I
have a speech tomorrow, and last night it kept me up all night. I
always have that level of anxiety with new material, because so much of
it sounds unfunny and disorganized. All sorts of new ideas are scattered
around in my head and on scraps of paper, and it's a true mess. Seeing that mess fills me with frustration and anxiety -- because of the looming gig on my calendar that demands it not be such a mess.
But
-- what comforts me is to realize that all of our successes start out
as messes. And the people who succeed have the willingness to navigate
their way through the mess to find the great material that's hidden
within.
There's
nothing as unfunny and un-fun as writing a speech or writing a comedy.
Remember how on Seinfeld, Jerry and George would brainstorm ideas for
their "show about nothing" -- and everything came easily and made us laugh?
In the real
world, writers are often frustrated, anxious, doubtful, and frequently
find themselves staying up past midnight staring at a laptop and
guzzling pitchers of coffee, desperately hoping something will come to
them other than the awful first, second, and third drafts they've been
staring at for hours.
So
many people want to write a book, do standup, or be paid as a speaker,
but give up too quickly because they're weighed down by the feeling that
every idea has to be perfectly formed in their head BEFORE they start
typing it.
In
my New York weekend workshop, everyone learned that material doesn't
come out of you fully formed like a newborn colt that can just leap to
its feet and gallop. New material comes out raw and unformed, and most
of the time just lays there like a baby bird, until with rewrite after
rewrite, you finally feed it enough that it can fly.
So don't paralyze yourself with the need to be perfect. The only need is to start. And whether you're writing your story, an act, a speech, it doesn't matter how you start; just start -- and commit and nurture and parent that idea, until it gradually takes on a life of its own.
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