The Eleventh
Procrastination doesn’t need a plan. It’s the silent chaos of inaction. It’s the evil twin of meditation. It’s the slow leak of inattention.
This is another reminder (to myself, but you can use it if you’d like) that one step forward is infinitely more than zero.
As I transition away from the mindset of stand-up and try to develop into a writer I’d like to read, I find that my biggest struggle is getting my stuff “out there.” And it makes me miss the external force built into stand-up. Because what most people see as the scariest part of being a stand-up— public speaking— now stands out as the perfect cure for my worst tendency: the fear of sharing my work.
I can write all day, never publish a word, and still be a writer. I could fail to share my work with a single soul and still claim the title for myself. As long as I put pen to paper or fingers to keys, I’ve done it. I checked the box. It’s a gray zone I can just sort of live in. No risk, all reward. A thin, meager, sort of reward that doesn’t stretch too far, but it’s there.
That’s not true for stand-up. You aren’t a stand-up if you don’t perform for an audience. It’s pretty black and white. There are people who talk about doing it, but never get up there. They might have an outline of what they would talk about on stage and maybe even have written some jokes. But that’s about as far as they get. They’re not stand-ups. They may have put hours and hours of work into it, but for whatever reason, they can’t take that last step. But that divide is kinda great for someone like me. There’s no escaping the fact that if you want to call yourself a stand-up you need to perform, and once you perform there’s no escaping how the audience feels about you. So when the goal of being a stand-up is met, learning how to be good at it is already there ready to shake your hand. For better or worse you get immediate feedback (and the better stand-ups learn how to use the worse feedback).
But with writing? You can spend a lifetime in the purgatory of your mind.
Lol I guess I’m saying I wish you couldn’t call yourself a writer until you began to show your work. Maybe before that, you’re just a drafter? And I miss the undeniability of stand-up. There’s so much I’d be happy to never return to, but I do long for a little more of the clarity it offered— though the more I think about it the more aware I am of the delusions and blinders specific to pursuing success in that craft.
Anyway, I’m posting this. I’m sharing my work, And maybe someone will read this and comment and I’ll learn how to be better. Probably not. But the chances are infinitely better than if I don’t post anything at all.
