Writing

I’ve decided to start writing a blog every two days or so (Sat, Mon, and Thurs), just to get the writing juices flowing. I finished listening to the Duff Mckagan audiobook (Guns N’ Roses) and he said he writes a weekly article for a magazine, I forget which one. I actually Googled how long a magazine article is, and I’m going to write about the same amount of words. 1200-1500 words, by the way. I also just finished the Stephen King book ‘On Writing’ and he also has a strict writing schedule, and he said he listens to hard rock while he writes, mostly AC/DC, Metallica and Guns N’ Roses. I’m currently listening to Chet Baker on Spotify. ‘Love for Sale - Live at the Rising Sun Celebrity Jazz Club’ if you’re interested. On a recent podcast, comedian Willie Barcena stated he is writing his new hour of material by spending all day at Denny’s. He goes there for breakfast, when he’s done, he writes, the waitress brings the lunch menu, he eats, he writes some more, then has dinner. He writes for eight hours per day. That’s a little extreme, but I would like to get more disciplined when it comes to my writing.

Just to let you know where I’m at, I recorded my debut live CD a few years ago, ‘The Bloody Savage’. Since then I started a new joke notebook and it’s almost full. With the new material I’ve written since my first CD, I have enough material for another CD. But when I look at my material, it’s not as cohesive as my first one. There’s no throughline. It’s not all connected. So what I plan to do is record two EPs. An EP is a short album. It stands for Extended Play, and usually contains about 4-5 songs. Remember ‘GNR Lies’ by Guns N’ Roses? That’s an EP. Actually, it’s two EPs. Their first release was an EP called ‘Live ?!*@ Like a Suicide’. Then they recorded four more acoustic songs and teamed them together and called it ‘GN’R Lies’. That’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to record and release two EPs, but separately. I already have a potential title for one of the EPs. And if I decide to go with that title, I already have in mind what I want to do for the cover artwork. Still working on the title for the second EP.

So I think I’ve written all the material I need for these two EPs, so I’m going to start working on the new material for the next full-length CD. I already have in mind the type of material I want to do, plus a couple of topics I want to hit. For my first CD, I wrote a lot of little jokes, and then I bunched them together and they became chunks. I didn’t write the chunks all at once, they came together over time. The material for the two EPs were written that way as well. In fact, that’s one of the reasons why I’m doing two EPs. One set of jokes is very focused on one topic while the other set of jokes has nothing to do with nothing. They’re still grouped together, but they’re unrelated, if that makes sense. But the second full-length CD will have longer bits, rather than short jokey-jokes. I’ve learned how to write jokes, now I just want to expand on it. To include more of my opinions and worldview. That sounds pretentious, but it’s not really.

Louis C.K. wrote one of his hours of material 5 minutes at a time. He wrote 5 minutes of material every month, and after 12 months, he had enough material for an hour-long comedy special. When I first heard that, I thought that sounded doable. Until you try it. It’s hard to write 5 minutes of jokes per month. But if you look at his CD ‘Chewed Up’, you can see that it has 15 tracks, each approximately 5 minutes in length. Obviously some are shorter and some are longer, but you can see how he’s broken up his act. Each bit is a separate track on the album. So, I’m guessing he wrote one bit per month, each bit was 5 minutes, that’s an hour.

When I look at my CD, I have 12 tracks, most of which are in the 2 to 3 minute range. Each track is a different topic. But I didn’t write them all at once. I just wrote jokes, I wrote what I thought was funny. Over time, I started grouping all the jokes that were under a similar topic together. But it took time. I would have a topic, I’d write a new joke then see where it fit.

The next full-length CD will be written differently. I plan on writing five minutes on a selected topic, write 10-12 bits and release a full-length CD.

When I researched the average length of a magazine article, I came across some interesting numbers. I learned that most people read at about 200 words per minute, so the average blog post should take you about 5 minutes to read. Believe me, it took longer than 5 minutes to write this and type it. I think the trick is to block out all the distractions. Easier said than done. As I’m typing this, I have tabs open for Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and my email accounts. Of course I have my music playing. It’s just background noise. I chose Chet Baker because there are very few vocals, mostly trumpet.

In my research (just now) I found out that the average person speaks about 150 words per minute. So in order to perform 5 minutes onstage, I need to write about 800 words. But not just words, jokes. Otherwise I’d just be delivering a speech. I tend to speak slow. I’m not very energetic onstage. I don’t even know how to describe my delivery. Relaxed? Casual? Casual is pretty close, I guess. I remember reading an article about a comedian and he was talking about his delivery. He said it was very casual and nuanced, you really had to pay attention and the punchline snuck up on you, and really hit you hard, to the point where you were taken aback, like “Did he just say that?” I wish I still had that article, I’m not describing it properly, but you get the idea. That’s the sort of thing I tried doing with my comedy, early on. I’ve said this before, but I’m not a ‘shock’ comic, but my material has been described as shocking. I did an interview for a newspaper and the reporter was this retired White gentleman. And he said, “I’ve seen some of your videos on Youtube, and some of the things you said made me uncomfortable. Was that the intention?” I told him that my intention was to make him laugh, but the fact that I made him uncomfortable, was a bonus. For my next full-length CD, there will be more of that.

I think I’ve grown as a comic since ‘The Bloody Savage’. And hopefully you’ll see the growth on the next two EPs. And you’ll definitely see/hear the growth on my next full-length CD.  

When I write, I speak to myself, in my head. But at the same time, I picture myself onstage delivering these words. So a lot of times, I’ll say something in my head, think it’s funny, then write it out. I may take a different approach for the next CD. I recently discovered speech-to-text on Google Docs. It seems to work okay. I’m just a little shy to talk out loud. I’m not sure why. I’m not one of those people that hates the sound of their own voice. But I think in order to write longer bits, around 5 minutes in length, I’ll have to talk them out, just to get all my thoughts out there. Now that it’s almost summer, I do plan on getting out more and walking. That would be the time to talk out loud and record it on my phone, and type it out later if it’s any good.

Well, I’m almost at 1400 words, that’s enough for now. See you Monday.