay, because I thought, you know, that's another way of keeping your, your instrument open, you can work out, work out on your other, you know, in your other skill, and your other areas of skill, like if you play music, you could, you know, work on some of your songwriting, or you could, you know, so you could kind of do your cross training like that. Journaling is a good way to keep your instrument open, but also you said you wanted to write something new. So I would say, start writing something new. That's so. I mean, is that, does that make sense? Or is that, is that just. Yeah, it does. I guess I've always been sort of, you know, your, your projects pick you, you don't necessarily pick them. And so I'm just sort of, you know, I just like to be open to the process and I was one, you know, I think journaling is also, you know, I mean Julia Cameron talks about, you know, the daily pages and the morning pages and if you, you know, you've been doing those, you know, might find something that, that is grabbing at you as you are just saying I have time now I can start something new what project might grab me. You know, and just and really also reading, you know, enjoying going on a little mental vacation, but it's really a time of celebration if you've gotten across the finish line with several different projects, you know, it's time for like, I'll take the victory lap. I'll take the victory lap. I'm not sure it's, you know, I had a teacher said projects and never finished and just abandoned. But, you know, but we'll see. I mean, I am, I am happy with what these other things are. I've heard that phrase before and I finished things. I mean, I'm good. I'm on to the next thing I really believe in the catching relief method. The spirit sends it to you catch it you do your best with it and then you let it go. So that's something else can come and if I'm holding on to something. I can't quite receive that next thing so I tend to just, I'm good. We're on to the next thing. You know, I believe in in in celebrating when you. Well, at many points, but good on you man good on you and just enjoy this time of just, you know, where you're waiting for the project to give you a call. Good for you. I will do that. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks everyone. Okay, we have Gerald next I hope I'm saying that right. Yes. Hi. Hi. So much gratitude to you in the community. This may seem so obvious, but I'm really grappling with it. I'm ready to play and I'm using letters from or emails that I've received from different people. And I want to know how much do I have to some of the verbiage I think is just so specific to the characters. I'm not using different names of the characters, but some of their, the way they speak is so indicative of who they are, you know, who I want them to be. How much do I need to change these let there just, there's like, you know, an email with let's say six lines of dialogue. And I, how, how different from the actual email doesn't have to be. That's true. That is tricky because that's like an actual letter that someone wrote you who I'm guessing is still living. Yes. And you probably, I don't know, do you have the, do you have you negotiated the rights, you know, that's their writing. I don't know. I don't know how sticky that is. So maybe, maybe I would say it's either you negotiate, and you secure the rights to use their written material. Or you use the email as a springing off point to create a fictional character, and have the content be kind of the core of it and then bounce off and write your own version of that email. Yeah, the latter sounds so much better because I also want to be respectful. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, so I would, yeah, do yeah use their work as your springboard for your own. Okay, that's what, what, what do you do when you, or when you doubt your, when you, you start to doubt yourself, when you don't, you lose trust. When you stop trusting that, that you're, you're on the right path or that you, you're doing the right, you know, that your writing is, is what it should be, or, you know, that you're telling the way the story that you want to tell that you, when you lose, I lose trust in myself that I stop thinking that, you know, there's like the inner demons come in, and they tell me you know you don't know what you're doing or I love is that a crazy question you know that they, you know all this inner doubt comes in. Thank you. I hear you. I think you can ground yourself by doing different things by spending more time with the work by, you know, listening to me it's it's like maybe the inner demons are helpful and trying to you know make you what don't get out of your lane as a however you are more comfortable defining yourself. It's, you know, I really think though that you can sort of help yourself stay in your writing track with things like affirmations with things like showing up every day and working regardless with things like shortening the amount of time that you work every day. So if you work for an hour and you're really battling demons every moment of that hour, cut the time down to 30 minutes. If you're you know then you'll at least only be battling the demons for 30 minutes and if you're still battling demons for 30 minutes and that's exhausting cut the time down to 15 minutes. You see what I mean or five minutes or three minutes or 90 seconds. If you work for 90 seconds, five times a day at least you're developing the ability, you know, to, to counter the demons negative voices. You know what I mean so you have to when you know when to create. If you have a lot of oppositions you have to think of a lot of solutions. Yeah, so if you have negative voices you think of like, you think okay so I'll work for a minute and a half. Every hour. You know, yeah, so I'll just put a little bit of time in, then I'll spend the rest of time reading a book or doing something that you know, I'll write affirmations. I'll call a good friend. I'll read a book that I love. I'll stop watching so much TV, maybe. A lot of our, a lot of negativity comes from, unfortunately, hate to say it but comes from online shit. News, information, you know, just, just cut down cut it down eating sugar, drinking soft drinks. Facebook, you know, not to demonize you know what I'm saying just compare and despair. A lot of look at what she's doing look at what they're doing look at what they just bought look they're on vacation they're not doing anything. Wow, I wish I could do nothing. You know, I mean it's just it's just an incessant stream of shit that comes your way when you are online. So if you're online a lot, you might want to look at that. I mean, surrounding yourself with more positive people. You notice she every time I talk to XYZ. I feel shitty. That's in the game. Okay, it's very powerful. Yeah, yeah, we got to talk about these things because otherwise we just think it's all, it's all you and you're, you know, and maybe you just need to take more mood stabilizers guess what. Right. Right. Just take another pill. Everybody just take another pill. Yeah. Very powerful. Yeah. Okay, so just come check in here, you know, you know, but it's, there's some there's a lot of shit flying around out there. And really between Ukraine and what the Supreme Court is doing and let's get real people. There's some shit flying around. And as long as we pretend like it's okay and let's just talk about the fact that Kim Kardashian or Marilyn Monroe's dress to the Met Gala and she has a lock of Marilyn Monroe's hair. What. Right. Yeah. What's going on. Yeah. So, you know, not that those, all those things are happening, but we just need to be very clear. We're not designed to make us feel good and productive and grounded and solid. So there was my soapbox. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thanks for that question, Darrell. Thank you so much. We have Richard next on that Richard. I'm mute on mute. Am I muted. Can you hear me? I can hear you. Great. Well, I don't know for two years now. Almost every session, I was fighting you about outlining. Maybe I had a traumatic thing and seventh grade or something about doing new woman numeral one. Capital a little, but it's so helped me doing just not writing, but just doing the outlining. Because the outlining brought up a lot of stuff and it showed a lot of problems, but not bad problems. It's just it would need it needs to move it forward. So this question I've been wanting to ask you for two years now. No, it's just simple and I understand there are different methods, but do you have a textbook that you love about screenwriting? I, you know, totally I watch movies and since I've been since I've been watching movies, this extraordinary thing has been happening. It's really changed the way since I've been writing and it changes the way I watch movies. Oh, great. Yeah, so do you just simple have a textbook that you love? I think there are many great ones. At the top of my head, I cannot think of the names of them. But but what I do know is that they're not any of the ones I like aren't any like specialty esoteric, you know, hard to find textbooks. They're the basic ones. Let me see if I can think of the names off the top of my head. And you guys maybe can create my screen is one called screenplay by somebody I forget. McKay or something. Yeah, I mean, they're the popular ones. The good ones, you know, I find it the popular ones, the. Okay, no, that's helpful that just the sort of probably, you know, you go how to write a screenplay you look on Amazon they're the popular ones I don't know any of the more outliers I just there's some good books out there on how to structure a screenplay. I think one is called screenplay. I think one is called story story. Oh, yes. Yes, see, ironically, they're sitting on the desk. Let's see, let's, let's sit. Oh, they're sitting on the desk like in the other room. Oh, okay, save the cat. Yes, I've heard of that one to save the cat. That's a really lovely one. Okay. That's a good one. Thank you. Thank you, Gerald. That's great. Anybody else have any. That's it, Sid Field. That's the one Melania. Boom. That's it. The Sid, Sid Field. You can sit in the chat, Richard. Okay, that's what I was trying to think of Sid Field. That's in the other room. Sid Field and the save the cat that Gerald brought up. Those are those are three great ones. And basically, nothing's going to be damaging by reading. If you look at it, you don't like it, you don't like it. That's it. Move on. It depends on how you take information. You know, I, I think these are all these books are helpful. They're all about, I think Hollywood screenplays, you know, that kind of thing. So it's all that basic structural stuff, which I think is super helpful. You know, someone Timothy says there's a book called Aristotle's a Poetics. Is that Poetics Timothy. Yep, that's also that's also helpful. It's kind of old. Well, you know, I think it's older than you Richard Aristotle. Oh, way back there. But that's good. Yeah. And that talks about how character is what we do. And that's super helpful if you're writing the screenplay play, whatever. Screenplay is what we do. But you know, but those are great. Yes. Yes. Oh, Steven Pressfield. Yes. Yes. Thank you, Gerald. Yeah. Going pro is that the war of art. That's the Steven Pressfield one, the war of art. That's a lovely one. It's kind of not a how to it's more of a kind of inspirational. Yeah, those are great ones. Thanks. Outlining is amazing. And we write just rewrite just work on 10 pages at a time. That's it. Thank you so much. It's changed my life. The better we hope. Okay, I think yes. We'll give it a yes. We'll give that a yes. There you go. Thank you so much. Thank you. Melania, you're on deck. Hello, Suzanne. Hey, how are you? Fine. I have a question about I am doing two things. One is the thing that we talk about the novel and synopsis I am I did my schedule for two weeks. I am working on that. I am. I am working good in there. And there is another thing that is a workshop that I am taking is a playwriting workshop. Okay. And I, it's very, it's very specific. So they give me some exercises and I have to do the work since usually. And last time that I did one, it was very well received by the teacher. Okay, it was very happy. And my question is this, because I am trying to be to respect the opinions of others. Well, at the same time being free myself in order to express myself. So I don't know how to navigate this. The notes and the opinions of others and my work my own voice. What kind of I am thinking if you can guide me in some kind of exercises maybe affirmations or whatever it is that is good to really be able to listen to myself and trust and work beyond the opinions of others in this case the professor it was very nice and I love when I read what he mentioned it was very nice but at the same time when I have these good words I feel this pressure that make me feel stuck that I have to continue but I do everything we talk about here so I don't know how to, because I want to do. I love my, my work to be something that I do by myself at the same time is a breach to connect to other people to be in community I really believe in theater at that way of being together through art. But sometimes the opinions of others that are sometimes are very nice. They get into me, like pressure, and I don't know what pressure like to take their nose pressure like to maybe to keep the level, you know, like keep the standard that maybe when I do something that they believe it's good. I say okay, I am thinking how I am going to keep this working. Oh, and that what happened to me is that that stops my stops my creative process process because I am thinking about my work I am thinking about what are they going to say about what they're going to say about this one and will it correct me if I just want to make sure I'm hearing you correctly so if you you've given work to a teacher, you get really helpful feedback and and it's really positive feedback and it's really encouraging feedback, and yet it, it's, it kind of stops you because you now you're under pressure to wondering if the next piece you give them will be received with the same enthusiasm from Yes, yes, or sometimes it's like I need to go even further. Sure, sure, sure. Yeah, Tennessee Williams I think called that the tragedy of success. Okay. Okay, so, so, you know, sometimes we wonder oh gee what will happen if I send my work out there nobody likes it. And your question is what happens if I send my work out there and they like it, they don't like it as much as they liked it last time because last time they really loved it and this time they, they, you know, um, uh, yeah, I would, I would say, you know, it's, it's, it's tricky because you want to just keep writing and the more years we put into it. You know, if we're always trying to get to that mark. Sometimes we write works that are better than last time but they're not received as as enthusiastically, you know. So you just have to keep talking to yourself and just say telling yourself that, you know, my work's worth it my work's beautiful. I'm writing for, you know, to honor these voices in my head in my heart in my community. Sometimes they'll be received with enthusiasm and sometimes they'll be, you know, who knows. Do you know what I mean? It's tricky, it's tricky because you want to, you want your professor to, to, and you don't want them to go oh now this isn't as good so I don't, I don't respect Milani as much but that's not going to happen if they're, if they're worth, if they're a really good professor, you know. That's true. No, yes, and this is a good professor. Sometimes I feel because I love, I love studying so I like to be in workshops and these things but after a while when I am in the middle of it, I say I don't know if this was a good idea because I become very dependent of the opinion on the opinion. Right. I don't like that, but at the same time, I like to have the notes because, you know, it's good to learn and to grow, to grow in my writing, but it's difficult to me to evaluate how to know by myself when I am doing well or not and even I don't know if that those are the words like well wrong. That's a skill that you're going to have to develop and probably going to have to develop it by not seeking out feedback every time you think you need it. You know what I mean, it's like when you, when you, I don't know if you, you know, you, you, you get dressed, you put on a dress and you should be or an outfit, you know, and you should be able to tell yourself if you look okay. You have to run to, you know, this person and that person this person and call a friend and take a selfie and, you know, just if you have to get out the door I can't I can't get out the door and tell him I've asked 20 friends how I look, you know, you don't want to, you know what I mean you want to develop the ability to go, I look good I feel good in this and I like the way I look. I'm going out the door. You know you want to develop that and sometimes that might mean not, you know, I mean not taking as many workshops or really working to develop your own sense of how your work is, is landing within you. So, so, yeah, try, you know, maybe before you, maybe if you write a piece you have to hand in something every week or before you hand in your work, you read your work and you give yourself start giving yourself notes. How do I think this is landing. What do I think of my work. How am I feeling about my work you know maybe write yourself out some notes. Okay, yourself, you know so you're starting to create a good feedback loop for yourself. That could be helpful. So you're developing that muscle in yourself. Yes, I want that. Yeah, yeah, that can help. Okay, I'm ready to do that. You're welcome. You're welcome. Thank you, Lania. We have about five minutes left. Yeah, did folks have more questions. We're also good sitting in silence. Looks like we have one crystal. Hi. Hi. How are you. Good to see you. So that's how you doing. I'm doing all right. Not too bad. I'm doing all right. You said something earlier about character about characters or I guess seeing the character of a person through actions. So, I'm trying to, I'm in the very, very beginning of just conjuring up the idea of a new play. And it's a two person play to two women. A therapist and a patient. And it's like a, I guess a thriller kind of feel because it's more about like it becomes a hostage situation. And it's very outside of what I write. It's just, I don't know. I was like, what can I write that's not like what I've written and this. And my, my, my conflict, I think is the approach of writing with like, is a character driven or is it story driven. You know, and like, or plot driven. And either way, I don't really know. Well, which one is which one is better or is it just different. Because what when you said that it was, it was very, it was like, oh yeah, that's true. Like you do kind of measure. God bless you, a measure a person by what they do. But is that like, I feel like it's a question one on one question but is it like, is that is that what makes a story, or does the plot make the story, or what. Okay, good, good questions is the character make the story or the plot make the story. What's the difference. Doesn't make a difference. I don't know. Right. So I mean, I mean, I think the character makes the plot plot makes the character. It's all one thing, you know it's all connected. You know the Hamlet. The Hamlet the character or the guy who's trying to decide what to do about his recently dead deceased dad. You know he can't make up his mind I suppose him not being able to make up his mind or thinking things a lot about things a lot might make the story but also the circumstances make the story it's all one that's story is a is of, you know, moments character moments, you know, I mean it's it's connected, it's connected I don't think it's, I don't think it's helpful to sort of separate them although I know people do. Yeah, it hasn't helped me particularly. You know, yeah, I've I've always heard it as a separate as like, you know, either a plot driven writer or a character driven writer but I'm like but ultimately maybe I mean you think of or die hard. I forget the guy's name, Bruce Louis actor. Yeah, but the character okay so you know, I mean is that a plot driven story movie or is that a, is that a character driven movie I mean I don't know. It's a cool story about a dude who's doing shit. I don't know and I'm sure the people have answers to those questions. I don't know if they're necessarily helpful to what you're working on right now. Right, your character doing what are they doing right now, what are they, you know, right. And I think what do they do next. What happens. Right. Yes, that's plot maybe it's character maybe it's character action. You know, plot character action to me it's, it's, you know, yeah, I'm sure it's a worthy conversation. It's not a conversation that helps me write anything. So, but other people I'm sure have profited from it greatly. I think so. You know, I'm just like what are you characters doing. Cinderella is that a plot story or a character story. Right. Yeah, yeah. People people make distinctions and or I think they're trying to be trying to find clarity. If it helps them. So did I just write it. Yeah, character doing what are they doing right now. What are they doing five minutes from now what do they want. What are they going to get it. Right. Bruce Willis character. What does he want to go home for Christmas, something like that. I don't know. Okay. Well, he's got a whole thing called die hard to get through. I mean, and I that's as much about the film as I know. So there you go. Got it. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, that's helpful. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thanks everybody for all of your questions. We're right at time. So it was lovely to have you all in the space. And we'll be doing it again same time next week. Yeah, thanks, Lily. Thank you. Thank you all for showing up.