First thing this morning I had a meeting. And then I spent the rest of the day writing. And also writing. And then there was rewriting. My process is to put a lot of words together in my head. Then drop them onto a page. And then stir them all up until they don’t make sense to me anymore.
I changed up the process somewhat because when I was working on this particular thing one night last week I turned it into a literary exercise. It felt good, even then — even as? — I knew that was all going to come out in the next draft. It was an exercise of getting it out of my system. Now, I am writing something so tediously specific no one will want to read it.
It’s a gift.
There are many styles in all of us, I am sure of it. We must only turn the right valves. And there’s an art in knowing which ones to use at a given time. Some people, I thought, today, never seem to heed those warnings. They just write the thing they wanted to write, the thing they needed to write, putting their magisterial collection of words and thoughts together in the way they must be written, this time. Or so we’d like to think. Even people that know the craft can get so caught up in the brilliant work of others that they are transported far, far away from the idea of drafts and editors. I don’t write like that, because it isn’t in keeping with what I do. Consequently I’m probably not good at writing like that. But it’s fun to dream about onomatopoeia and sizzling verbs and alliteration that affects us all.
I like to read it, though.
So I wrote the day away, which was fine. It was pleasant. It’s what I needed to do. I enjoyed it. I would print out a draft and sit in the window and read the thing I’d just written word-by-word. I am trying to develop a self-editing process for that. I think it would improve my output. It would make some of my writing better. At the very least, it would be a thing I could enjoy. With that objective in mind I’ll just keep doing it until I figure out the process. Then I’ll do it because it is a process.
Tonight we saw a comedian. We saw three comedians. Two of them were the opening and feature acts. It was a large arena show and I wondered if a comedian, on a big stage in a big venue like that, knows when he is bombing. The opener was not having a good night. He gamely plodded through. The feature act was better. And this is how it should be. We’re warming up the crowd for the headliner. The headliner who is doing an arena tour. And working on new material. But also offering to do a greatest hits set.
In a way, this is kind of sad for Bert Kreischer. He’s been closing with this bit for years and years now. It’s become Freebird. People yell it out to him. It’s paying the bills, and that’s great, but he hasn’t had to write a new finish in ages. So now he has to write an almost finish, but it can’t be bigger and better than his Freebird. What a fine line to have to thread.
He’s also doing these big arena shows and saying this is where he’s working on the stuff for his next special which will be recorded next year. I know even less about comic writing than I do about any other style of writing, see above, but I’d rather you work on that in small clubs. There’s a different intimacy there, and a tradition to honor. And it would fill. Tonight, he had about two-thirds of a basketball venue filled and were scattered and unpolished and it just wasn’t a good feeling. Also, a lot of empty seats.
I didn’t know, until recently, that there was such a thing as a showbiz review of stand-up comedians. By chance I ran across a review of this tour. The critic was dismissive of the effort. I thought, maybe the writer isn’t a fan of the genre. Maybe this person is new to stand up comedy. Maybe Kreischer had an off night. The critic said maybe Kreischer has run out of things to say. Maybe the critic was right.
The other possibility is that he’s too busy living the gimmick. I’m not sure when he can write while doing all of the things that his outsized personality and persona require. I’m sure there’s a process here. I’m sure he never sits down and thinks, “I wish I could write the most boringly dense thing possible that no one will read.” I’m sure his special next year will be good.
