A few words on writing…
On a recent trip home to visit my father I noticed for some reason he had placed two books on the dresser in my childhood bedroom. One was a book by Bill Hicks and the other was, ‘Poking a Dead Frog: Conversations with Comedy Writers.’
I pick up books like this one from time to time or people give them to me because for whatever reason I have been seen as someone who enjoys comedy and for awhile at least pursued or is constantly pursuing a career in comedy writing.
If I had to distill everything in that book and all of the others I’ve ever read that deal with the ‘How?’ in becoming a comedy writer, or any type of writer, the answer is simply to — write.
Write about anything and everything you can just to do it. Write every day. At various times in my life I have made a commitment to myself and to the constant parade of voices in my head that I will write. Whatever it is. It doesn’t matter because at the end of the day, writing about anything is better than not writing and hopefully as I continue to do this I will continue to improve and get to where I’d like to be.
The fact is though over the years I got very close to my dream job and didn’t quite make the jump. Instead I chose not to write. And its incredibly disappointing on the one hand and on the other I often wonder if I didn’t do it when presented with the opportunity because I didn’t want it enough. I wanted something else and thats okay. I think it some of both but now I find myself thinking that maybe its not even about writing comedy but just writing.
I always felt a little hamstrung by standup and its why I don’t care for a good bit of whats out there now because most of it feels tired and copied and unoriginal because if you’re only writing comedy then you’re only going for laughs. If you’re touring around the country and you have your act and it’s designed to kill in comedy clubs and those audiences then it’s very rare to find a comic who pushes the envelope in a truly unique way and I think the way I wanted to push it was past the realm of club comedy.
The truth is I just think it’s difficult to write and be a writer and even harder to make money at it but I love it or at least I think I do.
So much of writing now seems to be about getting likes or views and less about truly loving it. Whether it’s tweets, or IG captions, memes or GIFs with witty copy attached. Everything seems much more about who is consuming and less about the words.
Like right now. I could have written this in a notebook but instead I chose to write it on a website designed for independent publishing rather than in Word.
I think part of the reason I also want to write is because I don’t know what else to do with my life. Outside of a loving relationship which I am so fortunate to have I look to what else there is? An uninspiring job that pays the bills, fleeting relationships with friends, family relationships splintering since my mom died. I think I often look to writing because it is something, ya know? It’s a little bit of something to do, a place to express, a place to get lost in the good that is in the world when there is so much bad happening around us.
