 Let's see what the question is for you. I don't want to. Okay, so this is Watch We Work and this is where parks are in the lobby of the public theater. Oh, I'm sorry, TV, don't be loud, talk down. This is Kansas Commission. This is Watch We Work, we're in the lobby of the public theater. This is where parks are. And what is today? I'm sorry, before I start, I don't know. We are here today, next week, we're going to have Watch We Work, because Susan Murray is going to be a band cat, playing old-timey music, and trying some vlogging. There's a hillbilly in all of them. Behind your inner hillbilly, where, it's called the Shelton, which is a really cool place. Up there, that way. North, north, but we're sorry. I'm sorry, we're out of business. No, you can't be here. Oh, it's Shakespeare camp. I like to watch the young people. Anyway, so we're here, we're going to work for 25 minutes, and we're going to talk for about an hour. And if you guys haven't been here before, some of you have been here. You guys aren't going to start when you've been here? No. Are you guys new? Ah, are you new? No? I mean, you're new to me. No, you're not new to me. No. You don't bring me home. So this is what we do. This is a play that is happening right now. And it's also a mediatrical free writing class. I know. I don't know. And this is how it works. We create the action together for 30 minutes. 25 minutes by working together on what we want. Most of it's your writing, but anybody can do anything, any kind of what you want. And then we create the dialogue together by asking questions. So you guys will ask me questions about your creative process. Okay? So watch me work. It's a little tricky because the meeting is actually for you. You look great. Yeah. And so we're going to do that. Okay? So we're going to be basically, you know, you get to talk to me about your work. Basically. And if you're online in the interwebs and you want to tweet us, because I'm back on Twitter. So yeah, follow me on Twitter. I don't know what I'm doing, but follow me. So I watch you work. I still see hashtag and you play. This is Roxanna. I wrote it. This is Roxanna. She helps me remember what to say. So watch me work. You have someone in the hashtag. This is great. It's always better when there are a few distractions. And remind me afterwards about the works. Okay. Okay. So let's see. Ask me questions about your creative. And if you happen to forget and ask me a question about my creative process, I'm going to be like a really good girlfriend. I'm going to talk about you. Somebody, right? So you back me up a second. To my name. One of them in. So does anybody have a question or a comment or a spot? A pearl of wisdom. Why do you judge your ideas before they're fully realized? Huh. Huh. So you have, I'm guessing, what's your name, sir? Ian. Ian. So I'm guessing you, like so many of us might have ideas of why don't you judge your ideas before they're fully realized. Yeah. I've been thinking about this because I have something that you know, we evolved anyway you want to look at it. We're here from having not been here. Okay. And the things we have have some sort of purpose. Okay. So there's a wonderful book I'll remind everybody about in a minute. It talks about how we don't want to step outside the boundaries of the tribe. So our self-judgment keeps us within the boundaries of the tribe. So that's part of it. I started thinking about what if your inner race was initially just confident. You know, when you say like back in the day, like way back when we were all like more like, you know, less, whatever. And you were hundreds of others or girls or whatever. And you were alone, hunting. Say you had some hunter out there, wherever, right? And you're alone. Maybe your inner voice was company. Because ordinarily when you come home you're with your piece, right? When you're out alone or the next time it's like a mile away, you have company in your head. It takes the place of maybe the higher spirit maybe after a while. And it gets, unlike my higher spirit, it's attached to things in the world. I have to catch that flow of that beast because if I don't, it'll laugh at me. You know, so you're stupid. You got to catch it this time. So you're inner voice of company against the attached to things in the world. And it becomes negative self-talk. But if before it was just like the base of the spirit, they're keeping company. Over time, hope got attached to things in the world. And maybe that's all it is, history. Sort of the lesser version of the great voice in here. You know? So your idea, if you had that, and I know that might have sounded really complicated, but if you had that inner voice that's... You want to hear me okay? If you hear me okay? If you had that inner voice of negativity that says before you're finished something, oh man, that's so good. Or it'll never get published or performed or re-named it or we'll never finish it or you should be doing something else or whatever. You have to learn to work in spite of it. Okay? And know that chances are it's not speaking the truth. It's just speaking. It's just the sound of your, basically your, one's insecurity or fear. We had someone here, his name is Dan, last week. He's not here today. He was talking about, man, I might need to have to do something and I started having these thoughts, second thoughts about it. And then we had someone else. I think first of all, he was also not here to say she has the same thing going on. But they're different. Her second thoughts sound different. His second thoughts might be, ah, it's not going to be good. Her second thoughts are, what is that long thing to think about this? Same person. Your job is to cut through that. And know that your voices are mediated, whatever they are, our old limit of something that was useful at one time. You know? Okay, so someone did this thing. You know, we say this, that's an actual thing. I have to kill it. I have to, you know, get control of it. No, it's just, it's just, you know, like you don't need to hold your mom's hand when you cross this. Or if you do, you maybe need to keep her, you know, come for her. But, you know, you started your little, you held to your, you know, caretaker, your parent's hand here. And then you probably need to do that. You know? You could let go of some of those important things that you've grown up with. Yeah. So, how do we get, how do we work with that? Regular practice is really good. Regular practice, daily practice. Everyday. In one of these books, it says five minutes a day is better than an hour a week. You know what I mean? Five minutes a day. So working every day for five minutes is better than saying, I'm going to work an hour on Saturday morning. Okay? The regular daily practice. It's just like exercising. Daily practice. Yeah, so I'm not going to be here. So I'm not going to be here next to the music camp, band camp. And then the following, I have to go back to Los Angeles. So, I have some books. Like if you, I don't know, I really like to read books about writing. So here's some good ones. There are lots of books, there are millions of millions of good books about writing. Here are three that I happen to be looking at right now. One is a book called Daily Rituals. And it's, it was applied. Mason Curry. And it's just, you know, the stories of great artists and how they work or try to work every day. You know, does anybody know, has anybody heard of the writer at Bible? What's his name? Tawler. Anthony Tawler. Famous writer. He was famous for like setting a timer and having a word output. You know, X number of words per hour every day. And people are really amazed that he could do that. He wrote lots and lots of novels. I mean, really good novels. And this book talks about how he probably got the habit from his mother, Francis Trawler, mother of six with an invalid husband who'd get up at like four in the morning and write for a certain amount of hours every day. So just knowing that. Wow, people have these habits. And if you're an artist, I'd love you to have it like this to sort of keep yourself on track. It's a really good thing. The second book, of course, is The War of Art, which is a really great book. By Steven Presto, I was looking at it today and I just happened to go into the page. I thought, oh my gosh. It says, the best and only thing that one artist can do for another is to serve as an example and an inspiration. That was pretty cool. And this book, I just picked up a little book of talent. It's a pretty good book. I like, you know, they're all like the same size. And they all have a little bit of red in the cover. I mean, they're portable. And this has all these kinds of little short things that help you stay focused. And it does talk about how five minutes a day is better than one hour a week if you're marketing, if you're sort of budgeting your time. So those are good books. So, anybody else have any answers? Yes? You were talking about the core, about when the hunter went out. Yes. And the voices he heard were, in fact, a company. Right. And I was thinking this week about the absence of silence. Right. And without that silence, I think it's something you said. When I sit down to write, I try to listen to what characters are saying, telling me. Right. But that listening cannot be done. Maybe. Maybe. What? Maybe. And you said that listening cannot be done. There's no silence. Yes. Just put nothing in that. What are they doing? It gives me space, right? Right. Space between the chatter. Right. And the real place. Right. So how do you find the space? And you have a busy life. You know, I mean, you could live in an noisy apartment. Okay. So a lot of us live, right? There are a few of us. I don't know why. I don't have a country house. But you know, some of us might. You might live in a noisy apartment or have a noisy neighbor's upstairs, downstairs, or outside. You might have, you know, responsibilities to other family members. And they might be noisy. How do you create space? I mean, you can hear the midst of outside noise. The noise that you need to focus on doing something about is the noise in here, right? Yeah. Yeah. So you know, so if you have noisy neighbors and you can write earplugs and focus. It's the chatter in here that makes it difficult. I wasn't talking about the actual, oh, the sound in the neighbors. Right. Or I'm talking about the silence that, you know, media provides. That's outside noise, right? That's all outside noise. That constant environment takes away, you know, say, CNN is on. We're talking about, oh, so many Palestinians are killed. We're seeing the face of this beautiful child behind. Right. And so all of those things that people have been writing to you and you've got thoughts about. Right. And you have thoughts and feelings, bro. Right. From the mundane to, you know, your family. Yeah. Yeah. We are so involved with that, which isn't noise. It's just no silence. It's constant. It's constant. So what do you do? So what do you do? And what I do is I meditate to get to that place. Yeah. A meditation practice. If those of you who don't have yet a meditation practice, you can start all. Think about starting one today, tomorrow, five minutes, sitting, breathing. You have a timer. I would recommend not using your phone because the phone is the gateway to CNN. If they are alive, so people who are, you know, probably not as crazy as you are, and they are having a hard time. So maybe not use your phone, maybe get a timer, you know, $10 timer, and a computer check. What do you feel like? It's been helpful for three years. To have a routine. That's not necessary to get your form done to go in and take writing. Right. Read a journal. Right. Or allowing yourself to have a meditation practice while you're at it. To get your aspirin to go quiet. It's absolutely great to listen to your song. Right. To listen to your family. Yeah. And then you get that writing back. Right. Thanks, gals. Right. Right. Absolutely great. That's great, too. So there are two different things that I want to distinguish from it. Because your meditation practice can happen. You can get up in the morning. I get up in the morning and I sit in my meditator 20 minutes every day. I don't then go and write. And I take my Sunday day care. So, right. So that's how my day starts. But you can sit and meditate in the morning. I don't need to go whenever you can. You have a busy job. You can find the time to meditate. And you can do your own subway if you want. Meditation, great practice. Help still mind over the course of the day. And through your sleep. And allow your clarity of focus. And this kind of thing. We're talking about what Murakami talks about in the rituals. You go to write a Murakami. He says, he mesmerizes how to meditate. He says, he mesmerizes himself into writing. So he has a routine. He'll relate every morning at a certain time. And he'll work. And then he'll go running. Or swimming. Or boat. Every single day. And he talks about mesmerizing himself. Hypnotizing himself. I mean, your routine. My routine can be anything you want. But you're full. But that's it. Even if it's a 10 minute routine. It doesn't have to be an all day thing. You know? You play stales for three minutes. Write your journal for two minutes. And then spend the remaining 10, you know, of your 10 minute writing time. And working on your play. Or your novel or your screenplay. Or your grant. Or your painting or whatever you do. You can do it 10 minutes. You can do it 5 minutes. Okay? It's just a wonderful thing. It's good. I guess it was. Awesome. Why isn't there 5 minutes today? It's better than one hour a week. Why is 5 minutes today better than one hour a week? It seems like what you get on the train is going to stay on the train. And stay focused. But 5 minutes. You've been in this short writing time. Right, right. How much do you get accomplished in this short time? As opposed to a one hour between the hour block? No. I'll tell you why. I recently wrote this one a year ago. I started learning to play the banjo. And I have a very busy day. And I also play the instruments. So I was learning some new. I only had 5 minutes today. I would sit down. I mean, I read that from the book. But I would sit down and just do it 5 minutes a day. Every single day. See, if you practice something every single day, it creates a groove. If you just practice it once a week. See, you want to eat healthy. I'm only going to eat healthy on Sunday. I want to eat healthy. I'm going to add something healthy into my diet every single day. You see how it's a different kind of thing? You get into a habit. Your mind gets to a habit. Your mind, if you find and work every single day, even if it's just a little bit of diet, your mind starts working on your work. Or you're not working on it. You carry it around with you all the time. I do yoga all five years a week. My mind is doing yoga more often. Seven days a week. And even then I'm not thinking about it. I'm thinking that you're a friend of mine. So yeah, so just think of... Try it. Try it. Because people with busy schedules, sometimes they have five minutes a day. Use that five minutes a day. Don't wait to do that thing you want to do one day a week. Because you won't be in the habit. And I think of running, also. You know running for five minutes a day, it's better than trying to run for an hour every Saturday. It's also not discouraging you from taking an hour a day if you have it. It's also not discouraging you from taking an hour a day if you have it. You don't only try five minutes a day, but some people just don't have time to do it. Exactly, exactly. What you mean? Samantha. Exactly, Samantha. Right, we're not saying only do five minutes a day. We're saying if you only have five minutes, you're not going to be discouraged from doing it an hour or longer. Definitely. Simply, if you have an hour a week, two hours is fantastic. Definitely. A certain type of writing for five minutes every day. Does it suggest practicing a certain type of writing, did you say? Yeah, like writing for a theater or something a little different from being a journalist and writing for your everyday job. Does that count? Right, so you have an everyday job that you have to get deadlines. Right. Right, so, and you, I'm assuming you get your journalist to probably get financially compensated for your job. So you have more than five minutes a day to work on it, is that correct? Well, unlike work, but not like stuff I really want to work on. Great, so... No, so you're a journalist, so if you have eight hours a day that you have to work on your articles and whatnot, right, because you're trying to get deadlines, right, and then you only have five minutes a day to work on your poem or your song or... another article and then also like that as a toilet. Okay, so you're, we'll say you're a quote-unquote creative or you're a non-journalist. You're other work. Yeah. Okay, so you have a little bit of time to work on that. If I say, if I only have five minutes, that's gonna be enough. If that's all the time you got, that's all the time you got. Better to be okay with that and sit down five minutes and you're focused for five minutes when you're maybe writing in your notebook about it. Maybe you're talking to a tape recorder about it. You know, maybe you just speed through writing on a computer about it. Wait! Time goes off, five minutes has been when you have to go on to your other responsibilities. That's all the time you've got for right now for ten, for ten, and it's all the time you need. Is the goal then to get better or to finish what you're writing? To get better to get better and to go right in the five minutes today or like to finish what you're writing? The goal is to... The goal is to show up every day. The goal is to talk, just to talk every day and be there for five minutes. That's the goal. And then, you know, everything else is like, well, let's see. You know, but that's the goal. That could be the goal because with your journalism, with your articles, you have deadlines. And I think they're very good because your professional they're very good at making those deadlines. So we are questioning your life, oh, is she a slouch? We're going to take our hand off that, you know, and we trust that you can do it. But what we want to do is encourage you to show up and be like, those things that maybe right now we're getting pushed out, like you took me off the table because you don't feel like you have time to do them. You see, we want to find a way to get them to see that you're telling them even if it's only for five minutes, but really comes into play. Are you sure about that? Is that enough for my goal? What advice do you have for negotiating when you're working on multiple projects? Like right now I'm writing two plays in a book. Same time. At the same time? Yeah. At the very same time? I mean, not, I won't sit down and write all three at once. But in my life, those are three ongoing projects. Great. So I do, have you ever heard of something called a Lazy Susan? Yes. Great. I love this. This is part of my name. Great. So the Lazy Susan, are you doing some real affortune? I don't think, you know, you know that they would be going to a restaurant. The Lazy Susan, maybe a brother or a character they would have, J.B. Susan, they have only one comment. So the Lazy Susan, you put your projects, different parts of the Lazy Susan. You used to be at your city in one spot and you turn and for five minutes a day you work on your play, number one. And you turn the wheel and ten minutes a day you work on your novel or your book. And then you turn the wheel and fifteen minutes a day you work on your second play. Or you can do it, week number one, you're working on your first play. Take a break from that, week number two, you're gonna work on your novel. Take a break from that, week number three, you work on your second play. You see? Yeah, I work on several projects, projects at one time. I sometimes do a day and work on this project. Then tomorrow I'm gonna work on this one. The next day I'm gonna work on that one. Or a couple days in the pieces. Yeah? You can be done. Anybody else? You have like thirty-seven months? Fifteen. Does that talk about books? Yes. So, you know, Black Power? I love doing that. Black Power means your time is up. Come on. That's what it really means, right? It's so fair. Okay, well we're good. Have a good couple of weeks, I'll see you later. It's good timing for a big game. It's all work. It's all work. It's all work. It's all work. It's all work. It's all work. It's all work. It's all work. It's all work.