 That okay, it's that time of day whoops got to turn on the video. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hey, hey, hey, it's that time of day. It's time for watch me work. We're going to do it today, just like we do it pretty much every Monday. We're going to work together for 20 minutes. And then we're going to talk about your work and your creative process. We've been doing this show since like 2009. So tell your friends, if they haven't heard about it already and some people go, Why do I want to get online and watch you work. Let me explain it again. It's about you to me and the title is you and we're here to talk with you about your work and your creative process. And it's a lot of fun, and we all get work done. So if you want to ask a question during the Q&A time. We'll tell you how to do it go lolly. Yeah, so if you want to ask a question and you're here in zoom with us, you can click the raise your hand function which is in the reactions tab at the bottom of your screen. If you have any trouble accessing that feel free to message me in the chat and I will help you out. If you're watching the live stream on howl round you can feel free to send us your questions via the public theaters Twitter or Instagram account or via watch me works Twitter account, which is at watch me work SLP with the hashtag howl around that's hashtag howl howl. Awesome, great. Okay. And yeah, here it is on my very messy desk today. Here is the timer, and here is the time here we go 20 minutes, bam. All right, all right, all right. Here we are. Now we're in the talking part. So if anybody has any questions about their work or their creative process, let's do it. Please. Awesome, Rebecca. You should be able to unmute yourselves. Hey, sister, how you doing? All right, Susan Lore, how are you? Well, I'm well. Good to see you. Good to see you too. How's the writing going? How's the work? Um, the work is, is happening. I've been working on, I've been working on a piece about John Henry. Oh, I don't know. And I'm trying to decide kind of what to do with it because it's turning out to be quite lengthy. Originally, I was going to put it on my medium side. It's, um, John Henry was, there's a book, an actual writer who did an investigation and found John Henry's grave. John Henry was actually a convict. He was, he was convicting, it was during the black codes and he was convicted of something probably standing on the street corner and, and I'm using it to think about essential workers during COVID and what it means to not have control over the conditions of your labor. Um, and I'm, I'm not quite sure where to, like, what to do with it. And, um, and, uh, yeah, I mean, I, I suppose I could, I could certainly pitch it to a couple of, of magazines like Guernica or maybe yes, but, um, I feel like it's a conversation that hasn't really sort of been had the way that, the way that workers were abused during COVID and continue to be abused, um, in, in those same sectors of, you know, fulfillment, order fulfillment and healthcare and other retail settings. Um, and I, I'm not sure it's very interesting yet, which is, I guess, probably the bigger problem. Um, so I'm, I'm trying to figure out how to make it engaging for, for folks so that they read, you know, my usual problem, how do I make it engaging so people read the horrible parts? That's great. Uh-huh. What do you think, what do you think you can do to make it? What do you think you can do to make it engage? I mean, it sounds pretty engaging already, but what do you think? Um, well I think part of it, I like, I like to put in um, song lyrics as kind of to break up sections of things I'm working on. Sometimes it's just one or two and sometimes it, depending on, on the, the piece and it's, it's always old songs, like from, you know, from the 1927 flood or, um, you know, there's like 100 John Henry songs, apparently. Um, but also, uh, so that to me is kind of fascinating and, um, I, I don't know how to person, you know, add any personal stuff here, not to insert myself into it, but to, you know, make it more, um, related to my daily life. There are, there are pieces I've written about, was, um, since Katrina that, you know, I've connected to my travel and, and that, you know, so I have things I can say, but this is, this is much more sort of rooted in, um, you know, that double entry accounting was, was perfected in the sugar plantations and that, that then becomes a standard for work. And then that standard for work is imposed on, on convicts and other folks and that becomes scientific management and, and the way we engage in management today grows out of enslavement. So, you know, that's, that's kind of the overview. That's the larger, I want, I want John Henry to be the the, kind of the avatar of that reality. What got you thinking about him? Um, I was, I was doing research on, uh, while ago on, on communist work songs in the rural south with black workers. Um, and this book came up and then, and then I realized this was about the black codes and, um, I found a manuscript of these work songs from the communist organizing in the south in the 10s in the 20s, 1910s and 1920s. Um, and then I read Accounting for Slavery, which, um, talks about, because a friend of mine is an accountant said, you have to read this book. So I read the book and it's about how cotton plantations, first sugar plantations and cotton plantations really perfected double entry bookkeeping and task management. And I, I love that stuff. So, um, and it got me thinking about sort of this, you know, fake movement of DEI and how it has really nothing to do with essential workers. So that's kind of the place I was headed. It's like, oh, essential workers are much more like, you know, workers of the early 20th century than they are like, you know, tech firms, although they are firing them right and left, but like media firms that, you know, have these fake approaches to, to equity in their organization. So, so that's kind of where it's been. And I've been back and forth on this for about six months, trying to figure out a way to make it interesting and also where it should go. So. Do you read, um, sub-stack at all? I'm going to turn on the light here. I have one sub-stack membership. But what are you recommending? I think, I love sub-stack. You know, it's a cool place to where you can find all sorts of great articles and you can of course have your own, you know, there. I think it's kind of a cool, I don't know, I just came to mind because I mean, I don't buy magazines, you know, but I do read that kind of thing. Medium is also good. You mentioned that already, you know. Yeah. Then you can, then it's not just about you approaching an entity. You know what I mean? It's about you establishing yourself or continuing to establish yourself as someone who writes cool things that people would be interested in. Yeah. I wasn't, I've had a thought about sub-stack, but I, I haven't sort of gone in to see kind of how it works and, and, but it's been on my radar a little bit. You know, there's some really cool writers on there. You know, I've enjoyed, you know, cruising around there and finding cool stuff to read. Well, I'll have to investigate it. Because I don't want to pitch it and have it sit someplace for 12 weeks. That's what I'm talking about. That's, so I think, I think you could get around that because it would be you putting something out there. Wouldn't be you pitching it. I don't, I don't think that's how sub-stack works, but I might be wrong. No, I think it's, it's creating a site and then inviting people to it. So, yeah. So I think for me, the quandary was pitching or not. And then the pitching it really, the, the voice and content has to go be a certain way that may not, I think it's hard for me to match up my approach with that sometimes. You just eliminate that. Eliminate the middle people. Unless they live in the earth, you know what I mean? Just, you know, the gatekeepers, you know, we, we, we don't, you know, the gatekeepers are, you know, sometimes the gatekeepers are not helpful. Yeah. Yeah. So just, you know, if we can find ways to just not have to interface with them then, and just get our work out there. Yeah. Yeah, I'm recognizing that. So as I'm trying to pitch the book, the manuscript, the longer piece, sort of waiting around for people to publish stuff is not helping me. So I mean, I get about one thing a year published and, and I'm not unhappy with that, but right now I need more to happen. So, so I can point them to things then that might, that has, and I can generate some followers that would probably go. Definitely. All right. Good question. Sounds like a really cool project yet again. Sounds like a cool project you're doing, Rebecca. Yeah, I'm going to rein it in and try to finish it. So thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you, Rebecca. Up next we have Myra. You should be able to unmute. Hi, Myra. So I'm still working on the same book that I was working on the last time I was coming to these. Huh? Cool. Yes. So I, but I am, I'm finding that there are parts of it that are, that have gotten away from me because I spent way too much energy and space on them. And I'm, and looking back at it, I'm, I'm thinking, and especially like in areas where, because I've lived in a few unusual places and I, and I was, you know, just sometimes the descriptions and everything seemed to get away from me. I talked too much. And so I'm wondering, you know, I, I'm, I'm thinking I need, as was just said, to rein it in a little bit. And I'm not sure whether I need to just stop and go through things, you know, like a chapter at a time and start cutting or should I continue on and then do a big lob at the end. You know, I just don't know the best way to go about that. I've never worked with anything this long. Right. So it's a great question. So you're, how, how close are you to the end? Not very. I'm about halfway through, I think. Great. Okay. Okay. So it's, is it a, what kind of work is it? Is it a novel? Is it a play? No, it's, it's, it is my memoirs. And I have like, I've already written about 200 pages. So. Great. That's amazing. That's amazing. I would suggest, I'd suggest getting through to the end of where you want to, you know, stop in this, in this installment of your memoirs since there's more to come. I would suggest getting to some place where you could call it the end. You know, definitely. Now I would also just, you know, we just a general note for everybody, you know, we are constantly hypnotizing ourselves. And the best hypnotist you know is you. And the words that come out of your mouth go into your head. You can imagine, right? So, so we're saying things like, you know, you said I talked too much, you know, why you say that? Yeah. Well, because some, some topics I just seem to go on and on about. And I, you know, that's why I said that. Yeah. Maybe you have a lot to say. You know, I mean, I just, I'm just suggesting that we, we, we are, you know, mindful about the way we hypnotize ourselves. So, you know, it's 2023 and it's still January. So, yes, this is true. This is true. So I also heard Rebecca saying something about putting songs in between sections or something. I write a lot of music and I'm, and I, and a lot of it has to do with these sections of my life. And I was also going to put my own music in between the sum of the sections. It sounds great. Do you, do you use a music program to do the notation or you, how are you going to do it? I don't know. I've never done that before. So I, you know, I could, I could simply put lyrics or I could, I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. You could put lyrics in there and then you could record the, the music. If you also write music, you could record it and either transcribe it yourself or have someone transcribe it for you. It would be cool to see like pieces of music. That'd be cool. I thought. Okay. Well, thank you. That, that, those are two things that have been kind of on my mind about this. Go through to the end and then once you have the whole thing, then you can start going through and rewriting. It's two different kinds of energy, two different activities, writing and rewriting. So I would suggest to the end or where you feel is the end for this installment of your memoir and then, then you can get to the rewriting process. Okay. Yeah. That sounds good. Okay. Sounds better. I don't want to just stop myself. There you go. See. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Up next, we have Jillian. Hey, Jillian. Yeah. Good to see you. Good to see you too. So I want to say thank you for the last time I was on here. He helped me kind of come up with a writing technique. So I've been doing that and that's been very helpful. I guess now what I'm struggling with is and this is something when I was mining, you know, because when you write, you mine from experience, but you mine from like what else is happening in the world. And I'm actually writing a musical right now in two parts about, well, to be as simple as possible, Black Lives Matter. And I am very reasonably disturbed and emotionally, you know, cored from what we're experiencing right now. And it is hard for me to write in these moments. And I've been working on it for a while. And these moments being as cyclical as they are affect me in a way where it's difficult for me to write what I know I feel called to write and what I need to write in this moment, because I'm just feeling so much. And yeah, so it makes me want to not write about it and write about something that's completely fictitious and completely not related to what is happening in the world. So the problem I have with that is I have deadlines, so I have to write. So I guess what, yeah, because I have a read through next month at a theater or two theaters. So I just don't know how to maintain that creative energy, but not be worn down by what's happening. And I'm sure I'm not the only person who feels that way. I don't think it's a single experience, but I just kind of want to know your thoughts on that. Well, it's great that it sounds like a beautiful project. You have a deadline, you have people waiting to who are going to read your work, and you wonder how can you can get something. I would say, you know, when you show up at these theaters, show up with what you have. So you kind of not take the pressure off, but you can be reasonable with your situation. So you can say, well, I'm just going to show up with what I have. I'm going to cross the finish line to the best of my ability given the situation that I'm in. So that would be helpful, or you could do what I like to call you lower the bar. It doesn't have to be this high. I'm finished, and it's great, and it's wonderful. Everybody, you know, it can be this hard to look. It's not even in the screen anymore. You can come as you are. Be real. Be real. And that's okay. And I got to say honestly, if it's not okay in the theater, what, they diss you, or they like judge you because you know, blah, blah, blah, you don't want to work with them anyway. Yeah, fair. Yeah, just told you what they like. You don't want to be around them, you know, an organization that doesn't have the doesn't have any kind of compassion for an artist in their process is an organization that you don't want to be around. You know, you're not looking for you're being real. So also so that's how you get to the finish line. Anybody can. And you do also during the day, you know, do what you can. You know, do what you can. I mean, you know, you can ask yourself, why is it suddenly now suddenly it's harder than it was? You know, I mean, really ask yourself, you know, what, what, because what, what, because, because, you know, Tyra Nichols was killed by, I mean, I'm just gonna say Tyra Nichols was killed by some black men. You surprised that there's violence like that going on? No. Right. Yeah. Right. Okay. So, so you knew that already. Right. Yeah. I'm not, this is what you said, but I'm just saying for example, you knew that. So you're already writing about this subject, right? So, so, okay. Is it something that you'd rather not talk about me? Why? Oh, yeah. It's not that I, yeah, it's not that I don't want to talk about it. I think it's, it's, it's not that I didn't know the violence was there. I do and obviously as writers, that's what we're doing. We're reflecting these things, but I think it's the evolution of where it goes and this question I keep asking myself is, am I, am I internalizing this? Am I continuing this like examination or trauma or black trauma for entertainment? This sideshow, if you will, like the song Blue, like sideshow by Blue Magic came to me and I just listened to it on repeat and I was like, this is inspiring me right now and it felt, I guess it felt like that is like as an artist, you know, if I'm talking about this experience and I'm putting this on a stage, am I contributing to the problem? So I think that's part of it. How you do it, it depends how you do it. I tell writers all the time, I don't, I do not think that writers these days are schooled, trained, educated. I mean, number one, I do not think people these days have been taught, trained, educated, given the tools to grieve, to have nuanced conversations. Yeah. Just on a basic level. Okay. Yeah. People, we are taught to thumbs up, thumbs down, cancel. Yeah. I've laughed. These are not tools that are going to really get in there deep. You know what I'm saying? We save our biggest sort of slogans for this, you know, go deeper, go home, go bigger, these things, but we don't do it in life. Okay. Right. Yeah. So it only stands to make sense that artists, those of us who are called to be introspective and go deep. I mean, not that nobody else is, but that's, that's part of what we have to do are also, we have not been educated, school trained to do that. And so a lot of very, my screen is glitching. We get a lot of very, I would say, poorly written stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Which is called trauma-borne because we do not, we have not been taught how to process stuff. Yeah. And I know this, I say it with love and I teach it, you know, I mean, I teach here, I also teach at NYU. There is a difficulty. There's a disconnect. But I'm not surprised. I have an 11 year old kid. We have to teach him to basic things, basic, basic things. So there's trauma-borne because it's written by people who do not know how to write in a nuanced fashion. And so basically the regurgitating the 11 o'clock news. Yeah. Okay. So you might have to up your game. Yeah. Up your game and lower the bar. Yeah. No, I think that's a great point. And you made a great point because I think that is, that's the line. And I see it a lot with younger people who want to do theater in a lot of groups. They're like, we just want to see plays that aren't about, that aren't trauma-borne. We want to see plays where we're not in pain. And, you know, I didn't, I'm not setting out to write that. And that's not how I see it at all. But I guess there's this fear of being canceled or this fear of being pushed aside because, oh, this is trauma-borne. So these are the things I think that catch me in these moments, because I think it is that I feel a responsibility to help people grieve. Feel. Let's start with feeling. Yeah. So as an American culture, you know, feeling is not something we might do anymore. What were we told? I mean, those of you who are old enough to remember 9-11. Yeah. Really? When it happened, we were told, the directive from the government, from the powers that we was, go shopping. Remember? Okay. And, oh my God, we were like, oh, and remember recently, more recently, COVID lockdown, elderly for the economy, forget about go shopping, get back out there and spend money. Same directive. Okay. We are not encouraged to process the things that are going on because it gets in the way of us buying stuff that we do not need. So, yeah. So people in theaters, we want to see only black joy. We want to see black people in celebration, but we don't want to get to the point where we are only papering over the reality of existence in all its joys and sorrows. Yeah. We need to learn how to communicate the entirety of human experience. And this world culture right now is encouraging us to go shopping, eat sugar, eat flour shopping. So there you go. You get things like trauma porn and you get things like that. And it's a real thing because people don't know how to write. I mean, come on, people don't know how to write. They're like, yeah, I'm just going to put some shit up there. That ain't literature, people. Yeah. See 11 o'clock news. Yeah. Oh, yeah. So, help your game and lower the bar, come as you are. Do the little bit you can and ask yourself constantly, how am I helping? How am I healing? Yeah. Always, always, always. Got it. Thank you. Don't think you have to show up in some grand way with a big piece. That's everything about any second. Please, please, please, just show up. Okay. All right. Thank you. Great question. Thank you, Jillian. Thank you, Jillian. At MC, we have you up next. How you doing, girl? How's it going? How are you, everyone? Hello, still the year of the rabbit. And my year. I'm trying to up my game. All right. I want to develop a practice where I finish things and send them out. So I'm trying and what you said earlier about, you know, the power of hypnosis and on ourselves. So I really, you know, any, I'd like to be able to write something every day. Okay. Well, it doesn't have to be great, but just get into that practice so that I have that muscle that says, okay, you have this day, you're going to write this, you know, and get done. And of course, I know later on, you know, I'll go back and rewrite and edit and all that stuff. But any tips on just getting into that mindset? What would you like to write every, what kind of thing would you like to write every day? Okay. Well, I've been inspired by poetry. I'm not a poet, but have you read Jericho Brown Crossing? Oh, it's amazing. And it's really inspired me. It's, can I read a little of that? Put in the chat. You only have a few minutes. So I won't take up too much time. No, I will just finish a scene a day. Great. And just keep going. My question to you, the reason I just wanted to ask you what you'd like to write, and what kind of thing you'd like to write. And, you know, you listen, again, listen to yourself. We talk about self hypnosis, you know, you said, I'm inspired by poetry, but I'm not a poet. Well, why would you say that? You know, you see what I'm saying? Like, why would you say that? That's sabotage. Yeah. Yeah, it's unnecessary. You know, it's interference, you know what I mean? So you can say, you can, we can all start more mindfully monitoring what comes out of our mouth. Yes, it comes out of our mouth and what goes in our mouth. And we can just focus on those two things. Yeah, it's going to be a great year. You know, but really, you can, you can listen to yourself and go, okay, so how can I convince, you know, how can I talk to myself in a way that's going to help me accomplish what I want to accomplish? So do you have a time of day when you like to work? Yeah, I get up in the morning. I set my timer. That timer has become my best buddy now. So yeah, the other days, I ignore it, of course, but that's been really helpful, just operationally. And you'd like to, you'd like to write something every day and you should send it out? Did you say that? Yes, well, you know, I've been working on this novel for a couple of years and it's just like, nothing's ever good enough. So I just think I want to break down some of the older scenes, write some new scenes, and then some of them are standalone. Oh, cool. Cool. Well, then you could, do you have a friend you could send it to, you know? Yeah, some of the writing groups, so. That's great. You could, you could write one of those and send it out to your writing group or a friend in your writing group. Right? Yep. It sounds like fun. And again, we're lowering the bar, lower the bar. Yes. Guess what? And if it feels hard still, oh, lower it a little bit more. How low can you go? Right? Yeah, good. I mean, but yeah, I bet you can't go as low as I can. You know what I'm saying? Because what you want to do is you want to lower the bar so low that you can just step over it with ease. And when you step over it, you get your writing done. And that generates confidence and you repeat that action. Right? I feel that hypnosis going on. I think I'm getting that, you know, I can low myself into that. There you go. Good days and bad days, but onward. So thank you. Thank you. Appreciate your question. Thank you. We have about three minutes left. Richard, I know you had your hand up. Would you like to share something with us in our remaining time? Sure. Hey, Richard. Hi. How are you? Great. Just general thing about rewriting. I feel I'm at this point where I start from A, every day I'm writing, I'm rewriting, I continue that. I get to the end. I reread it and some I've changed all this stuff has been changed, not all this stuff, but a lot of it's been rethought. But at the end, there's still something lacking in it. There's some tension that's not happening. So the question is, maybe it's not good to just go from A to D to C to D to A, you know, start from the beginning to the end. So the question is suggestion about how to work on it in a different way. And I know we have a minute, so maybe a little long, take a minute. Here we go. Yes, it's a great thought. It's a great question. So you've gone through it from head to toe, from top to tail, right? It's still too polite. At the end of it, it's just much too polite. There's no... Okay. So do you walk around outside? What do you like to do? Do you get on, like to be on treadmill? What do you do with your body? I like biking. Great. Biking at the gym. Even better because then you can talk to yourself and you won't like run a red light or run over someone with a basket or something. Great. Okay. So you can bike at the gym. So why are you biking? Just ask yourself. These are two things you could know for sure. One, you know what it needs. Two, if you keep asking yourself, sooner or later, you're going to tell yourself. Sooner or later, the answer is going to appear. So you're riding your bike at the gym. Ask yourself, what does it need? Does it need a new scene? Does it need a new line? What does it need? Come on, I know what it needs. Richard, I know what it needs. That's what you say. I know you know what it needs. Ask yourself before you go to bed. Tell me. What does it need? What is it missing? What do I need to put in it? Okay. So you're kind of working on it like whole spirit way. Okay. Try that. Just keep in conversation with it. Come on work. I know... Just tell me what you need. Just tell me what you need. As if you're talking to a good friend, because it is your good friend. And you're like a good friend. If you keep saying, hey friend, what do you need? How can I help you? Sooner or later, they'll be like, they'll tell you. And then you'll know. And then you'll write it down. Try that. Look, and it's six o'clock. Oh, amazing. Look at that. I forgot to turn on the lights in my apartment today. Isn't that funny? So it's like all dark and shit. Awesome. Well, thank you all so much. We'll be here same time next week. All right. Thank you. Thanks everybody for showing up. Thanks, Lali for organizing.