Sketch Challenge, 4th & 5th Sets: It Is Done.

WARNING: CONTAINS GRATUITOUS SELF-INDULGENT YAMMERING

Oh.

My.

God.

It's done. It's over. I'm finished. I literally cannot believe it.

When I first hatched this bright-ass idea, I thought it would be fun! Then I thought it would be educational! Then I thought it would be a great way to sharpen my writing skills!

...and then I thought, "If I drink enough tequila to drown a horse, I will feel better."

Luckily I managed to come back with a vengeance these last two weeks and I FINISHED. I don't know what suddenly motivated me to get off my ass (or rather, to get back on my ass in front of my computer), but I'm glad I did! The thing is, I usually start a challenging creative project, get about 80% done, and quit/give up/whatever you want to call it. When progress ground to a halt in the 4th set, I feared I had gone as far as I was gonna go. So now, even though the last two sets aren't my best work, they're done. And I'm pretty ridiculously pleased about that.

So did I achieve my goals? And while I'm thinking about it, what the hell were my goals? I'm WAY too lazy to reread the original posts, but I'm pretty sure I was trying to:
1. amuse myself
2. find out what it's like to be a comedy writer working to a deadline (which is why the deadlines were modeled on John Finnemore's for his sketch show)
3. become a better writer

We'll take them individually. Because it's MY blog. And I have achieved something for a change, so I will talk about it for as long as I damn well please.

1. Did I amuse myself? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. More often than not, I would walk away from a writing session saying something like "Mother of GOD I suck!" This was decidedly unamusing, and was also a large part of the reason my liver took such a massive hit in the middle few weeks. But there were also numerous times when I would reread something a few weeks after writing it and find myself actually laughing, pleasantly surprised at the quality of my work. So I was amused some of the time. I'll say this for the overall project: it was consistently 100% amusing to watch myself try to rationalize my failures and procrastinations. Hilarious. Five stars.

2. Do I now know what it's like to be a comedy writer working to a deadline? Again: yes and no. I definitely got a healthy dose of reality about it. I mean, I read a lot (like, A LOT) of interviews with/blogs maintained by people who write comedy (not just John Finnemore), and I had seen patterns emerge in their collective characterization of the process. But when people keep saying writing comedy is like pulling teeth...I guess I just couldn't grasp it. I mean, writing my master's thesis was like pulling teeth. Doing writing samples for job applications is like pulling teeth. But comedy? Something funny? How can that ever be work?

I AM HERE TO TELL YOU THAT IT CAN VERY EASILY BE WORK. AND VERY VERY DIFFICULT WORK, AT THAT.

Now when I read those interviews/blogs, I can genuinely relate to what those people are saying. I know exactly what they mean. So in that respect, I "know what's like" now.

On the other hand, I still have no idea "what it's like" in terms of deadlines. It's fantastic that I finished today, but I was supposed to be done on August 27th. And that was after I gave myself a 2-week mental health break in the middle. I'm willing to give myself a little bit of leeway here, in that it was never possible for me to truly replicate Being a Full-Time Comedy Writer, since I'm already a Full-Time Something Else and a Part-Time Improv Actress. And then my Full-Time Something Else Employer went and staged a MAJOR acquisition right in the middle of my Sketch Challenge (the nerve!), which meant I ended up spending even more time and energy in that sphere than usual. So maybe it wasn't realistic to expect myself to meet the same deadlines as John Finnemore. On the other hand, he was doing sketch show stuff while doing Cabin Pressure stuff and becoming The Definitive Summarizer of the NOTW Scandal on The Now Show, so it's not like he was able to spend 24 hours a day, 7 days a week on sketch writing either. That's why I'm not completely excused. Quit yer bitchin', Welsh! We all have other shit going on! (<-- 99% sure this is not how John Finnemore would talk.)

3. Did it make me a better writer? In all honesty, I think the quality went steadily downhill from the middle of the 3rd set onward. The dialogue got more stilted, the jokes (on the rare occasion when there were discernible jokes after the 3rd set) weren't any good and tended to be ill-timed...everything just felt clunkier. Maybe it was because I had run out of ideas. Or maybe it was because I had too much other stuff going on (see: Employer situation). Or maybe it was because I went on vacation and lost my mojo. Or maybe I got bored and stopped paying attention - I will readily admit that by the time I got to the last 3 pages, I would gladly have written my name over and over again just to fill the space and be DONE. I think I'll just postpone this assessment. If there's one thing blogging has taught me, it's that everything gets better when extensively edited. And right now I'm putting the sketches aside for 2 weeks so I can come back completely fresh and edit the living crap out of them in October. I'll tell you on 1 November whether I've learned anything as a writer.

For now, here are 10 things I have learned during the Sketch Challenge:
1. The more tired I am, the less likely I am to fall asleep.
2. I can't write with ambient music playing. I just need the same 10 songs (with lyrics) to play over and over and over while I work.
3. "Butter London" is a Seattle-based company. WTF?!?!?
4. I have a friend who can do TEN official Disney character autographs!
5. Yellow roses symbolize jealousy(?!?!)
6. This: "?!?!!" is called an "interrobang". You're welcome.
7. There is a statue of a man walking a gator on Hilton Head Island, South Carolina.

In case anyone was confused as to the meaning of the term "baller"

8. I don't like eating doughnuts as much as I like thinking about eating doughnuts.
9. 97% of guys named Ben are hot. FACT.
10. The Scrivener project target bar really does turn green...eventually.

I am Happy. I am Sorry.

OK, so I guess I'm making this up but I thought that title was stolen from a tweet which was tweeted by one of my favorite UK comedian/blogger types, Michael Legge. But I can't find it in his timeline now, so clearly I invented it out of thin air, along with the story of how he tweeted it while he was in Edinburgh, as well as my own inference that what he meant was that he didn't have anything funny to say, because he wasn't mad about anything, because he was happy.

But that whole paragraph is apparently a mixture of fiction and fantasy. I hope you enjoyed it.

ANYWAY! If it had been true, then I would know exactly how he hypothetically felt! Because I've been struggling with my own blog for the past week, and not because I'm so depressed I want to drink myself into a coma and then slowly die in a puddle of my own vomit, which was the previous reason I was having trouble blogging. Now I'm just too damn happy and I don't have anything to say!

I mean, I could tell you about how happy I am, but that would be boring. It's not like I even have any news to share. I didn't meet any great guys or win a million dollars or anything like that. I managed to enjoy a vacation, which is a pretty major personal victory, but there's only so much you can say about that.

And now it is very cold outside (remembering of course that I am from the South, and anything below 80 degrees is "very cold" to me), which makes me simultaneously happy and sad. I mean let's face it, those three-digit temperatures weren't doing anybody any favors, and probably contributed to what I can only describe as "mass insanity" in August, which led to rioting in England, Rick Perry being taken seriously in the US, and me trying to give up booze and chocolate at the same time. WHAT WERE WE THINKING, YOU GUYS? LOL!

So yeah. Here's this incredibly boring blog post. I couldn't even work up enough snark to write a half-assed Top Ten list or some shit. Here's hoping something makes me miserable again soon!

Sketch Challenge, What 4th Set?

*punches computer in the face*

5 pages done so far.

The Kwerky Guide to...The Edinburgh Fringe Festival!

It's August. And August has been the saddest month of the year for me for the past three years and counting. Because it's Edinburgh Fringe time. And I'm missing it. AGAIN.

If you've never heard of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, I have nothing more to say to you. Next you'll be telling me you don't know what Eisteddfod is! Geez! You people should be embarrassed to call yourselves The American Society for Reunification with the United Kingdom! Wait, what? Oh... Just me? OK.

The Fringe is the world's largest arts festival. If you're not going to believe me until you see a bunch of crowd-sourced dates and statistics supporting that statement, you can check out the Wikipedia page. As for my personal relationship to the Fringe, well...we're very close. [Editor's note: Kimberly has never been anywhere near Edinburgh, let alone during the Fringe.] I found out about it back in 2008, when I happened upon that year's Guardian Fringe podcast (Live at the Gilded Balloon - still on my iPod). I was floored by the variety of people they trotted out to be interviewed and do snippets of their acts. Some were famous, some were not, some were hilarious, some were not, but everything was NEW. There's a spirit of innovation at Edinburgh - people come with concept shows where they do their act while cooking for the audience, or play 12 different characters, or do sketches set only in the Victorian era. It's fantastic! And everyone I absolutely worship as a comedy writer today has done at least one Edinburgh show, and a lot of them still go back every year.

If I ever get my damn passport renewed, maybe I'll get to go see it BEFORE I DIE.

But I digress. This is supposed to be a Guide To... post, so I'll tell you everything I know about Edinburgh, all of which was gleaned from podcasts, as well as the Twitter feeds and blogs of performers *at* the Festival. Where I am not. I can't emphasize that enough. I'm in Atlanta.

This is my town. Pretty, huh? Image graciously yoink'd rockmixer's flickr account on a CC license :)

This is Edinburgh, according to the internet. I wouldn't know;  I've never been. Image graciously yoink'd from kyz's flickr account, also on a CC license.

Things I Know About the Edinburgh Fringe Festival

1. There are no vegetables available anywhere.

2. It's insanely cold.

3. It rains. A lot. Like, all the time. Seattle - coffee + beer = Edinburgh

4. There are way more Australians than you might expect.

5. No one sleeps.

6. Everyone gets really sick and/or depressed.

7. College kids physically assault you with flyers everywhere you go.

8. There aren't enough venues for all the bazillions of shows, so some performances will take place in church basements, etc.

9. It costs a fortune.

10. In the midst of your darkest hour, you go do your show for 3 people, almost all of whom got in for free, it goes terribly, and then one of them writes you a nasty review. This was all brilliantly documented in a musical written and performed by some of my idols, which starts around the 16:45 mark of the audio on this page. (Do yourself a favor and listen. I can't even tell you how much I heart that thing. I always wish my fellow improv actors were familiar so I could do the "where's my mug" bit before shows.) (Oh yeah - and LANGUAGE WARNING!)

It sounds awful.

I REALLY want to go.

For now, I just have to say the same thing I say every year: "Maybe I'll get to go next year." In the meantime, I'll content myself with the usual voyeuristic obsession. If you'd like to know what the hell I'm talking about when I bring it up obsessively over the course of the next few weeks (and you know I will), you can probably find out at the Guardian's Fringe site, or current Fringe performer Michael Legge's blog (which, incidentally, makes for a highly entertaining read even when the Fringe is not on), or all the dozens of other podcasts and websites that will no doubt spring up and spout information until the end of the festival. Google it yourselves! Do I have to do everything?!?!