Passion and Chips
A fiver the Blue Nun bottles it
Works under consideration: 14 (been busy)
Dark Angel: I’m wearing boots
Pyrates: They be nearby
Nominations: 1
State of Mind: Drowsy Clown,
Comedy WordMix: Lapping-Hicks, Banana-booted Connolly, Bob Hope ski-nose, and Phil Jupitus with a pipe
Channel 4Laughs Competitions
I’ve entered some more competitions including the caption contest on Channel 4 4Laughs Web site. And sent some sketches to Ten in Bed Theatre’s 'Comedy Toboggan' sketch thingy. Am I feeling confident? Nope. I’ve entered so many competitions and have had only a couple of so-so successes including a TV credit.
Now a rousing chorus of ‘We Shall Overcome!’
World Domination of the Comedy Web
A little bit of progress today with some short viral video. Hope to have these somewhere on the sunny side of the interweb in the next few days.
Blue Cat Man
If you want to read a real ‘Gawd he makes money out of it’ comedy writer have a look at James Henry’s blog as he has a long and funny entry about rewrites.
Passion
If you don’t have passion – don’t write. It really is that simple. You have to love what you do. Do you love what you do? Then STOP IT! I love comedy. I love making people laugh. But I had the ‘Editor’ in my head this morning. You know the one “You’re useless, you can’t write, why don’t you forget the whole writing thing!’ The bastard! I kept going through the hangover and came up with a few captions for the Channel 4 competition What kept me going? Passion to find the line, the laugh.*
The Editor
There are many ways of dealing with this BASTARD! One that I used a lot is to write him/her/Russell Brand out is to give myself 10 minutes writing all the negative things about myself and what I write. Really deep loathing of self and how useless I was. It gets it out of your system. You have to acknowledge ‘The Editor’ but never give over control. Look at your passion and why you write. Revisit your passions, the why you write.
The other ‘writing tool’ to try is called ‘My Sweetheart’ in which you give yourself 10 minutes to write all the positive about yourself and your writing. If this doesn’t work go and relax and just keep a small part of your mind ‘worrying’ the project.
Chips
Or fries, as they say in foreign parts, also work.
THE PYRATES ENTER THE BLOG. ALL THREE ARE WEARING BIG YELLOW ROSETTES
GRANITE:
Vote! Vote! Vote for Captain Nice!
WOODY:
You know it makes sense.
CAPTAIN NICE:
All you good, good people…
CWiW:
Wait a moment!
PYRATES ALL:
AYE! BELIKE!
CWiW:
What the hell are you doing now?
WOODY:
The Captain is standing for leadership of the Liberal Democratic Slavery and Minor Debauchery Party.
GRANITE:
GO CAP’!
CWiW:
Give me strength. Look you’re Pyrates aren’t you?
PYRATES ALL:
AYE!
CWiW:
You should be out flouting rules, boarding ships, looting, and generally misbehaving and not organizing yourself into a collective of dogma. You are free spirits, Free-booting-kick-ass-say-no-to-Sunday-Supplements-and-LifeStyle-Awards-Pyrates! BELIKE!
PYRATES ALL:
BELIKE!
CAPTAIN NICE:
O’
GRANITE AND WOODY LOOK SHEEPISH. THEY LOOK DOWN AT THEIR FEET
CAPTAIN NICE:
I haven’t thought this through. Men! Now is the time to embrace our destiny! Now is the time to, er, DO SOME DEVILRY!
ALL:
BELIKE! DEVILRY! AYE!
THE PYRATES EXIT ‘APACE’ ROSETTES FLUTTER TO THE FLOOR OF THE BLOG
CWiW:
CAPTAIN NICE: (V.O.)
You’ve run out of words again.
CWiW:
Bugger! Not again. Did you look behind the fridge?
CAPTAIN NICE: (V.O.)
There they are!
CAPTAIN NICE RETURNS TO THE BLOG
CWiW:
Thank you. I’ll have those ones.
COMEDY WRITER IN WAITING CAREFULLY SELECTS THE WORDS HE NEEDS. HE CLEARS HIS THROAT
CWiW: (cont.)
Captain Nice exits.
EXIT CAPTAIN NICE
- END -
Tune into the next blog
For some ‘moving pictures’ a fish supper, and we’ll visit the secret place where the Banditos roam.
*Help! I’m being soooooo serious!
posted by JimKin @ 11:35 am
6 comments
6 Comments:
I'm running into "lack of passion" problems, myself. I like to blame it on "I have no time right now", but now I read your post, and I know better. If I "wanted" it enough, I'd steal the time, wouldn't I?
How to get the passion back...? No, seriously, how do I do that?
Passion
Dear Right-Hand-Sycophant-Anvil-Writer and part time ‘Duchess of Chaos,’
1. I play particular music. I even have a Playlist called ‘Writer Hope’
High energy stuff. Some of the current ones
- Standing in the way of Control - Gossip
- Supertheory of Everything - Gogol Bordello
- Born Slippy - Underworld
- Bittersweet Symphony - The Verve
- Holiday - GreenDay (the whole of Bullet in the Bible works)
It’s the music but also the vibe of ‘This is Life’
I want to live these songs.
2. Revisit My Comedy Gods
- Bill Hicks - He wasn’t a great comedian but he had balls, passion and anger and above all truth.
Eddie Izzard - Surreal, warmth.
Isn’t life absurd. Let’s laaaauuuggghhh at it.
Father Ted - The Greatest Sit Com known to man
I want to give this to the world. Something that no one else has ever created.
3. I love great movies and I love the joy of language especially sharp witty dialogue
- His Girl Friday - Gary Grant and Rosiland Russell, true fire.
I want to write like this.
4. I look at my own work and I know it’s good (O’ it always needs work) but there is a lot of it.
I want to write more!
5. I read ‘Writing Down The Bones’ a couple of chapters.
I’m going to practice my craft.
6. I visit friends and talk.
Isn’t life fun. I’d forgotten.
7. I have a pin board in front of my desk. It’s a mess of fun things and what excites me, things I want, performers I admire, gifts from friends, a mish-mash of good vibes. It makes me relax and look back at the blank page and want to fill it.
8. I used to keep index cards with quotes I admire and have resonance. Every one from Walt Whitman to Lao Tzu.
There’s always a line that acts as a trigger.
8.. Take a break
Sometimes this is the only thing. I tell myself to relax, enjoy myself. Which is very difficult! It can be a day it can be three.
Sometimes we just need recharging.
There are other bits and bobs that inspire but these have all worked.
B e l i k e !
Ah, the music. Yes. My first screenplay was written to the entire "Cake" discography. The music plays 24/7 here (my battery died on my Walk-About yesterday and I was forced to call my cell phone provider and request to be PUT ON HOLD, for the musak).
I wonder, if I shut the playlist down, would the shock jolt me out of my non-write-iveness?
And damn, if I haven't misplaced my copy of Writing Down the Bones. Who makes such a necessary book so unnecessarily damned small?!
:-)
You may need 300 Spartans to knock on your door, demanding coffee, photography, and screenplays...
Mmmmm. Let me think...
That might, just might be insssssssspiring....
300:
'THIS IS SPARTA!
LES:
Do you mind I'm trying to write, try next door.
300:
SORRY!
- END -
If they have beer, they are SO getting in...
300:
We bring beer and the finest 'slightly salted, but also dry roasted fine-peanuts!.'
LES:
You're in. Wipe your feet.
300:
Thank you.
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