 So, for those of you who haven't been here before, this is my part of the lobby of Hope Theatre, and this is Watch Your Work. And this is a play, and we've been selected, carefully selected to participate in this play. So, we're going to do it together. We're going to do the action together. We're going to work for 20 minutes, and then we're going to do the dialogue of the play together. And the dialogue consists of you asking me questions about your work and your creative process. So, what's your name? Adam. Oh, Adam. He's here. So, he's like the first person in the universe. So, what we'll do, you know, so your work is your creative process. So, Adam, as everybody else here knows, and if you try to ask me a question about my work, I'm going to make it not yours. I'll vote for you. Okay. So, yeah. So, the me and the title is actually you. So, that's what I mean. And what else? It's a play. It's a free writing class. We're going to work for 20 minutes, and we're going to talk for as long as how or how that says. And those of you who are out there in there into Earth, we have Matt behind the camera, and Angie behind the sound thing. And Anika's going to tell us how to get in touch with us, whatever, blah blah blah. Hi, everybody. Thank you for tuning in at home. If you are watching this right now from your house, your laptop, wherever, after 20 minutes or up, wow, there's something moving. Something really loud. They're in hard hats. They're in hard hats. It's definitely working. Do you want a pink one like that one? We'll get a pink hard hat for next time. Tune in next week. So, what's going to happen is after 20 minutes, you guys can get on Twitter and you can tweet us your questions. You can find us at SLP, watch me work SLP, which is on Twitter. And you can also use the hashtag HowlRound, which is H-O-W-L-R-O-U-N-D. And everybody is mouthing that along with me. So, if you didn't catch that, it's hashtag HowlRound. And we will take your questions and give it to SLP. There you go. And I will make up answers. That's perfect. So, thanks. Okay, so we're going to start the timer. And I'm going to be on the timer also. Yep, great. Okay, I'm going to get behind the desk because it might take like... Oh, Ryan's here again. How are you doing, Ryan? Good. Yeah! Okay, okay. Well, that's the day. You didn't hear that series. So, that's the class like... Is it talking action? I was like, oh, yeah. And they were like, what about ladies for good health? But I didn't realize it does. So, I got home like, they're waiting you. This is like, yeah, you're right. They're just like, no, they're waiting. Okay, but that has nothing to do with what we're doing right now. Almost nothing. So, this is where you... If you have questions... Oh, your name is like... Oh! Oh! Myself. Okay, yeah. How are you? I'm great. It was your birthday once when you were here. It was, yeah. And you were like, right? But not so high. I'm in a chair over there. Oh, like over there. Come on. Welcome back. How are you? Great, yeah. Maybe you just have answers. Anybody have any questions? Yeah, Adam. I have kind of a more general question than about like, work specific. Sure. So, have you ever seen something or read something that is, you know, which is, you blew you away. You're just so amazed by it. And then afterwards, when you kind of... kind of sat down to work, you just kind of felt like, I'm never going to, like, match that. And if so, how were you able to overcome that? Right. So, when you read something, and it blows you away, and you go, oh my God, so great. And then you sit down to do your own work. And you say, but I'm never going to be... I had a friend who used to say, I'm never going to be... Who was it? Dusty. Dusty. So, why bother? I was like... Whoa, that's heavy. But you know, so you sit down and you go, you know, wow, you're blown away by someone's wonderful work. And then you go, how do I get going with my own work? So, there are two answers to that question. Or there are probably a lot more. But some of us professionals, we have, you know, it's like, some people are culture holders and some people stay on the work. So, a lot of times, people who stay on the work and we selectively go out and see stuff. So, that's number one. So, we're very, very selective. So, we're all in the community here. We're all wanting to support everybody and everything. So, a lot of times, come to my show, come to my show, come to my show, come to me. And we feel obligated, you know, but we have to be selective. So, you have to be in the exercise saying, you know, I know that. You know, I'm not able to do this time around. So, there's that. You're saying no. Which means you're saying yes to yourself. Number one. Number two, when you do see that wonderful play and you're like, oh my God, I've got wonderful, whatever. You do that great job. You do that great song. You show up to do your work the next day and you feel, where do you feel that feeling? Like, where? When I sit down. At home. To be honest, it was like, right after I'd, I'd just listened to the Hampton soundtrack. And, you know, I, you know, it wasn't, I hadn't even sat down to do work. It was more just like, I finished listening to it and it just kind of, it kind of froze me up. Like, I wasn't even trying to do work. At that point I was like, should I even bother trying to do work? I mean, like, I got over it. Yeah, sure. But, you know, I just, I was interested to hear how other people might, like, deal with that kind of thing. Well, how did you get over it? I mean, I just kind of thought, well, you know, I played Memo Miranda, or Stephen Sondheim had thought, well, I can't do that. That he would have been for Hamilton, so I figured I might as well go ahead and just try anyway. I suppose I make it about you if you ask me a question about me. I, I think I said I looked forward to it. So, but that's important, you know. You say, yeah, sure. Everybody has experienced seeing something wonderful. Everybody has made something wonderful and has had experience of seeing something wonderful. Maybe it's possible to do it to make something wonderful without having seen something wonderful. But I don't think so. I'm gonna go out and learn. It's never happened. Because, you know, like, there's the sunrise. And if you're, you know, your eyes don't work, you've heard a beautiful sound. So, you've had experience with something that blew your mind. Or if someone's heard you or something as great as happened. And the question is, how do I make something beautiful and brilliant? If you wake up in the morning look at the sunrise and you walk in. How am I gonna do that? Oh, yeah. Let me do your, add your contributions because that's really what it's about. Making your contribution. Good question. Great answer. Adam? Do we have any use of that one? We've got a question from German. From German? Yes. His name's German... Moonos? German? I'm sorry, if I... I think German. So, how do you spell it? Well, it's M-U-N-O-Z. That's his last name. M-U-N-O-Z. His name is German. His first name's German. Oh, cool, okay. So, perhaps he's not a German. But he's a German, at least. Yes. Hi, we love German. We do, actually. He asks, how do you get to know your characters? Do you get to know them before you write or as you write? Right. I would say, I would say, why don't you get to know your characters as they're writing? Right? It's like dating. I mean, everything. So, German, everything I'm just saying is either like dating or whether it's in class or Spiderman. But not necessarily dating Spiderman. He just says his name's pronounced hair man. Hair man. Hair man. Her mom. Her mom. There we go. I'm so sorry. Her mom. But it's with the... That's not how it looked on Twitter. Hair man. Hair man. Hair man. Hair man. This is Dutch. Yeah, he's Dutch. I have a very close friend who's German. Whatever. Anyway, but I don't think it's that person. Anyway. So, I would suggest getting to know your characters while you're writing. You know, you do a little preliminary work before you write, and then you jump in and get to know them that way. Like dating, right? So, you get to... Someone says, I have this wonderful person here to be. Right? And they tell you all about them. But what is that really going to tell you? Like, a little bit. Or if you do the online dating thing, you're going to have to decide today, you know? You don't know so much about someone before you actually get intimate with them. And that's what you do when you write. You're getting intimate with your characters. So, you can sort of have a little character sketch. Like, he's 35. He doesn't bathe. He lives in a yurt. Has a goat. Like that. And then, you know, and then there's Joe. And then you start to do things to get to know Joe. You can do things like interview your character, which is a good way to do it. You just talk to him or her, like as you would, you know, in an interview situation with somebody. And then you kind of need to support each other. And you give them a story and you read another story to kind of move along. So it's a combination of both. The characters are going to reveal themselves through action. See? Someone said that like, Aristotle or something. Probably. Like Aristotle. One of those DWM's that we love so much. Anybody else? No, no, no. You just like, like, Ryan is just like, no, no, no, yes he is. I don't have a question. You don't have a question? Did you write those things down on this piece of paper? I did not. Oh, you did? I wanted to be surprised. That's great. That's why I wrote up a question. I had, I knew what I was going to write, but I didn't know what it is. When you're writing something autobiographical, do you step out of it? Right. On top of it or on top of it? Right. When one writes something that's autobiographical, how could one, how might one step outside of it? But that's such an issue for your question, you should ask me. Why don't you just be step into it? Get in it. You're like so outside of it. You're having like an out-of-body experience. If we know Ryan, Ryan Thompson, and we love and enjoy you, keep saying, get into it. Step in it. You know, you've got like, like the shit, the inner bit, sorry, the inner bit, the shit of it. Like, step in it. Like, go ahead. Step in it. You know, I would say get outside of it for you. Like, get some perspective. You know? Tell the story. Take a chance. You know? I mean, write like a really bad draft. Have you ever written like a really, really, really, really, really bad draft or something? I'm sure you have. Yes. Who's the right, so do that. Write a really bad draft. Like impress us with your, should be writing. I'm serious. This is how professionals work. I know because I'm a professional. I've been a professional for a long time. This is how we work. You know, the people who want it to be, like, perfect and right all the time, you know, they don't get so much done, you know, saying, well, those of us who are professionals who do it for a living, who, you know, are renting what Dr. Canada is producing work, rewrite shitty, shitty, shitty, shitty, shitty, shitty, shitty, shitty, shitty, shitty, shitty, shitty, shitty, shitty, shitty, shitty. shitty, shitty, On Friday, I went to a friend's play, Joe Boddy had a play called The Body of an American and was opening that material in theater. It's awesome, it's lovely. She directed the play. And I was like, yay! She's like, why are you so happy? I mean, I'm happy because she did such a good job directing this wonderful play. And a wonderful actress in it, Michael Cray and Michael Kompstein. And Dan Brown, the writer also. Lovely. And I was like, yay! She's like, why are you so happy? I'm like, yeah, your work is great. But I just finished this show. Usually you have to love writing. I was like, yay! That's how you do it. And then you make it better. Get in it. I mean, you don't have to write on no card or whatever I suggested. But, get in it. I think you're spending a lot of time thinking about it and outside of it already. We know you. We love you. We want your writing. And keep coming back because we love to have you here. No, yeah, no, that's it. Ha! Do you have tips on internalizing the possible? It's really good. Because I don't know about other people here, but I'm really good at possibly having real tendency to rationalize it in the other direction. So if somebody were to say, meh, your song sucks, man. You'd like to totally take that to heart. Yeah, it's like, oh, yeah. Yeah, of course it's good. Because I love you. Right, right. And if somebody says, meh, your song is like, it's so great. You'd be like, who are you talking to? I'm not even here. Or I'll be like, you're my friends. You're my friends, so. Yeah, guys can't have this. Okay. So, this, I mean, I don't know. I don't know the mom and dad. I don't know how you're raised. But it does sound like it's just, it's a, you what? How much time is it now? Yeah. I mean, keep coming and we'll talk about it. I mean, this is a problem that started, I would guess, a long time ago. So, you know, okay, so, but that's okay. I mean, that's okay, we can do this, I know. So there are a couple things. One, I tell my students, I love your, get used to hearing praise. It's a muscle. It's a habit that you have to give a habit of. Right? You have to train yourself to hear praise. Okay? What's good is that you're not one of those people who cannot hear, maybe they're free of that. Those people are called positive feedback. So, you're not one of those people, yay, hooray. Okay? You are someone who's like, can't hear positive feedback. So what you need is a, probably need to bombard yourself with positive feedback. That's one way to do it. Just like something that somebody should just do it. You have to then take it to somebody that you don't know so well and have them look at it and give your feedback. And just say, just give me the positive feedback. And also, you have to start talking to yourself and with your friends. Because what happens is that you're only like, maybe Hermann is German and he speaks German. So he has German in his head along with English. So, but most of us are like, how many languages do you speak? Okay, so one and a half. So you've got these languages in your head. It's the one language, right? You don't have another way of talking to yourself. You learn this from being very small. It's not a bad, it's not because of bad parenting. It's just the way it happens, don't be fooled. You have to create another groove in your mind, right? Do you have a meditation practice? Yes, I do. It's for acting. So it's for acting. Because what happens in meditation is you regroup your mind. Like a record. I know some of you don't know what it is. LP, you know, I mean they're coming back. Rhyal is like, it's a show called vinyl. Okay, so the vinyl, right? Yes. Those grooves. What you want to do is create new grooves in your mind where these positive things can live. And we're not talking about positive things as a BS and a more intense student. They're not real positive, real just basic positive things. You have to develop an ear for them. Can you carry a tune? Okay, some people do not carry a tune because some people a little bit fall like tone deaf or they have to, okay, they don't know, they can't hear. They can't hear it. You can't hear that. You have to work on that. It's actually something I've worked on. Meditation is what we do. So, I don't know, 20 minutes in the morning, sitting down in quiet, giving you the timer. Oh, 20 minutes, wait a second, it's 20 minutes. 20 minutes, the magical 20 minutes. When we start with 10 minutes, make it consistent every single morning. You get up in the morning, you like have a bathroom time, not a long time, just quick, and then you come and you sit on your meditation spot and you set your timer for 10 minutes and you just sit and breathe and close your eyes or whatever. And if thoughts come up, that's fine. What you're doing is preparing a space to receive new grooves because you have to create those grooves. And if you don't, the people who work on it now, it's only gonna get the most right exactly. They will widen and thicken and you will just become accustomed to listening to them and when you listen to them, the less, the less and less and less. Okay, let's start working on it now. Okay, so try that. So, we have a question from Alexis. Alexis Atkinson, and she sent us her picture so you can see what she looks like. Oh my gosh, she's a, no. Oh, you're Alexis from here. You just sit right here. Oh hi, Alexis. Why is she sitting there? It's Alexis. She, I'm sorry, she was here with her mom on that. And she'll be like, hi, Alexis. Hi, Alexis. So she came across something similar to a work she's finished and it was written by someone more respected than her. She says she feels like networking with them would make her liable for what she assumes plagiarism, should she network with them? She was recommended to network with them but she wanted to just sort of ask. So she wrote something and then she found something out there already written, like what she wrote. Similar to what she wrote, yes. Okay, but she didn't know it before. You didn't know it before. No, you're not plagiarist at the time. So, and then someone told her to hang out with this person? Yeah, she met them. And then it was suggested that she networked with them but she's afraid that she'll be accused of plagiarism. Network to what end, is she gonna say? Like, network for what? Like, I don't know. And so we asked Alexis, so Alexis, why? How can this person help you? Is it just to be like, they're fun to hang out with or you know, you can also tell them when you meet them. Hello, I wrote a play or a song or a book or whatever. It's kind of like yours. So, if we get to know each other, don't think I copy. You know, you can put that right out there, you know? That can help. As long as it's not me, I'll be cute. I don't know, to what end? I'm curious, why is this person a good person for a network with them? Okay, and we'll come back to that. Answer that, we'll come back to this. Like. You just came back to me. You just came back to me and you were like, I'm going to somewhere beautiful. He's huge. He's this big. He's four. He's like, hi, Riti, how are you? See, I usually bring him, but you know, I didn't bring him today. He's generous. Now he's, any day now, he's gonna be like, hey, I'll do you right in the shade of super big. Right, right. What next? Do you think we, as a collaborator, promise we'll do the rest of the trial? We'll figure out what it's gonna be. Right, that's a great question, Riti. So Riti has this question, after you write the shooting, should you do it by draft? What do you do? So you take your day off when you're done, right? You take a whole day off and do something nice. That's important. It doesn't have to involve spending a lot of money for buying things you don't need. Right, but it should be something that you enjoy. Okay, so you do that. And then you read over the draft all the way through, okay? Without rewriting as you go, just read it through and ask yourself, what does scene by scene, assuming it's a player, a screen player, whatever, see how it looks not all the way through, scene by scene, what is this scene trying to do? Am I doing it here? You know? Okay, and then you can think, what is the whole story? Is it kind of flowing? Okay, so you started the rewriting process by asking this question, right? So now this is like my personal. My personal, I don't finish a scene, should be made, made, draft, and then go looking for a collaborator, someone to help me fix it. You? I don't do that, because I feel like, I mean, I eventually, sure, I'm working with people, I'm working with book editors, I'm working with dramaturgs and directors and all that kind of stuff, right? Producers and stuff, so they don't, because if I'm rushing out to them with my shitty, shitty job, what I'm saying without saying it is, I don't know how to fix this, what I'm doing, help me, won't you help me Chloe, fix my play, right? Right? And what you need, what you mostly need is to know that you can do it, you can do this. So you wake up in the morning and say things like, I can do this, I just wake up, I wake up and go, I can do this, I can write this, I know how to write this, I'm gonna do it, say that, and say like, I don't know how to do it. You know what I mean? That's like, I'm really good at what I do. I'm a really good writer, why do you just try saying that, Rhett? Just say that to yourself. You don't have to like announce it on Twitter or whatever we're on right now. You know what I mean? Howl around, howl around. Rhett's a really good writer. He really is. No, he's not, no, not. I'm waiting for you to say that. No, but you know, you just say that, you start saying this kind of thing that sounds a little kind of corny or whatever, but so you say those kind of things, I can do this, I can do this. And you read the draft and you've taken notes now, what is this scene doing? What is it trying to do? And how can I make it better? Okay, and then after you've done maybe another draft or another draft even, then maybe you talk to a friend about it, show a friend the text, like that, then you bring a check, and you go see if you can draw a church or something. You know that? Because then what it does, you're giving yourself like a bullet of confidence and that's so important in the arts, instead of a vote of lack of confidence. What is it doing? What do I want it to do? What does it need to do? What is the screenplay need right here? I mean, Jane needs to tell him that she's leaving, because X, Y, Z, yeah, it doesn't really help. You know what I mean? So what is the screenplay need? What is the play need? What is the novel need right in this scene? Okay, is that clarified? So it's not like what should it do? I mean, it's kind of all those things alone, right? But I really think you like write a couple of drafts, two or three, and then show it to people. That doesn't mean like you can write two or three drafts, you come in here and you talk to us about it, like, hey, you know, I got a problem with the character bubble and we can talk to you about it, but we are not going to take your pages and look at them and render judgment. The act of rendering judgment in the early days resides in you, because you know it. He's cute, he's diagnosed. I'll show you pictures, he's cute. Yes. We're back from Alexis. Oh right, Alexis, oh yeah. All right, Alexis says this person's new play uses imagery like the imagery I use in my one woman show, and those helping me put it on think I should reach out and see about a mentoring or sort of sharing inspiration. But she thinks it's a bit more of a confidence thing. She feels like her work is no longer good enough because somebody more powerful and well-connected has something seemingly similar to say. Yeah, I'm trying to think, because Alexis sat here a couple of weeks ago and we were talking about she started something and then she stopped it and she started something. Is that true, Alexis? I mean, I don't want to... She was here in December and you told her that she had a week to finish something. Right, because she kept starting something and stopping and starting something. So everything I believe, I'm just saying it's true, Alexis, but maybe also you're blocking yourself. You're finding a way to not feel good about what you're doing, even though you've already finished something and you're happy with it, you're finding a way to not feel good about it. So, because, you know, if we look far and wide enough, there's always somebody who's also saying something like kind of what we're saying, something like that. Or our mother isn't gonna like to play or our grandmother's gonna maybe have a heart attack because we vote about that or our lover's gonna leave us or whatever, whatever. You know, there's always a reason to not write something. So should she network with the person then? Because you're gonna feel, are you gonna feel better by networking with this person? Isn't that a question? Go work and do what makes you feel really good. So if you're gonna network with this person and feel worse because they've already kind of like shot your law for you, excuse my language. You know what I'm saying? Then don't meet with them, Alexis. Like stay home and do your white writing. That's what I would suggest. Don't meet with them. You don't need to meet with them. I don't think you need to meet with them, quite honestly. Like, who is it like, Edward Albee? Are you gonna go and meet with Edward Albee because he like road-playing like yours? You know what I'm saying? Don't meet with Edward Albee as wonderful as he is. I mean, he's cool, but stay home and do your work and get your confidence building up like you said to Ricky from inside. You know, confidence, it's an inside job. Get the confidence going from the inside. Surround yourself with people who love you and who are afraid to tell you this. Come back here. Come visit us. Oh, well, you're so thoughtful. I was mind-chattaged into a novel. I thought I'd probably rent something or show something to publish it weekly. It was. It sounded often like what I was doing. Right. And so I had that feeling that you're having now. But what turned out was that made me go more deeply into my own story and it came out a much better movie. Because I used that as inspiration. I thought I should do better. See? See, Carol's smart. I gotta say that. Carol's smart. Carol got tricks, that's it. Carol's like, you shit for fuel. This is what I said. I'm sorry. That's not, I'm sorry. But, you know, use that weird fear thing for inspiration. You shit for fuel. I mean, it works for what's his name. Do anything you've been. But, you know, that's what he blew up over all the season. For life. So, it's time, and I just said, I just said it's like getting to that point where we have to go. What's the time? We have to go. Yeah, we gotta tell them about next week. Okay. What's happening next week? We're gonna get next week. We're gonna get next week. And you guys have been great. Thank you. Thank you. We love you. And yeah, see you next time.