It was actually really similar in the big creative ways: thinking about how to find comedy and surprise and emotion in the unexpected and the everyday.
Related posts tagged 'Writing'
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Related posts tagged 'Writing'
i felt compelled to share my mental health challenges to help take the shame and stigma off it, but i couldn't do it on stage-was just too insecure and nervous. i wanted to write the book that i wish had been available to me when i was suffering--self help books are usually very boring and i wanted to write a cool, funny one! i also wrote about getting my ear getting bitten off and almost getting arrested in guatemala which i couldn't really do while making eye contact with humans
It [writing a speech] is very much like when I have a job writing a screenplay. I think I wanted to do something true and I wanted to do something helpful. What complicates it, in addition to the fact that that’s a hard thing to figure out, is that I also struggle with wanting you to like me. In my fantasy I leave here and people are saying, ‘Great speech!’ you know, and, ‘Not only is he a great writer but boy, I really learned something tonight, he really brought it!’ So as much as I know that this neediness of mine exists, I also have a difficult time extricating myself from it, or even fully recognizing it when it’s happening.
It hasn't changed at all. I have an idea, I act it out in my head, and then put it into a dictaphone, usually playing all the parts. The only thing that's changed is expectation. It was nice to come from nowhere. But you just have to put all of that out of your mind, and write like this is your first breakthrough job. And always write about what you know.
Writing a script is different because you have to write from different perspectives other than your own. I had to write lines for my fictional wife, Leif, Artie [characters in his HBO show Crashing]... you have to imagine more than just your own opinions. A very good excercise just in general!
I think any writing benefits you. I'm writing every day even though it's not necessarily stand up writing. Just sit down, try not to be distracted and write.
i just started watching tons of pilots and reading pilot scripts. i also read a book called "save the cat" which is an excellent way to learn the math of writing tv and movies. i got note cards, a cork board, the whole thing! I'm a dork but i couldn't afford classes or anything on it. watch your favorite tv pilot, write out the math of it, and follow that template.
I always try to write from what it is that I’m thinking about at the time that I’m writing. I always try to centre it on that, because that’s the sort of lack of perspective thing that I was trying to talk about before. There are too many safeguards when you put yourself out of it, and say you’re going to write about this.
The best way for me to find that place where I’ve got a lot of emotion and a lot of agitation and a lot of fear or whatever, is to make that what the story is or what the movie is. And not try to hide it.
plotting can be tough because you're never quite sure you're doing it right - it's usually kind of like an exploration. You try something, and figure out what it needs. For instance, one episode we were plotting last night, I felt like it was all things happening, and no emotional connection from our charaters. So we figured out what my own personal connection to the plot would be, and that actually helped us figure out the things that would happen more easily. It's also helpful if your characters can have opposite points of view about what's occuring.
To motivate, I would try to outline as much as you can before you ever start writing a line of dialogue. If you're having trouble plotting, ...
I don't have any real alterations I'd make, like "oh, I put the threshold in the wrong place," but I do have a much simpler view of the circular story model, based on years of breaking well over a hundred stories with it...little tricks that make viewing a story even easier and I guess a little less out-and-out hero's journeyish in favor of something more fundamentally geometrical. I'm hoping to share these discoveries in some part of the book I'm writing for Doubleday, in the chapter between the shit from my childhood nobody cares about and the Chevy Chase stuff I forced everyone to care about.
It comes to me. Part of my leaving the media on all day is a way of…my mind has trained itself to have a very sensitive system of radar about certain words, expressions, topics, and areas of discussion that come up. There are things that interest me more than others, and then there are things that jump out. There’s one thing I learned about the mind as a young man, when I quit school. I read a book - half of it, anyway - called Psycho-Cybernetics. The author said that the brain is a goal-seeking and problem-solving machine, and if you put into it the parameters of what it is you need or want or expect, and you feed it, it will do a lot of work without you even noticing. Because the brain doe...
Question: how do you organize and develop your material and various jokes? Do you have notebooks full of detailed notes and jokes, or do you just sketch them out and wing it on stage?
Answer: I believe in detailed notes and jokes, and also winging it onstage. But, not for your first open mic. For your first open mic, my advice to you would be to make sure you have what you're gonna do memorized, to the point that one of your friends can gently slap you across the face, and you'll still be able to get it out of your mouth.
Oh, zero. I wanted to write a novel, but they wouldn’t let me. But there are facts in the book that are true, [like] 'a river is made of water.'
They were all fun for different reasons. Sometimes when writing the history of UCB or the times at SNL were fun, because they reminded me of all those stories, and I would start laughing thinking of all the ridiculous people I surrounded myself with. I was just texting with Fred Armisen, and telling him that i wrote nice things about him int he book, and he was very touched, and then I reminded him that his lawyers made me do it, and I said "His lawyers will sue you if you don't write nice things about him in your book."
The more you can do the better. Always write your own stuff. Most people aren't interested in writing for you. Beeleedat.
I've been run ragged with press for the special lately, but when I'm home and in a routine, I make coffee, eggs, etc and try to write. Treat it like a job.
it all comes in seasons and waves. the best we can hope it when we are called on, we are in a creative season! and if we're not, sometimes that panic of a deadline is enough to snap me out of it. but it's all self love. if youre blocked, love youself anyway. it's a better strategy and will make it go away faster than being hard on yourself. take a nap! take a walk! take a drive! watch a movie! it's all writing. just in your subconscious
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BJ Novak