 Welcome we'll get started in just a couple minutes. Thanks for being here. Welcome everyone we're just going to wait a couple more minutes for SLP and then we'll get started. Welcome everyone I hope you're doing well today. We're going to give it a few more minutes it seems like there was an issue with the link so I just resented so we should have more folks joining soon. Welcome SLP how's it going. There was some drama with the link but I'm here. Yes I just resented the link it seems like there was an issue so we should have more folks joining in just a minute. Thank you. We technology we love technology. Gotta love it. That's right. Okay. Thanks Emma thanks for organizing. Organize it will start and then people, people can join as they. Yeah, is that a good idea. You know, people who are here and I'm here. Welcome to watch me work with me and the title is you which means that we talk about your work and your creative process this hour. We meet here, pretty much every Monday at 5pm. We've been doing this show. And since like 2009 or 2010 I lose track. We started in the lobby of the public theater live and then when the lockdown hit we moved on to zoom where we did it five days a week. And now we're back to our once a week show. It's a show because what we do together is we create the action and then we create dialogue and the action is us working together. And there's again, you all talking with me about your work and your creative process and why we do not have time for you to read from your work, or show your artwork or whatever we do have time to talk about process, which is what this is all about. Emma is joining us this week, holding it down. And Emma will tell you if you do have a question after our work session. If you do have a question Emma will tell you how to get in touch go Emma. If you're having me everyone. If you're on the zoom, you can ask a question by clicking the raise your hand button which should be at the bottom of your screen and the reactions tab. And if you're having trouble with that you can message me and I'll do my best to help you find it. Thanks for watching the stream on howl round. 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 round that's hashtag we do. All right, we're going to do 20 minutes of work together. And then we're going to start talking so we're going to have a timer here. I'm going to start we're going to coordinate one to. They have fun all right all right it's that time where y'all can ask me some questions about your working with your creative process, and I will. answer anybody has any questions. mere looks like we have a question from Timothy and that you should be able to unmute. Okay, can you hear me. yeah hey. How are you. i'm well thank you good to see you. Good to see you to um I wonder if you could talk a little bit about your process when it comes to character. In terms of you let the people in the play emerge as you tell the story or you deep dive into their story and find it from there or what what. mm hmm how do you conjure up. mm hmm your people mm hmm. it's a great question what we do is we do this little jiu jitsu thing so you asked me how do I conjure people I want to know how you conjure people. And how that's working so far, is that all right to talk about I want to I want to hear from you. Okay, how's it going. it's going it's going kind of well i'm actually. The when I was on with you in August and I was having trouble getting started and we came up with a prompt and that has since grown into like a three act play so um yeah I know. Well done well I just wanted to bow in your direction for that so it was super helpful um. I often find I have like maybe a first scene, but then I have to write every single detail of the character where they were born what their parents were like. What happened to them in school all this other stuff and you know it's funny every time you come up with a couple of things it like everything you write raises two more questions so. So I sort of plunging from there, the problem is sometimes you can you can lose the forest from the trees a little bit. That you know I run up against that sometimes you know you get so like you know what was their life like in fourth grade that like okay well they were grown character in your play you know it's like right right right let's let's let's you know gently blow it back in course so. I mean like balance you want to balance it right i'm sorry go ahead go ahead. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Yeah, a bit. i'm i'm just honestly. it's it's what i've kind of dreamed up but i'm always on the thought and the lookout for other ways to go about it so. Yes, you can do an extensive character biography. Sounds like what you're into. And the trick is you want to do a selective biography it's like writing a bio so you know you want to do a selective biography so if you're dealing with. Maybe your play is about a character at at their job right, you might if you're doing an interview with them or you want to do a biography of them, you might focus more on what their work history is like. Then what kind of pets they like to own you should i'm saying so you're going to you know and you're you're doing a biography. That's that's really again motivated by the situation that you're finding themselves them and not them so them in right. So yeah that's the whole yeah yeah yeah and that's and that's kind of that's a great way to do it you you do want to know about them you want to know as much about them as you need to but you don't need to know everything about them. To get through your play just like you don't need to remember everything about your own life to get through the day. Right so you know I remember what it was like in the third grade when my teacher that you don't need to know that because you're going to the grocery store. Right, you know I mean maybe maybe you do need to know that to go to the grocery store and if you do then you can remember it for you for your purposes does that make sense. And, and I found like, you know, maybe 5% of what you what you conjure up actually ends up in the script, but yeah. Yeah, so you're going to be a point where you feel like you're just asking yourself questions are doing these character biographies, and it's like, and now I'm procrastinating. And when you feel that you probably are right and to get to what where you're like, oh no I need to know what happened to them and when they were when they at their 17th birthday party, then you're going to have to dig and figure that out. See, cool. Yeah, great though and congratulations on your new play. Thank you. Yeah, well done. Thanks. Thanks, Timothy. Already Jillian you will be next I'm going to ask you to unmute. Let me know if you have trouble. Okay. Hey. So, right now, I'm doing really well with writing issue is, I kind of transition to a more tactile pen and paper scenario which is working for me in my creativity. And now I feel like, yeah, yeah, it's great. Now I feel like you need to wrangle all these papers into a digital format to be able to like share, or at least kind of create like a window into what's happening for people. And I'm struggling finding the best digital organization tool is there anything you any guidance there anything that you use in the prewriting process to kind of keep all your research and all your shit organized. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, a computer and some and some some Word documents. I mean, I mean, and this is again this is like our levels of what we'd like to do with technology. I like to keep it simple, because if I'm putting energy into something I don't want to spend, you know, a week or two learning a new program that's going to make it all easy and all that, you know, or they have these programs that can get this and it'll, it'll, you know, a certain program or write it for you. Oh my goodness what could be better than that. It's just the whole joy of writing it yourself, or the struggle of writing it yourself. You know, there's a there's that wonderful AI program that, you know, right for you, which people like, or don't like I don't know. But I say, yeah, I'm guessing you have a some kind of computer thing, right, some kind of. Yeah, yeah, like some some document like Word document or something like that. Right. Yeah, yeah, and I have I have those I just feel like they're all over the place and I can play them and put them in folders. Yeah, yeah, I think I think yeah the keep it simple stupid probably the best advice on that one but yeah it's just getting my pre writing is getting to be a little. It's just, it's a lot, which obviously it should be if the work is has depth, but yeah, I'm just having trouble indexing my shit. Imagine if it were I mean it's it's actual paper, you'd want to get some folders. You know, maybe some file cabinet I'm not suggesting you do this but file cabinet and put, you know, character descriptions. You know, the character called Jane, everything about Jane's biography, you know that would be one folder and Jane's mom Sarah her story. And I mean you're just gonna, you're going to organize it like you would if it were actual hard copies of stuff. That on your computer, I, again, if you know of a program of some kind of fancy filing organizational tool, go for it. I just just simplify, use the energy have for your work to work on your work to work on a full program or software or organizational device. Yeah, yeah, but but folders are great. You got folders on your laptop, label them different things put them in different, you know, in different places on your desktop or in a one five that says whatever the title of your work is. And there you go you have it open and there it is. Yeah. Okay, well thank you. Good question, really good question. Thanks to him. All right, we will go to Jonathan next. Hey Jonathan, how you doing man. Hey, I'm good. I don't I don't really have a question it's what to say that I finished the play. Yay. Wow, that's great man. Yeah, we have a table rate like a little zoom rating. So super stoked and excited. Fantastic and you said last week you, you got in touch with some correct elders or in the community that were really exciting and there were some surprises there. Some surprises there. Actually in terms of just being able to refer me to things that now I've been trying to do on my little Google searches and stuff online and and just opening my eyes to things that out there that you could probably never find in the Google search. That has been incredibly helpful. Fantastic well done. And any tips I mean you finished relatively quickly did you not or is it my imagination. Well I started back in December and then I got stuck around was it like mid January or what have you got like really stuck with it started getting stuck on the question of whether or not how much I guess historically accurate. I needed to concern myself with or his circle accuracy that I need to concern myself with. This group is really helpful with kind of getting over that block. I'm going to write a script but we have to do like 10 pages every week. Very good. Excellent. Well done. Congratulations. Thank you Jonathan. Are there any other questions right now. I do see one on the live stream if there are no questions in the zoom. The question is, have you and how have you ever use talking or dictation or other oral or physical modalities as part of your writing process. Oral or physical modalities. Like dictation like on our phone we can click that little thing and you can talk instead of use your thumbs. That's my guess. I'll put the I'll put the question in the chat. Sure, sure, sure. I mean, it's whatever I mean some, sometimes it's easier to, to type stuff out. But sometimes it's easier to talk things out if you want to talk things out into a some kind of recording device. I mean, certainly when I write music, I, it's oral, I sing it, you know, because I have to hear what it sounds like. I can't say CD F sharp a. So sure it depends on what we're writing though, you know, if it works I mean it's too bad it would be great to have a conversation with the person who asked that question but sure. I mean the idea is to use anything. Everything. You know all are welcome. Any means necessary, you know, use anything use everything. And if you find that quote oral modalities that's so great. Just talking it out works for you then by all means talk it out. Sing it out, dance it out, you know. Also if you're writing a dramatic work of a play a screenplay a teleplay, definitely try it out in your, then you know the relative privacy of your own home. I like to try things out when I bring things to actors. I like to say yeah I tried this out in my apartment. So I know I know I know it works at a certain level. And they'd like to hear that that you at least tried out the, you know, the idea of the scene and the dialogue, you know, and definitely try the song if you're writing a song before you present it to your actors or your musicians definitely try it out at home. I love modalities of that phrase oral modalities. Thank you for that. Let's go to Larry, I'm going to. Hi, I was sitting here and I'm feeling embarrassed about my question. So I thought I better ask it. Good for you. I'm just so in my own way so P I last time I talked to you. I told you that I have this like million years long project and you encouraged me I think rightly to just like no you're not writing anymore you're editing at it, because I have all this material. I've been slowly trying to do it, you know, in the little cracks between my other work. I'm trying to just keep going and keep going and just let the short periods of time add up. But I'm having such a feeling of insanity. It's like I don't accept what I wrote or I don't accept what kind of writer I am. And I wish I was. I just, I just keep thinking like, Oh, I wanted this to be so much better. You know, I, part of what kept me just writing in circles for years and years and years is trying to just write it better. And so I'm just having a little, a little or a lot or whatever I'm just having trouble just like, getting into acceptance with what I've put down on paper, and letting it be, letting it be a shitty first draft would be bad or. I just spending so much my time. I just feel a lot of resistance. I just thought. No, it happens. Well, I mean it's interesting, you know, accepting and surrender surrender. I give up. That's all that's good. You give up, you know, it's not throwing the manuscript on the funeral pyre and burning it. Right. Give up what you wanted it to be. Whatever that is. Yeah. And you're going to, and when you give up whatever you want it to be, then you get to have whatever it is, which is better than nothing. And it is, and, and you can do little games, you can. So minimize the number of pages you're doing today, like how many pages total do you have. Oh, hundreds. Hundreds, hundreds, thousands. No, come on. 500. It's, it's, it's just that, you know, if you remember, I did like a devising phase. I did it on my self phase. So versions and I'm going to throw it at everything, all the other people did and just keep what's mine and then I have the ones with everyone stuff and it's just a lot, a lot. So you've got like a lot of pages, right. Yes. So if you could work on like three pages a day. Just keep it, keep the window really, really small. You know, keep it really small or two pages a day. That's even better, maybe two pages a day, right? Keep the window small. And can you think of one thing, just one thing that you love about the project? Just one. Yes. What, what is it? Can you share it? Do you feel comfortable? I, I, I feel it's, it's, it's ironically, you know, about the struggle I'm talking about, which is I, I don't want to let go of the things that are in my way. It's like holding on to our burdens. Right. That theme has been a running theme my whole life. So it's great. Great. So, so it's a, it talks about something that's very dear to you and very important to you. Yeah. And that's what you love about it. Great. So you can, you know, you can write that down on an index card and, you know, if you have a big clip, you know, like a binder clip, you can clip, yeah, you have like maybe 500 pages or I don't know how many pages you have, clip it to the front and work on two pages a day, just to, you know, for like, I don't know, 20 minutes a day, keep it really small, like we're going to lower the bar really low. So you'll be turning along, it'll be happening, but you're not going to expect, you know, it's not going to be great expectations. It's going to be, what can I get done today? It's going to be 20 minutes a day. Okay. 20 minutes a day and every time, every day, and it can be maybe at the same time every day or a different time, whenever you can. And you're going to read that in this card out loud. Okay. This is what I love about my work. I love about my work, the fact that it bloody a bit of it. I really love about my work. And I'm going to spend 20 minutes and here's my timer. I'm going to spend 20 minutes editing right now, two pages. Okay. It goes off, you're done for the day, you're done, pat yourself on the back, go on to something else. Like keep it, again, keep it simple, keep it, keep it chill. When there's resistance, we have to be gentle with it. You know, it's like if somebody does yoga or whatever and maybe your hamstrings are stiff, you know, if anybody, I don't know, y'all do that, you know, and you hold, you know, you're doing that, pull, pull, pull. That's not good. Just be gentle, just, just put your hands anywhere you can on your leg, you know, and just breathe into the, breathe into the space. Nice and gentle. When you show up every day and do it, you'll make progress. Because you, okay. Gentle. I appreciate that. I really do. And just know we all, we all go about our work. Yeah, or our jobs, or our, you know, yeah. I'm just going to say, I just helped to say out loud, so thank you so much for the encouragement. Appreciate it. Thank you. Sure. We appreciate you, man. Thanks, Larry. Do folks have other questions right now? Just reflecting that Mary said thanks for sharing your question, Larry. It's universal. Oh, thanks. Thanks for reading that out loud. Of course. Tonya, let me unmute you. Hey, I'm sort of nervous. How are you? I'm so excited to, I love your, I love these. Thank you for your insights. Okay, so. Yeah, my question is regarding all of the different unfinished projects. We're always competing for, for my attention. Do you have any wisdom on how to like decide to commit, like a commitment of a project. I have a horrible time finishing things. Right, right. I hear you. So, okay. Great question. First thing we can do is do this. Do you have a mouth? You have a mouth. Do this. Put your hands here. And go like this. Right. Okay. You're hypnotizing yourself. Oh yeah. Like, you know, so, so we're going to, we're going to, we're just going to refrain from that. Right. And then the words come out and they go around and oh my God, they go right into your head. Oh my God, it goes around and around and around and around. So we're, you want, we want to do is we want to reinforce some more, more, more, more helpful mantras, right. Mantras, another way of saying mind vaccine or whatever you think about the vaccine or whatever. I don't really care. I'm talking about the things we say to ourselves and the way we hypnotize ourselves. We can do it differently. Okay. So you say, you know, I'm, you can maybe say I'm finding ways to finish things. And you are, that's true because here we are talking about it, right. I'm finding ways to finish some of my beloved projects. I'm finding ways. I am finding ways. So here's a way, look that you found today. What is the shortest project that you have? You're muted. I can't hear you unmute. Yes. What's the shortest project? Are they all 500 page Russian novels? Okay, good. Great. Okay. Well, I have a short story. I could probably work on the short story. That's probably the closest to being finished. Great. Okay. See, you're finding ways to finish beloved projects. You say I am finding ways to finish, but great. Okay, so how many pages do you think you just guess, continue know how many pages we talking about writing. Oh, not even that, not even to. It's really fantastic. I just need to edit it. Probably, but you but you need to but you need to you need to get to the have you gotten to the end yet. I have an ending. I think I've forgotten that I have an ending. This is great. Have you written it down? Yes. Great. So it's written down. Yes. Great. Okay. I think I forget that I do finish things. That's the other thing. Finding ways to finish beloved project. You see, you see, you see how it works. Oh my goodness, this is great. Okay, so why don't we focus on your short story first. Okay, if sounds like it has promise. So again, like Larry, you're going to take it out. You're going to turn on your timer. You're going to take out your man. Oh, you're going to take out your manuscript first because you want to I want to make sure it's in front of you. You're going to turn on timer. You're going to spend 20 minutes with it. If you have time today, that'd be great. Is it printed out already. No. Okay, do you have a printer and some ink in the printer? I do. Just in case. I have like a, an actual physical folder that you can put it in. I can, I can find one or displace some other papers and great, great. Displace some other papers. Okay. And you're going to print, you're going to push print, you're going to print it out. And you, this is your 20 minutes. You set the timer. Okay. And now you're going to be working on your short story for 20 minutes. You're going to push print. You're going to print it out. You're going to find a folder. You're going to put it in the folder. And you're going to sit there with it and just look at it. Maybe read it. Maybe start reading it. The timer goes off. Great. You mark where you were next day. Set the timer again. Pick up reading where you left off. You're just going to revisit it. It's like a dear friend who loves you very much who you adore. You haven't seen him in a long time. You got to get caught up. Right. And you just inch along. Right. And you, you become more mindful about what's coming out of your mouth. I'm done. I said, we got, we got control of a couple of things. What goes in our mouth and what comes out of our mouth. If we can focus on those two things. So we're not cramming everything in our mouth all the time. When we're anxious or confused and just shit isn't spewing out of our mouth that is harmful to the, to, you know, your favorite person, you. Right. Okay. So you're going to be more mindful about that. Right. Okay. And you work on that work. Just inch along 20 minutes a day. Don't get grand with it. Don't think, oh, today I'm going to work an hour. Keep it simple. Keep it modest inch along and be successful. And then before you know you're going to have a finished product right in the W column. You're going to have a win. Okay. And then we're going to go and we'll talk again and we'll, and we'll do a similar activity with another project might be slightly different activity based on what the project is. Okay. Got it. That's great. Thank you. You're finding ways to finish beloved projects. Isn't that great. Love it. Thanks. How well you did. Congratulations. Well done. Good job. All right. Oh my goodness. We're just about five minutes. Okay. The folks have one or two last question. Aha. All right, Mona. Go for it. Hey, Mona. Hello. Hi. I feel really nervous, but anyway, here we are. I don't know if my question is really more at this site, this question of this hypnosis here of this, but because as I was preparing to just ask, I was just like flooded with like everything like I'm not a writer. I don't even know. Hopefully they allow me to be here. I don't know if my question doesn't make them say why are you here? You're not a professional writer. But the reason I'm here is because I have been approached to write to write something. Oh, that I had been thinking about for just like in the back of my mind for a decade, like maybe I would write something someday and then a publisher and editor contacted me like what you'd be interested in a book project. So congratulations. So well, thank you. And what I'm experiencing is because I, you know, I don't write for a living or whatever. If, if I'm just sitting and thinking like, oh, I need to send a newsletter. I'll just send this quick little thing I found. I find myself, you know, then crouched in front of my computer and then it's like four hours later and I've written a whole long thing and I'm pretty happy with what I wrote but it wasn't like I went and I'm writing something I just think I have to say happy holidays, but then it turns into a thing. But when I said to say now Mona start somehow you're going to start working on this project is really like chosen. It's really, and there, you know, it's, it's really like it becomes a thing. I do feel a sense like it's in me, which is why I said to this person like yeah I mean I did say it not right now but I did kind of have it there as an opening and I feel inspired and I thought oh this would actually give me like a devil like it would give me a structure to make it happen and not just die being like oh one day I was going to do that project but you know I'm busy. I'm experiencing like oh like how do I have to pretend like I'm doing something else, rather than being like I'm sitting down to write. So I think so that's kind of I didn't know if you had any guidance on that. You have to pretend. So, so let me recap. So, when you sit down to write things like a newsletter or something you just write it out and it's longer than it needs to be and you're very pleased with it. Exactly. I don't go in thinking, oh I'm going to bring this poem I'm going to do that it's sort of like, oh, I have to promote this event it's next week let me just quickly write something. And then, and then I'm like, oh that was pretty good actually you wrote more and something else came out and. When you're writing in the service of other things, promoting. I'm just trying to get to the. Yeah, when I'm not thinking. Oh, now I'm going to sit to try to see what I'm going to write for this book. Oh, so when you're not thinking, right. Okay. Right. Well, kind of. There it is so self conscious I guess. Oh, my back. Yes, I'm back now you're back. Yeah. So, yeah, stop, stop, stop thinking. It doesn't thinking doesn't you see how thinking does not like that. Thinking wants us to be thinking all the time. That's why it says stop don't tell her that. Right. So then set your timer, you got a timer that's not your phone. Do you have a timer that's not your phone. Yeah. Every timer for 20 minutes. And write is on your computer, because I think we can write faster for writing with two hands, are you an okay typist that you're okay. You luck with your computer. Yeah, type it faster you can type. Whatever the, Oh, type WTF type whatever the fuck, excuse my language, whatever the fuck about your book, like blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, right. Imagine you were just you were just talking about it, or you could as the person who was asking that question, do we ever use? What is it called? Oh, no doubt. Realities. You start talking about it. Do you go for walks during the day? Do you have a yoga practice or a running practice or a Pilates practice? Do you have anything like that that you do? Yeah, yeah. Running practice or I don't know. I'm just trying to get because you could also you go for a walk during the day. You could turn on your, you know, this phone and you could press the voice memo and you could just talk about it. You know, just just. Yeah, the thinking the think I'm thinking I'm thinking. Yeah, as you were saying that I did just get to have an idea. Because I think that even when I if I think which I've tried to be like, oh, just talk about it. But once I'm like, it's the book, it becomes a bit. But if it's just like someone asks me a question, this is the topic. It lights me up. Of course, I just launch into it. So I think maybe recording some conversation, some conversation. Also a timer and just writing whatever, just writing whatever. Because what I think it sounds like your thinking is actually like gatekeeping. It's like a bouncer at a club. You know, you got to let the bouncer go home. Everybody's welcome in the club. Come on in, we're having a party. You know what I mean? It sounds like you're doing is editing while you're writing. And in my experience, the thinking police are coming to get you to try it with a timer. Try going for a walk and and recording some stuff. Try just sitting with a friend and recording some stuff, you know, talking it out. And then constantly type up everything. You know, you want a record of everything. You don't want just some random notes on your on your phone. You know, you want to type it up. You want to have documents. You want to have pieces of paper or, you know, on your phone or on your computer that will start to reread and look at and think, oh, you wonder, what's there, what's there, you know, yes, yes, yes. Great question. That's helpful. I really appreciate it. Good question. Six o'clock, 602 is 602. Thanks everyone for being here just as a reminder next week is a holiday. So we will be off and then we'll reconvene the following week. I hope everyone has a wonderful night. Yeah. Thank you so much, everybody. Great questions this week as always. So lots of love. Have a good, have a good Valentine's Day, eat chocolate or not. But have a good hug yourself at least. Okay. Love you guys. Bye bye. Thank you everyone. Thank you.