Episode 64 What Are You Creating?

Episode 64 asks a simple question with big answers: 

What are you creating, where are you making it, and where can we find it? The crew shares live support groups on GoBrunch, an archival rebuild for jazz drummer Dennis Charles, a GoBrunch Expo room with embedded archives, a public essay on classical music beyond postmodernism, a co-written musical drafting in Google Docs, and a cross-continent life transition framed as creative practice. It’s a snapshot of creativity as community, craft, and change—daily work on Zoom, social experiences on GoBrunch, and real-world meetups that keep the momentum alive.

Greg
00:00 - 00:22
Hello and welcome back to another episode of the creative workout podcast. Today's episode 64 is September the 6th 2025 and in the room today you've got myself Greg, we've got Alessandra, Melanie, Devon, Bailey, Shadows and Wei Ling. Today's question for you, what are you creating right now? Where are you creating it?

Greg
00:23 - 00:26
And where will people find it? Alessandra, what do you think?

Alessandra
00:27 - 01:36
I think it's a wonderful question because when I describe Creative Work Hour and the crew to people that have us as a guest on podcast or just in conversation or if I'm at a conference or on a stage, what I say is we're like the most interesting group of people that get together pretty much on a daily basis for at least an hour at a time and we share our creative work in a way that We don't actually show it, we live it. And some of us are classical musicians, or novelists, or musical composers, or scientific researchers, or specialists, or educators, or artists, or there's this huge gamut of things. And so when we see each other every day, and the platform that we're using right now is called Zoom, you may have heard of it, but we don't know what it looks like on the desk of each of us.

Alessandra
01:37 - 01:49
We just have these very general, oh, this is what I'm going to work on today. So this episode is dedicated to the bigger picture. What are you working on right now? What are you creating right now?

Alessandra
01:49 - 02:20
And September is a great time to talk about this because in the summer, we may have taken some time off or done something different. In September, you may be starting something new or picking up on something that is a seasonal interest for your creativity. So what we're looking at is we just want to know not just what are you doing during your creative work hour, we want to know What are you creating right now? Could be, what do you think of starting?

Alessandra
02:20 - 02:34
Could be, what are you thinking of returning back to? But the basic question is, what are you creating right now? Where? And where will we get to see it when you're ready to show it to us?

Alessandra
02:35 - 02:40
Greg, how about you? What are you working on? What are you creating right now?

Greg
02:40 - 03:04
You know, I just love answering these questions myself, right? What I'm working on at the moment is my kindness community and support groups. Currently I have a live online support group for brain injury. I have one for chronic pain and I have one for mental health and they run on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday at different times.

Greg
03:04 - 03:29
I'm creating that mixture of my website, kindnessrx.org, and on the Go Brunch platform. You've probably heard us mention Go Brunch on the podcast before, and to explain it very crudely, if you think of Zoom on steroids, but it's different. It's a wonderful, wonderful platform with a great developer. And so I'm building the support groups on the GoBranch platform.

Greg
03:29 - 03:36
That's where you'll be able to find them. But how about you, Dr. Melanie? What are you creating right now? Where are you creating it?

Greg
03:37 - 03:40
Or are you creating it somewhere? And where will people find that?

Dr Melonie
03:41 - 04:03
I am working on collecting the video files that are old and have to go through four trillion different sorts of manifestations in order to come up to 2025 operating systems in order to be able to redo a website for the jazz drummer Dennis Charles. And so, yeah, that's what I'm doing.

Greg
04:03 - 04:15
Right. And I had the opportunity to see, I think that was the website you'd shown me once before for Dennis Charles, and it was really cool. So that's a great project. I'll be looking forward to seeing that one.

Greg
04:15 - 04:21
Shandos, how about you? What are you creating at the moment? Where are you creating it at? And where will people find it?

Shadows Pub
04:21 - 04:47
So the short answer would be I'm building a room on Goldbranch for the World Building Expo on Tuesday. And part of that is embedding some web pages, one of which is the infrastructure for a explorer for the daily echoes that I do. So people will be able to go and explore back through all the old Eccles as well as pages for my printable products that are being built. It's a place to be.

Greg
04:47 - 04:52
It truly is. It truly is. Shadow, do you want to tell me a little bit about the expo?

Shadows Pub
04:52 - 05:19
So last I heard there was going to be 73 exhibitors. So we enter our quote booth. Basically the booth is just a link to a room that we dedicated to Expo and those 73 exhibitors are a basically a cross kind of a cross view of the various types of ways that people use the the Goldbranch platform. It's really versatile.

Shadows Pub
05:19 - 05:36
Some people are running complete businesses on there, other people are running groups, social groups. They've just brought in a membership system so we'll probably get introduced to some new memberships going on. That's on Tuesday from 10 a.m. Eastern until 10 p.m.

Shadows Pub
05:36 - 05:38
Eastern. It's a 12-hour day.

Greg
05:39 - 05:46
I would encourage anyone to check that out. If you've ever heard of the Goldberg platform and wondering what it's all about, that would be the place to be. Alessandra, did you have a thought?

Alessandra
05:46 - 06:15
Yes, I do. Part of Creative Work Hour, we use Zoom right now for our daily sessions where we come together and we'll have in the show notes creativeworkhour.com where you can get information about if you would like to join us to help to gear up your own creative life and your own creative work. But for the more social things that we do in and amongst the crew for Creative Work Hour, we use the Go Brunch platform.

Alessandra
06:16 - 06:57
And my favorite thing that we do is once a month, we do a drive-in movie party. And what that looks like, Shadows Pub, whom you just heard, She designed this movie, this outdoor, 1950s-style drive-in movie theater. And Devin, who's here in the room, he chooses based on what's going on in the world and with the group and what kind of vibe that we need, he picks the film. How it works is it looks like you're looking up at the screen for the movie, and you see all the cars like with the 1950s fins, and there are little discs.

Alessandra
07:01 - 07:37
that our avatars just float right into. So it looks like we're occupying these old cars out on this old drive-in movie lot. This is just one use case of what you could do with GoBrunch, and we have just found it to be so much fun. We've been using GoBrunch to run the movie parties for going on almost two years now so if that's we're going to include in the show notes go brunch so that you can take a look yourself and see what you think about this this tool if it is new

Alessandra
07:37 - 07:38
to you greg

Greg
07:39 - 07:48
absolutely yeah girl brunch is really really really awesome bailey how about you what are you creating at the moment where are you creating it at and where will people find it

Bailey
07:48 - 08:29
this one's kind of hard because there's like way too many things that i'm creating but I guess I'm writing a book that I sort of have put on the back burner while I progress with my music studies, but I guess more immediately I'm doing two things. I am writing a paper for my college admissions, but it will be posted publicly on Medium, so you guys can check that out. It's all about the new era we're in, after post-modernism, and what that looks like in classical music. And I guess I'm also sort of building a career, and that doesn't sound creative immediately, but I'm doing it with piano, which is super exciting.

Bailey
08:30 - 08:38
I'm accompanying someone for their senior recital for the first time, I've never done that before. Yeah, so I'm sort of like building a accompaniment career as well. So

Shadows Pub
08:38 - 08:39
yeah,

Bailey
08:39 - 08:44
I guess those are the two immediate things, but you guys will eventually see the book sometime. Sandra, how's it fall?

Alessandra
08:44 - 09:08
I do have a thought. So when we were in the pre-production meeting for this podcast episode, I was talking to Greg about what Bailey is doing as a pianist who is accompanying another soloist. So instead of it being digital tools, like writing a thing that gets published on Medium. This is analog creativity.

Alessandra
09:09 - 09:24
So what Bailey is doing is he's practicing at home, he's practicing in the practice room. There'll be, I'm sure, a dress rehearsal. Part of the Medium that is used is, one, a piano. Two, there's the soloist.

Alessandra
09:24 - 09:49
When the soloist is playing, there is the sheet music. There is the blood, sweat, and tears of getting the music learned and styled and the musical phrases interpreted in a corporate way. And then where will that creativity be seen? Well, it will be seen in a recital, on a stage, in a musical.

Alessandra
09:50 - 10:01
And all of these things are just so us. We do game design here. We do novel writing here. We do concerts here.

Alessandra
10:02 - 10:33
We do tiny desk concerts here within creative work hour. So I just, I love, and that was just my favorite example in pre-production today, Bailey, and I wanted you to know that. We were just really excited about what you're doing to take on, because what I learned from my clarinet professor, Peter Yosef in San Francisco, is that an accompanist is not second chair to the soloist, ever. The accompanist is equal to the soloist.

Alessandra
10:33 - 10:55
The accompanist is the orchestra. And the soloist is the soloist. The soloist gets the final say on how something gets phrased, but they're equals on the stage. And if I hadn't studied with him, I would have completely misunderstood my role as an orchestra member, as an accompanist, or as a soloist.

Alessandra
10:56 - 10:59
So good luck with that, Bailey. We're really proud of what you're doing.

Greg
10:59 - 11:06
Yeah, for sure. And hopefully we'll see a Tiny Desk concert with that as well. I'm sure that we probably will watch the space. Wei Ling, how about you?

Greg
11:07 - 11:12
What are you working on? What are you creating right now? Where are you creating it? Where might people find it?

Wai Ling
11:13 - 11:58
Yes, so for those who know me would know that I am in between places right now and I'm making a big move from the US to Malaysia after being here for over 10 years. So I would say I am in the stage where I am actively Creating a new life, but for a place or a chapter that has yet to exist? And I think this is a great question because when we think about creativity, it's often the building that it would come into, the active building of something. but I am actually at that stage where this is the active letting go and negotiating what to keep and what to take for the next chapter.

Wai Ling
11:59 - 12:23
So I am in that stage right now and if I were to think of myself as an artist or a builder, I am Selecting my materials for the next stage. So where will people find it? I guess check in with me again six two months to nine months I will be in a very very different place And I am excited and also very afraid at the same time.

Greg
12:23 - 12:38
Yeah, I can only imagine. I know how difficult it was for me moving from England to the US and then going back again for six months, but not, we were going back for an extended period. And it really is, even though, you know, we live there, right? And, you know, it's our home.

Greg
12:39 - 13:05
When you've been gone for a long time, like, like I had been, like you, you have been, and you go back, it's somewhat, it's almost like moving to another country, even though it's home, right? And there's that apprehension and You know, people have moved on and where do you pick up? I'm just very grateful and privileged to be part of your journey the last few years and seeing you go from Weiling to Dr Weiling Fong. And I'm going to tell you what, because you still haven't put doctor in front of your name.

Greg
13:06 - 13:13
We have our very own doctor and we were part of seeing that happen live. So that's absolutely, absolutely fantastic.

Bailey
13:13 - 13:14
Thank you.

Greg
13:15 - 13:23
Absolutely. Devon, how about you? What are you creating right now? Where are you creating at, and where will people be able to find it?

Devin
13:23 - 14:03
Thanks, Greg. I am co-creating a musical right now, and I am creating it at least in terms of all the dialogue, which is the bulk of what has to be written down. I'm creating it in Google Docs because I know how to use it and it's easy. I should be creating it in Final Draft, which is the industry standard for any kind of movie script or PlayScript or VS Musical, but I don't know how to use all the buttons and the bells and the whistles on final drafts, or rather they get stuck.

Devin
14:04 - 14:14
I'm trying to learn how to use the tool. I'm using what I know on Google Docs and building it there, and then one day we'll have to learn how to convert it. to the proper format. But where can you find it?

Devin
14:15 - 14:26
Well, Broadway, of course. And then a little later, you'll be able to see it in the West End. And after we negotiate the movie rights, I imagine we'll be showing it on Go Brunch, so you can catch it there.

Greg
14:26 - 14:36
Go Brunch goes last. I see how it is. This is a musical that you're creating with Tom, right? And I know that you've been utilizing some of the creative work hour sessions to do that as well.

Greg
14:37 - 14:37
to work on?

Devin
14:38 - 14:53
That's right. Yes, we've gotten into several breakout rooms for Practice Not Perfect to just hash out story arcs, dialogue, actually writing the lyrics for the musical numbers, all

Greg
14:53 - 14:58
of that. Wonderful. I can't wait to learn more. Alessandro, some great conversation there.

Greg
14:58 - 15:00
What do you got for us?

Alessandra
15:00 - 15:34
Well, this has been a really, really fun episode to record because we didn't know quite what was going to just like all of the other 63 episodes, you never know quite what's going to come up. And that just keeps it so interesting because we don't script. and we don't rehearse, all we do is refine a question and then we go live. One of the things about Creative Work Hour is it is not just a daily thing that meets on, at least for right now, that meets on Zoom.

Alessandra
15:35 - 15:56
because there is not anyone in this room except right now for Bailey, whom we have not met in person. And it's not like we're doing camps or conferences. That's not how we work. Like as opportunities present themselves, we will see each other in person.

Alessandra
15:57 - 16:23
In fact, I get to see Devin and I get to see Dr. Melanie this coming week. And so that's a real treat just to get to know each other. a little better and to talk about what it is that we're doing creatively. And that's really part of what makes the texture of what we're doing here so rich is it's not like a deliberate, let's organize this thing and plan it out 18 months in advance.

Alessandra
16:24 - 16:51
It's just that we keep our ears open for opportunities to see each other and support each other. And for me, it just makes all the difference between things that I dream of getting started and things that I dream of getting finished and put out in the world. and I wish I could pull up my left wrist and look at the time. But again, Greg, I have to ask you, at this point in the show, what time is it?

Greg
16:53 - 17:04
It's that time again. You've wasted some perfectly good time listening to the Creative Work Hour podcast when you could have been doing something else. But no, you chose to tune in anyway. But how about you?

Greg
17:04 - 17:12
What are you creating right now? Where are you creating it at? and where can we find it? We would love to check out some of your work.

Greg
17:13 - 17:18
You can visit us on creativeworkhour.com. Come back next week and we'll have another question.