Stephen King Style

Tuesday May 6th, 2008 - Lake Villa, IL

I once read an article about Stephen King and he said he had a regular schedule of how he went about his writing. He did it like a regular work day. He’d get up and eat breakfast and then start working on a project. Then he’d stop and have lunch and then start working on another one. Then he’d eat dinner and afterwards work on yet a third writing project.

That’s pretty amazing to me. No wonder the guy has so many books out. I don’t know if I like writing that much to do it every day like that but I came pretty close today. I need to get cranking on a few projects and the only way to finish any of them is to DO something.

I was up and dressed and sitting at the computer by 8:30 this morning and I started work on my act. I have not paid much attention to what I started a while back and it felt good to get back into it today. I’ve got a heaping load of new ideas I want to work into my act that will really freshen it up. If it’s fresh for me I’ll be better able to deliver it to an audience.

I looked at some of the stuff I already had and I was very pleased with it. I also went off on a creative tear for a couple of hours and came up with some very solid bits that I really like. I was in a comedy groove and I could feel it the whole day as I kept working on it.

If there’s one good thing about dipping into one of my dark spells it’s that I always get a creative surge very shortly afterward. I’m very depressed when it’s happening but when it finally does end I always seem to have a floodgate of creativity open up and I love that.

Today was one of those days. I tried to squeeze out as much as I could and didn’t have a problem keeping it up the whole day. I put a ton of work in on my act and I know I’ll start seeing the improvement very soon. I need to keep doing this and a lot more often as well.

I went out to get a late lunch just to walk around a little and recharge my brain. Then for the next couple of hours I worked on the Mothership Connection show. That could be my entry into the Coast to Coast AM world as a guest or a guest fill in host so I want to make the best of that opportunity. I worked out a master list of future program idea concepts.

Without using the internet I came up with 73 subjects I thought would be good for show possibilities. If I google each of those and come up with 5 or 6 potential guests that’ll be a lot of shows. Granted I won’t get all of those people to come on but I now have a big list.

I’m not sure how the show will evolve. Jimmy Novack just got a morning show gig on WXLC in Waukegan and he may have to drop off our show. I’m happy he got the job but I hope he can stay on with us. The three of us make a nice round robin panel of co-hosts.

Whatever happens at least I’ll be ready with ideas. I worked on it for a couple of hours and put a nice dent in what I’ve been meaning to do for weeks. At least I’ve got some sort of outline and can start filling in the particulars and have a clue where I’m going with this thing. Sunday is Mother’s Day so I don’t think that will make it easy to find any guests.

After putting in a full day’s work on both of these projects I went out to grab some food at the Golden Corral. I love that place. Good grub for a low price. I sat and tried to eat as many fresh vegetables as I could as I worked on the crossword puzzle from USA Today.

That’s another thing I need to get back to. I just don’t enjoy exercise anymore and that’s about as stupid as it gets. We all know we need to exercise every day and eat healthy food but it’s too much fun to sit and rot in front of ESPN with a big bag of Doritos and a Pepsi.

I feel sluggish and tired and know I haven’t been giving it my best effort. Rather than be angry about it I decided to at least try to do good for ONE day. I can’t get back to how my body was in my 20s in one day or probably ever but I can’t keep doing what I have been.

It’s not possible to fix all life’s problems in one day but I did put some effort in on a lot of levels today. Getting my act in gear is really good. I have a lot of potential there and for me to have something to look forward to on stage makes the Topeka gigs sting a bit less.

Speaking of that I did hear from the booker today and he was a lot less amped up after I explained my situation recently. He got a little short with me there for a bit but I said my piece intelligently without threatening him and my points were valid. He came back in an entirely different tone and said the owner is on vacation and will be back in about a week.

I sent the club a well thought out email also so he’ll hopefully get it when he gets back and just write me a check and we can be done with this whole thing. I still may get taken out of the booker’s ‘bookable list’ after this is all over but that won’t hurt me in the least.

The whole thing is stupid and it never should have gotten to this point but it did so I am trying to resolve it in a peaceful and professional manner. I may not have done that many years ago so I guess I’ve grown. I hope so. None of this is what I planned on having to be dealing with when I started out in comedy. I want to do shows, not be a collections agent.

I’m still not out of the water yet and it could all blow up in my face but at least I made a professional attempt to work it all out. In my mind it’s over with and what happens when the owner gets back happens. Wasting any more of my energy on it would be a mistake.

Today was productive in some areas but I’m still very behind on some others. I haven’t worked on the movie script yet and that needs to get started NOW. I also haven’t worked on Uranus Factory Outlet either and that’s another sore spot. Those are two more projects that need attention and since I am not booked for a few weeks I need to get those in gear.

And then there’s the bookings themselves. I have also been lax on getting in touch with all of my work sources and that’s a sore spot all in itself. I haven’t done it and I need to. It doesn’t get any simpler than that. There are reasons for it but no really good ones. I didn’t maintain my contacts and now I’m out of the minds of a lot of people. It’s totally my fault and the only way to undo that is to make time and send out some emails and make calls to reconnect with some people who can book me. SOON. There’s always something to do.