Unorganized

My office/spare bedroom is a fucking mess.

There's just notebooks and scraps of paper everywhere. I have so many bits and jokes that I've started, and then just tossed onto a pile or forgotten about. Podcast episodes that I'm half way through completing or uploading to YouTube. There's a handful of blog posts on here that I've started and not finished (including the initial concept for this one). I need to be better with this stuff.

I can't help but wonder if my new favourite joke, or a new closer or something is just laying in one of these piles, half-assed written out, and forgotten. Part of my problem is that while I love the process of coming up with new premises for jokes and writing out the basic concepts, I HATE the polishing and reworking that goes with turning an idea into an actual salvageable bit. What ends up happening is that I have a pile of half finished jokes just laying on my desk, judging me while I start working on another new bit instead of trying to finish one of those old ones.

For those that don't know, a comedian will often write a joke, try it, re-write, try it again, tweak, etc over and over before they finally settle on a finished bit they put into their repertoire. Coming from a comic two years into the game, I don't think any of my material is completely done. And I don't know if any good comic ever considers a joke "finished". You never know when you'll come up with a new line to add, or a subtle little change to how you word a set up that can make the bit 100x better. I just hate doing that part. Because it's the hardest.

Anyways, the point of this blog is just me calling myself out for being unorganized. I need to get all of these "half-jokes" into one book, clean up my podcasts, and come up with a game plan. I spend too much time sitting here thinking about what I should do next instead of just getting some work done. One of my goals is to make the transition from 45 minutes to 1 hour of material this year, and it isn't going to happen if I don't get my head out of my ass.

The annual "Funniest Person with a  Day Job" competition kicks off here in Edmonton next week. I was the runner up in it last year, and I really want to finish this year's contest one spot higher on the podium. I've been studying "game film" of my set from the competition last year, and it legitimately hurts to watch. I need to stop being as hard on myself as I am for that video, because I'm sure at that time it was the best I could do, but I think it's just awful now. I really hope for the rest of my comedy career I can look back on video from the past year and think it's terrible, because that (hopefully) means I'm getting better. Or at least trying to. I love watching headliners crush, but I can't help but spend the entire time watching the audience laugh, and it makes me think about how far I am from doing what they do. I don't look at that as a bad thing at all; it motivates me. I want to be on their level someday.

Where I was going with "Funniest Person", is that I'm sitting here, trying to figure out which jokes I want to take onto that stage with me, and Im struggling with that because my thoughts and me desk are a disorganized mess. I need to clean this shit up.

That gives me an idea for a new joke!

- Adam