New York’s kicking my butt.  It’s good for me in the long run, but it becomes harder to motivate myself to go out to opens mics.  I need to get on more shows with real audiences.  However, it’s been frustrating to see who’s getting booked on some of these shows, where bookers aren’t even returning my emails.  I’m as good or better than a lot of (some of) them, but I’m not a draw.  They don’t NEED to book me.  I’m an unknown.

But that’s the issue:  my main dream is to perform.  To work and rework jokes.  I’d get onstage 10 hours a day if I could, and write mainly from the stage.  That’s what I’ve been trying to accomplish with the improv.   More performance hours.  Getting up and doing these intensive classes from 10 AM to 4pm 4-5 days a week, was SO much fun!  If I had the money I’d do it constantly.

The writing is tougher.  That feels more like work to me.  For the past few months, I’ve only averaged a page or two a day.  I’d love to say it was from the physical exhaustion of crashing on different couches every week, doing as much improv and stand up as possible, continually trying to find new sublets at cheap prices, and so on.  But it’s more been my avoidance of failure.  My avoidance of throwing my entire self out there to be judged.  Which is a suffocating way to approach writing, and I wouldn’t recommend it.

I’ve been reading Stephen King’s On Writing recently, and his words have made me realize I’m being too hard on myself. Again.  Jokes, or any writing for that matter, will be edited a thousand times by strangers of varying expertise,  so why not enjoy the writing process, and sift  for gold later?  Developing an act is mostly about people telling you not to tell that one anymore, so why do it to yourself?  I’ve decided I’m doing 10 pages a day until I like it, or start breaking all my pens so I can’t write anymore.  I’ve written 30 notebook pages (one side) in the past 3 days.  I woke up this morning dreading doing it again, searched the internet for an hour, but writing here has oiled my brain a bit.