I never really write the jokes. I just sit down over a week or two and try to figure out what I want to talk about. Once I narrow that down, then I start working on the material, like "How do I make this stuff funny?"
Some people do specials, like, when they've only been doing comedy for three years or something. Which is fine! But I'm kind of old fashioned, and I knew that I didn't want to do one too early.
I have a file of four million jokes... I have them cross-indexed. Whatever subject you want, I have a joke on it.
I keep my stand-up comedy notes in a pile on my desk. I don't organize my act. I keep myself in a state of confusion. It stresses me out, but I prefer creative chaos.
There's no real preparing at home for stand-up. You just go and you just do it.
It's a simple and an effective way of getting everyone on the same page, prepared and paying attention to the gag. People just get into that frame of mind of you doing impressions. It can take a minute or two for an audience to catch on when you aren't doing one.
It's the same kind of preparation you do for something like this you do for anything. It doesn't matter if it's a drama or a comedy, the need to get the emotion and the character arc across is way harder in something like this so was more of a preparation.
I can work as a writer, but I wanted to do stand-up. And I knew I could, at worst, work as a stand-up. And I like to travel, and I knew I wanted to do an hour special, so in order to get ready for that, I had to hit the road.
There's a fraudulent root element of comedy in that we say things night after night as though they are rolling effortlessly from the brain and off the tongue, when in fact they are crafted over weeks and months and years.
You have to show up at 7 in the morning and be on like it's 9 at night. It's a skill. Some comics run from it, and they hate doing it, but the comics that are pros understand how important it is, and they get good at it.
I think the thing I had going for me is a good pedigree and joke-writing ability. But a good pedigree, for the audience, doesn't matter past the first 90 seconds.
