 Everybody know how this operates? Everybody's been here? We've been here? You don't look that. We work together at Signature. We can see you again. What show did we work together? That's the last black man. Quite an after party, yeah? That was a great show. It was a dance. You're bringing it then? Yeah, it was a good time. So have you been to watch your work before? Yeah, this is the first time. Can you monitor the vaccination? Can you explain to me the process? Reliable. What did you say? How does it go? It struggles people. Exactly, you're working your way. Yeah, okay. We worked for 20 minutes together. And then in the time you're in, we talk about your work and your creative process. So not mine. But yours, okay? Everybody cool? Yeah. We're super smart. Super smart. That looks good. Yeah, well that's what I know. It's better than like I hate doing it. Okay, so we're going to do just that. We're going to work for 20 minutes and then talk about work. 40 minutes. I think we're going to read them all today. Could somebody explain how around this time? I was so embarrassed. Oh, I'm sorry. You're supposed to stand up and go. Sorry. No, no, no. I'm so sorry. So if you're watching online, which you can watch at howround.tv, which you already know because you're here. So if you want to write us a question, you can tweet at us or at our website, which is H-O-W-L-R-O-U-N-M-D. You can also ask us questions on the public theater Instagram or the public theater Facebook. You're welcome. And also, if you go to Facebook, you take notes of what is said. No, no, no. They're listed on, or is it Twitter? Yeah, we have to get out little quotes of what is said. It's wonderful. You see all the notes, and you actually see those from other areas. Wow. Nice, nice, nice. Okay, well, with all that information now, we'll be in. Does anybody have any questions about their intertension? I think we're good. A little bit. A little bit. How many numbers? Any number. Okay. Do you see number? Maybe. Andrew. Sure, it's Alania from Miami. Oh, great, hey, Alania. She says, I find myself worried about others' opinions about what I write, and I begin to second-guess things. Do you have any suggestions to work through this? She just worries about other people's opinions about what she's writing, and what do we do when we're worried about what other people are going to think about what we write? It's tricky. I mean, if it's, like, your plane that's running, and people come out of it going, hi, yeah, hi. They run after you and hate you with sticks. I can understand. But if it's something that stops you from writing, Alania, maybe just keep writing and it depends where you are with the project. So if you're still working on a project and you're thinking, ah, my mom or my husband or my friend or my auntie is going to really hate this, keep writing and don't show it to them, maybe. Continue until at least get finished and then see how you feel about it then. But that might be an actual fear that you have. It also might be just some little chatter box in your head that's trying to keep you from writing. So we're not sure exactly what it is. But I said, keep writing. Just, again, write this at your timer. Do a little 20-minute increments and take tiny steps forward until you go up. Thanks for calling mom. I missed her. What are my favorite names? I don't know. See you again. Just a more question about, we all like to talk about the creative process but I have a more technical question. I just got hired to write something for somebody and coincidentally, the subject matter of my own material is about subject matter that I've never really tackled before which is like the world of tech basically. And the research process, I guess process in terms of researching material because I know for a fact you've got some historical pieces as well as pieces you've adapted but any tips in terms of doing extensive research for somebody? Sure. What I do is I set myself some kind of deadline because you could research and research and read every single book about the subject whenever it is. But if you set yourself a deadline you say I'm going to do say a month's worth of research. I'm going to spend week one gathering stuff in whatever, ordering books on Amazon downloading books on your Kindle whatever it is. Downloading articles so I have everything I'm just going to wait three minutes and then I'm going to spend three weeks just devouring anything and then I'm going to start writing and see where I'm at. So set yourself a deadline and usually it will help you fill a limit on your research. And then if you have a gap or a hole or something going, gee, I wonder what I'm going to do with such and such. You can always do specific research research that's specific to a question you have, the gap in the story that you need. A month of research is probably enough to get started, right? I hope so. A question last week on the line? Yeah. Yeah, what was the question? The question was how do you take something out before you spend more time and you said to read it out loud? Yeah, right around the corner. Sure. I read it out loud but it was shared and it's been a while of this particular piece and it shocked me because when I had written it I didn't think it was that it was a beginning. Right? So which is when, you know, and it's so funny because when we talked briefly before I remember I said what do I see? Right. I said I see me but older. Right? And it was that. Part of that. Is it just that I have a different observation as time passes? Right. It's pretty common. We'll let you do. You have a different point of view. You come from a different place, right? But also if you write something and you put it away in the drawer and you let it cool off like pie, right? You take it out of the drawer and you read it and you think, ah, this is great. Right? It's fine. Now I get specific. Why not? You know, start making a list. Start writing a fresh piece of paper or in the margins of the actual work. What's not working? And you can go through the actual work and start going, okay, great. What's not working? You can do, I don't know if it's a novel or a play or whatever, you can do a chapter at a time if it's a novel, right? So a scene at a time. What's working in this scene? What's not working in this scene? How can I fix it? No. What do I love about this scene? What do I not love about this scene? What do I have to develop? Which I cut, okay? It's specific because I don't like it or shit is a strong emotion but it doesn't really help you. Imagine if you're a friend, right? You went to her play and did you, were you there? You say, that's kind of strong. But imagine if you was in development and you said it's not very good right now. Right now. There you go. This is still a process. And she would say, why? What should I work on? Well, I want to make character writing that they understand. Ending, I thought it was kind of arbitrary. I didn't get the second character that they were all about it. I understand the relationship. It'd be specific, right? So do the same thing for yourself. It's specific, okay? And that helps. It helps you get out of that maelstrom of emotion, right? Because it's shit. So you really have to have some activity and then just be so emotional and get attached to it. Right, you have to read it as if someone else wrote it. As if you were particularly a working friend. You want them to succeed, right? And you're going to give them real, honest feedback. And you know they're still working on it. It's like when you asked me the question about what we were talking about and I said one thing, it was so much more than one thing, but it's like saying to myself, oh, this is shit. Right? It's way more than one thing. And you can also do that if something you read something that sounds really good. This is great, why? Well, this is good, this works. I like this character and it seems like really, you know, I earned it. You know, that kind of thing. You can do that too. Hi. So I have a question I wanted to know. I'm not sure yet, but how do you stay on rhythm? I'm sticking to my tone. But now that, not change, it's a woman's show, so the character's changed. Right. But I feel like I could be shifting out of rhythm of... Does that make sense of how it's going? Because I, you know, I know when I write another character, I'm so infused in that character that it might neglect the tone of the whole story. So I'm trying to figure out and I'm going to overthink this one, so I might be fine. But in the rare case I'm not, how do you stick to the tone of... Not the tone, I've got the tone, the rhythm of the story you're trying to tell in different voices? Well, yeah, it's different. I mean, one is moving and the other is moving. It's good to know about yourself. It's good to know about yourself. It's good to know about yourself. It's very wrong. Just a key. Just a key. Right, right. So whatever you're singing when you're writing. And different characters in different stories, whether it's a novel or a play, whatever, have different feelings. Different internal rhythms. Even if it's a one person show. Right. Even if it's one piece, like the Goldberg variation. Okay, but it's a piece of music. So those pieces of music have different rhythms and feel all that. Instruments. You know, when a different sexual comes it's going to be further than the original. Right. But they go, I'm just afraid that I might be like they're going to stop. Are you at the end? Okay. Is it the end? Is it the end? I like to change this a little bit. Right, right, right. It's a lot of times we stop in the middle or the end and we ask so much more. A lot of you ask, you know, oh no, somebody might not like this. Oh no, I have to go. Just in case I might even know what it is. The answer is you keep going. Right. You keep going. You got to keep going. You got to keep going and then you're going to figure out what it is. And then you can get over it. Or you put it in the drawer and you take out one month or three weeks or whatever and you read it over and you say oh, this works! This part works! This part's great! Amazing! I don't know. The question from Instagram then wants to know how do you approach a rewrite? Just like we were talking. Is it Reuben? Reuben. Just like we were talking about Reuben a minute ago. So you finish your draft and then you can put it away in an envelope or a folder in a drawer or whatever you have and then you wait maybe a week about a time. You take it out of the drawer, take it out of the folder, take it out of the envelope and read it through. I would suggest allowed. I would suggest standing up. I would suggest not in a public place. Or if you got to read it or you only have a public place to work then read it side by side or under your breath. You can feel the words in your mouth and you don't have to stand up if you're in a public place like Starbucks. But then you start to do that process. When you start to look and you start to see what's working and you circle what's working or go in the margin, that's really great! And if you circle that and you say, yeah, we need to work on that. So that's all you just go through to the end and you have your game plan for how you need to personally write. Does anybody else have any wonderful tips they have for me writing? Yes. This pertains to email and things. If I write it on my computer and this is work day but we write so much I think everybody's writing, writing, writing. I want it to be natural, conversational and I send it to myself, not always. I don't do this with everything but I read it on my phone and for some reason it just clicks with what I need to edit, where I need to cut. I think it's accustomed to reading on a phone and that format just rocks. And I do it and then I might do it. I'll just know right away and then I'll just type in the edits on my computer. Yeah, it's pretty cool. I did have an observation like devoting this hour to this workshop and everything and then I'm doing research as well but it's historic fiction and so I don't want to research too much because I want it to stay creative but my mind starts to dart around and where I might be researching something and then I'm going to dart off and get in creative mode, my head in the clouds and I start spinning it out. So I wonder, I now have a question for you do you mind if I do that and stick with the research or do you let it ride and just kind of connect the dots? I think it's both. I think if you're researching for a project that's historical fiction or a docu-series or something that's about tech that's back-based I think you want to probably keep a notebook and make notes to yourself as you're reading along. Or I actually can buy so many books on Kindle and you can take notes on Kindle and all that but I actually like to buy the hard copy because I write in the book. This would make a great scene link with such and such like that so I'm just kind of writing in the actual hard copy of the research material that I've purchased so it's not like a library book. And then I... You do both but you don't. Um... We're like maybe a little rabbit hole. Like, oh what does that name mean? What does that word that name mean? Yeah, you have to... If you have a kid and you're walking to school with your kid and you're a dog your dog... Do you have that ability, right? Come on, junior or whatever the child might be. Or come on, spot. Bring spot back on the path. You have the ability to do that so you can exercise that ability with your own mind. You know? You shouldn't just go whole hog... This is a mix of metaphors. Whole hog into the rabbit hole. But, you know, there should be part of yourself that stays outside the rabbit hole with a rope. Yeah, gently take back the path. Come on there. That's a good metaphor. I think that visuals. Yeah, because... Yeah, you know, oh I was researching this on your computer and then three days later you're on Facebook. Yeah, you're losing time and it's slippery slope or something. Yeah, it's not a good feeling. Your market. I like the time capsule too. That was really helpful. Yeah, a week is good. If it's a big project, you might need longer but set a time limit to your research and you can always go back and do a deeper... And develop. You have something to see with play. Oh, right. And he said, Mommy, he's saying what you said. The play. The play. Yes. It's interesting to me because I was thinking about rhythms of people. I see a lot of plays where it's so fast, it's so... The conversation has to be back and back and back and back and back. And I find that people play with rhythms of different characters. Different people speak with different rhythms and yet a lot of the plays that I see these days everybody's just talking about the problem. So when he said he's talking... He's saying what you say. Right. But how is it... How is it for him in the sense that it wasn't in the same rhythm that you said? So how do you change the rhythms I guess my question is how do you change the rhythms? It's kind of like music of each different character so that they do have one is a trombone, one is a piano. They talk in different rhythms. And that's what I was thinking a lot about because I don't want it to be rather... You can put that in the lawn. A character who might say everything is a bad example. A character might say or use a lot of like wild out their words or a lot of sort of brainy act type of words. Different people speak in different ways. Different people speak in different ways depending on what they're trying to get. So you just have to be conscious of that. You have to always remember what character you're trying to achieve and put that in the lawn also. In the words of the mother. In the words of the mother. So that's on another level of specificity. That's sort of on a ring-right level so it's just part of the specificity. But first draft you might not know what that is just about. They remind me of the academia. Oh, okay. Can you tell me of sorts between my regular academia and I was a new mayor's scholar my senior year of undergrad and so I have a long sense of research project of I don't miss any of it. But at the same time I keep losing my way with the story because I hate outlines. So then I do rereads or I start reading to do new drafts and I'm like what have you just done? Is there a way to get around outlines? I don't know. I've done outlines. I've done outlines. I just like outlines. So you're a good company. I mean, I don't know. I'm more interested in sort of looking at why, I mean if you want to open up your apartment here in your apartment. Someone said you want to open your apartment? Yeah. What you do is you get things now and you put some money inside every week and then you accumulate and you get confidence in yourself. Man, that's a great idea, but I hate things. I hate things. It's the same little concept of saving anything. Right, then we wonder what's that about? If you can see there's a pressure face and all that. And what your great friend was I don't know. So I know to talk about what your great friend is about I would say maybe if you don't write with friends because they can help you and call it something else. What's another word for outline? Anybody know? There you go. Storyboard What else? Arc. Treatment. Oh, we love these words. Beachy. I like beachy because it's like it's not a picnic. Storyboard. Arc. Treatment. Beachy. There's four words and you know like outline and you know you don't have to do it over and you don't have to do it unless you're wrong. You know? I never outline. Okay. I just go with more important notes. I'll write notes to myself. Right. I just have to hear. Right. I work with scratcher data. Right. And I'll note and I'll do that and move it around a bit. But I just let my characters just let the characters do it. You don't get lost. Some of the books seem heavy. What you want to accomplish in that scene is a word of mouth. So that's kind of a storyboard. It's kind of a storyboard. You can also put things on black cards. I'm not going to say throw outline out the window or a storyboard or beachy or treatment because if you work in Los Angeles or even in New York or people who will pay you a good some of my introduction already, they've been asking you to use a beachy, and if I sit here telling you not to do it, then I'm doing it in a disservice. So, hug it, give it a hug, give it a hug to your friend, and realize that it has absolutely nothing to do with your trauma of love, give it a hug, give it a hug, give it a hug, give it a hug, and go with it. Okay, it's not the same thing, this is your creative friend, it's a storyboard, you can use flashcards, I put on flashcards, you can draw pictures, you can use scenes, you can use chapter headings, but you would need something to shoot you on the back, but if she didn't, I wouldn't suggest what she said to you. And so I'm just saying, get comfortable with being a little more comfortable, as because they're making better writing, as they're gonna solve those problems. You don't have to really count, it's about one. Mm-hmm. Yeah. That's funny. Yeah. I just wanted to add to what you were saying, I don't know if it's just me, but lookbooks are a lot of fun to do, because it's like, a part of it does feel like research, but at the same time, it's like you do find a lot of images, and that's a little bit more creative, than if you're just saying, kind of like making it kind of like, character goes here, character goes here, it's like, you can do a whole outline, but then there's the whole process of finding images, and really presenting like a visual package. So if there's something more creative about doing a lookbook, so that might help you, I don't know. Perhaps from maybe a magazine, something from the show, do the lines, the text, like this thing is about this, it's about the images and stuff. Yeah. That's right. That's great. Yeah, man. One of my favorite quotes from my Angela, which is, you can't change it, change the way you're looking. Right. And that's what that is. Yeah. That would be the outline, just change the way you're looking. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly, I agree with you. And again, these people, and you know, but what do you write? Do you write movies? Movies? Movies. Do you ever want to write a movie? Do you want this? Do you show? Do you do pilot? Maybe? I mean, you know, maybe. So you can do a lot of money, and you should do something really cool. Anyway, you can ask for a movie sheet. You're going to say, yeah, I can do that. You know what I mean? Or you're going to turn in a lookbook or something. You're going to turn in something. Give me an outline. Yeah, an outline. And they're going to go, great. Now we can get all the elements in the page, and we can write a story. And then we can discuss it, and save you hours and years of rewriting by discussing it before you commit to writing a dialogue. That's going to be a good start. So I'm going to save you some. Am I going to name that? No, actually. No, actually. Yeah, not yet. No, actually. No, actually. No, actually. Yeah, actually. No, actually. Yeah. Okay. I'm sorry. I tried off him. I don't have to ask. I like, if I have like scenes that aren't in order, I'll cut one through the dialogue. From that scene, and then one dialogue from the next scene, the same character, and we look at the characters to get in here right here. How do you do that? It's great. It's great. That's a great idea. That's it. That's it. It's always worth listening to. Anybody else? I have a question for the room. Yeah. Sure. Do you guys believe in writer's block? So I just feel like, it's the thing I used to tell myself, but I lately have just been trying to eradicate it from my vocabulary and let it go completely. So I'm just kind of curious how other people felt about it. Cause I feel like it's a generic thing, but we never really unpack it. Just curious. Yeah. Ryan. Do you believe in writer's block, Ryan? I believe in it. I believe it's there. What I gathered in coming here over the years is that just lowering the bar to show up here and so, giving it to write like three words, like at least you wrote those three words, at least you like showed up and I feel like, I think it's weird, but I think it's just, I've heard it so many times in this space of lowering the bar and just being kind to yourself. Even if it's like, if they, do you think, who cares if it's like, just what you wrote is well, at least you wrote it and then you'll go back or you won't go back but like you showed up for yourself. That's great. I feel like that's the biggest thing I've taken from coming here and why I do come here because it's so, yeah, it's so hard to be now in a writer's block. It's real. I think it's real. I've quoted that many times, lower the bar. It works. Cause then you're not worried about being good necessarily. Yeah. You're being great. Right out of the gate, you know? It's like, it's totally real and it's also just a part of the process for me. Like there was an interview with Sorkin where he's like, you know, writing, sometimes people can, it can be misconstrued as me watching a lot of ESPN or something like that. Like, you know, just because there are those moments where nothing is coming out, but it's that moment where you have that eureka moment. It's just your brain thinking. You're allowing yourself time to think. You don't have to always bang out pages. A lot of this is really about having those meditative sort of states of, you know, okay, it's solving a puzzle. So yeah, it's for me, totally part of the process. Sometimes it's a, you know, a blessing and sometimes it's a curse, but just something that you have to, you know, deal with. I think, well, I'm not one of the people I really love. I just think it happens. I like what you said about being fine until I agree with that. I agree with what you said about it being like, your brain taking time to just think and not feel forced to like, produce like writing on the page. I think sometimes I've completed that with procrastination and that's why I'm like trying to stop thinking of it at a starter's block and sort of allow myself to do it. So just think that it is thinking or I'm giving myself time to think about it. So I think that it's a good thing that I'm trying to do it at a starter's block. I think that it's a good thing or I'm giving myself space to like come up with the next idea or the next scene. But I, yeah, I don't know. I, I, I, it's, I think it's real, but sometimes I'm like, is it, I don't know. Is Santa Claus real? Just for a while. I don't know, Santa Claus is real. See? I don't know. Just what, writer's block is writer's block is here and Santa Claus is a lot of them. Santa Claus is a form of here. He's great. Here is real. It's okay. Anybody ever, you can call it, you can call it like, you know, Swiss cheese or something like that. It doesn't matter, you know. But I think it's going to actually make you an effort. You know, if you decide to go on and, you know, avoid writing, that's when it becomes procrastincy. See, now the difference between those two. I feel that I think there's a lot to do about it. I think I've never said this before. Sometimes you just need to do something creative just to get into that frame of mind. Uh-huh. So if I, if I'm blocked, writing, I paint. If I'm blocked painting or, you know, or just to, to get into the mode of the joyfulness of creating and then listen for whatever wants to come out in whatever form. Uh-huh. Yeah. One of the things that I tried is I did the artist way. I'm still doing the artist way, uh-huh. So if you've never done the artist way, you have to do morning pages. So whenever I have a block, and now everyone knows I'm an over-painter, I'll like do more, I'll do like three pages that I have to just write nonstop and I say far workings about myself in my writing. It's not intentional. The point of the art morning pages is you're not allowed to stop. You have to keep on writing, writing, writing. You could be like, I hate writing, just like, so it's good to eat it, I hate it. You could write and say the thing is to get it all out. And it's funny because like the first week, I came here like two weeks ago and I said I was gonna stop my work in the show again. And then maybe like a weekend I was in LA and I had a writer's block and I was like writing these horrible things but the audience, like I flew back yesterday and I was looking at it and I was like, I can actually use some of this. Just in terms of my own journey. So it's, I don't know, I find that morning pages, well, I'm not doing the morning pages for the show. I'm doing it when I have a block because I want to figure out what advice I'm consciously telling myself. So I just figured I should write an exercise for the show. I saw play recently in a cameo with the feeling that the playwright really hated his mother. Really hated his mother. Boy, does he hate his mother. Shut the hell up. And I thought of Tennessee Williams and how Tennessee Williams had issues with his mother but you knew that there was love there. It was what they call a pair of opposites in the Danta, the pair of opposites. That is really hard to write a play. I mean, that's what made Tennessee Williams so great is to write with love even without hate. I'm not hate, it's okay, I often don't hate things at all. But I wanted to say that. I'm not hate. The writer did one thing, I think, was this Carol? Yeah. Was this about Peter? We just pick up a book. That's the easiest. I just picked up a book, so I sit on this mat. Mm-hmm. I don't know why. I don't know why. I read the writer's book. We're not a choice. I definitely think that. I'll be back. I just thought I'd write this. I like it. I read the War of Art. And he talks a lot about the news and all of those things that can be really interesting. And I similarly, to you, find myself in a moment of procrastination. Like, I know for me, writer's block doesn't actually exist and I won't allow it to exist until I stop procrastinating about writing. Like, when I write consistently, or when I write and I don't have anything left to say, then I feel like I'm allowed to say that I have writer's block, and as long as I have stories to tell, I'm like, you're just being lazy. Like, you're bored. Yeah, or you're scared of writing chidily. I mean, you're scared of writing chidily. I mean, admit it. Sometimes I'd be scared. Oh, shit. I don't want to write like a shitty writer. Okay, that's real. That's real. You don't have to like call it. It's just to be a writing poorly. And that's just normal, you know? So we write poorly and then make it better. And that's all I hope is that we get it. It's six o'clock, so when are we back next week? We're back next week. Oh, wait. Which is, uh... 20 years. 20 years. Okay.