I’m not a comic who can just sit down and write material. I’ve tried and it’s awful. My better material is stumbled upon at random times in the day. The problem is I don’t seem to be coming up with as much new stuff lately and I couldn’t figure out why.
Last night I was in a meeting dealing with book marketing and such and some of it was review so I caught myself daydreaming. All of a sudden a few new bit ideas came to me. This same thing happened on Easter Sunday while I was sitting at church. Again, flooded with potential bit ideas instead of listening. These little “creative floods” have become rare in the last two years and I had always blamed the fact that stand-up isn’t my top priority in life anymore. That wasn’t it. What did last night’s meeting and church have in common? I went more than five minutes without being on my phone. I got an iPhone a little over two years ago (shut up, I was poor), and since then I’ve grown the common addiction many of us have. I check it probably hundreds of times a day. I’m on Facebook, Wordfeud (I’m Robagain2, bring it on!), Ruzzle, Twitter, and even the weather app almost constantly. I don’t have time to daydream anymore.
This can’t be only me, right? Last night when I got home I fired up the citronella candle (that’s not a euphemism for pot, I’m 36)and just sat out on my deck for an hour and a half. I wrote out a few of the bits that I thought up during the meeting and eventually stumbled on one or two more ideas. Most of them won’t even make it to open mic night, but there’s potential for at least one to make it into my show set. So this week’s tip is to put your phone away once in awhile and be amazed at what it’s like to daydream again.
Don’t Wear Shorts on Stage is my how-to-do standup book, but it’s limited in how to write funny material. I don’t think you can teach funny (there are other books that try), but it will tell you what to do if you are funny. It definitely covers what kind of material and actions NOT to do on stage as well as the business side. Please check it out if you haven’t already.
Don't Wear Shorts on Stage 