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.

Sketch Challenge, 4th Set: I Don't Even Know, You Guys.

"I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by." - Douglas Adams


Remember last weekend, when I said I'd only written 5 pages of the 4th set? Well, Saturday was the deadline and I've still written 5 pages of the 4th set. No more. WHY? I'll answer that to the tune of "Tropical Heatwave":

I'm having a breakdooooowwwwn
A writer's block breakdoooooown
My blood pressure's rising
It isn't surprising
I certainly can't.


Can't. Can't. 

I mean, I can, obviously. But I'm not, obviously. I essentially ran out of ideas. And when I tried to force an idea, all I got was really, really bad stuff. Just total crap. I appreciate that this is an exercise and a learning experience, so there will be some crap written. In fact, a great deal of crap has already been written. But there's crap, and then there's crap. And this was CRAP. I also spent more time at the theatre than usual last week, which meant I had spent a lot of creative energy before I even got to my writing desk.

Anyway, I figure that's probably enough excuses for right now. I have 2 weeks until THE Deadline for the whole project, so maybe I'll see if I can churn out the remaining 120 pages in that time. The good news is that I find I'm slowly getting some decent ideas again, after a week off, so maybe all hope is not lost.

Sketch Challenge, What 4th Set?

*punches computer in the face*

5 pages done so far.

Sketch Challenge, 3rd Set: Not Now But Soon

I am so tired.

I finished the last 13 pages of Set 3 this morning, about 10 hours late. I won't make any excuses; I just didn't get it done on time. This week's sketches got markedly more political. I had previously avoided that sort of thing, and was still hesitant to do so this week. But in the end I decided that's where my head was, so that's what I'd write. It's not like these will ever see the light of day anyway.

I still feel very disorganized and unstable, though I've made substantial progress in getting things together. This morning I was fondly remembering the first week of Kimberly Welsh's Sketch Challenge and Proof of Insanity, Now No Longer Giving A Shit What The Sketch Is About, Or Indeed Whether It's Funny, So Long As The Page Count Goes Up. Ah, those halcyon days when I was so full of optimism and wonder. I remember how excited I was to carry my little pocket notebook around, seeing the world through the eyes of a kid on an Easter egg hunt, searching for the little nugget of humor in everything. Everything was so shiny and new! Now my house is a disaster area, I scrounge for food, I barely look presentable half the time...

I'm hurtin', y'all.

BUT! This was the whole point of the Sketch Challenge and Gauntlet and Rite of Passage! Because I read that John Finnemore was going to write 5 sketch shows in 10 weeks, and we all know that while that sounds fun, it's probably not as much fun as we might think. And I wanted to know what it would really be like, suspecting all along that it would probably come with one or two major low points. Well at least now I know I was definitely right! And that's not even the thing I'm most proud of! My biggest accomplishment, as assessed by my very own impartial self, is that I haven't quit yet, and I'm NOT GOING TO. I'm sure I've already mentioned my unfinished EP, the two screenplays I half-finished, the various short stories that got outlined but never written... I have a bad habit of not finishing what I start. But NOT. THIS. TIME.

All my deluded expectations of being pleasantly surprised to find that I am a natural-born sketch-writing genius are dead, as are my fantasies of sitting at my spotless writing desk, sipping a cup of tea and laughing pleasantly to myself as I read joke after hilarious joke pouring out of my fingertips during daylight hours. I know now that I might have potential as a sketch writer, but I also have a really long way to go. And that getting there involves my writing desk getting very messy indeed, and me sitting there at 2 in the morning in food-stained pajamas and no makeup, having epiphanies about why people smoke cigarettes and/or do meth.

The really twisted part is: I kinda love it.

So there you have the final assessment of Set 3. Not as funny as the first two sets, a little behind schedule, not the work of genius I'd hoped for, but DONE. Which is all that matters right now.

The little bar is turning a sort of orange instead of red! I may live to see green!

Of course, quality is still a concern, and I don't like thinking I might...well...suck. It's downright depressing, actually. Which is why I was so happy when a friend of mine posted this on the social media, after snagging it from Wil Wheaton's social media, and who knows where WW got it from, but ANYWAY!

I'm getting this tattooed on the inside of my eyelids.

I've always felt I'd rather write something and know it sucks than be the oblivious egomaniac who writes sludge and thinks it's comedy gold. And literally everything I'm doing at this point is pretty much 100% an act of faith, so I just have to keep thinking that eventually I will learn something and I will get better at this...provided, of course, that I don't quit. WHICH I WON'T. Reading this occasionally helps keep me reassured and calm. I need more of that.

And now for the weekly expression of gratitude to someone who said something nice which helped keep me from drinking a whole bottle of Nyquil:
John Brett of the Week! (not like that)
This week's John of the Week is...my friend Brett! I had a late-night mainstage show at the improv theatre last night, which is always a pretty sizable challenge. Holding my own amongst the mainstagers at an hour when I would ordinarily be sound asleep is no small feat for an old lady like me! But the challenge part is offset by the awesome part, which is that I get to perform AND I get to see/work with a ton of awesome people, including my aforementioned friend Brett. In the end, I had a great time with a great cast and a great emcee, which was all I could've asked for. Then I checked my Twitter timeline this afternoon and saw this:

Awwwwww!

And that made my whole weekend a billion times better. Thanks Brett! Brett also once made me an amazing origami penguin, but I am a terrible photographer and could never hope to capture its incredibleness for you here. But it lives by my TV, so you KNOW I love to look at it ;)

Sketch Challenge, 3rd Set: Sometimes the Wheels Fall Off

As you may recall, last week represented the single largest FAIL of Kimberly Welsh's Sketch Challenge and Very Public Nervous Breakdown, With No Sketches Whatsoever to date. I decided to ease back into writing last weekend by writing a submission for another website! You may have noticed that I never promoted it, and that's because it was rejected. And then I also didn't put it on my own blog, because frankly I wasn't that impressed with it myself. But I had spent most of the weekend writing/editing it, so the thought that I had burned up 48 hours for nothing was pretty...disheartening.

 I resolved to start fresh this week, then singularly failed to do so, choosing instead to play with Google+ (gplus.to/kwerkygirl, if you're into that sort of thing), and Spotify, and an ill-advised quantity of alcohol. All of this avoidance was part of a vicious cycle that made me feel a little like the great Ernest Hemingway: I drank when I couldn't write, and then I couldn't write because I was drinking too much! Fun fact: It must've been fucking miserable being Ernest Hemingway. [Just as a point of fact, I am a total lightweight. So when I say "I drank too much", that means as much as 3 glasses of wine in one night. It's not like I woke up in the morning and drank a bottle of vodka before I got in the shower.]

And really, I could write; I was just too scared to, in case I couldn't write anything good. So I woke up Friday morning with the apocalyptic hangover from hell and said, "Right! That two weeks was interesting. Now might be a good time to get my shit together." So I have. I haven't gone out or done anything classically "fun" in the last 3 days, but I have written. And then I wrote, then I wrote a little more, and now I'm writing. And that feels very good, in a very geeky sort of way. WAY WAY WAY more fun than being inebriated, trust me. Yesterday, I got 30 pages of sketches written, which puts the total count at 150 pages - the halfway mark!

In the interest of full disclosure, I feel compelled to tell you that if we were to actually perform all the sketch shows I've written, this one would be the weakest BY FAR. I am singularly unimpressed. But! I don't have many good ideas to work with from the last few weeks (I blame the booze and sleep-deprivation), and this is only the first draft. If anything good came out of last weekend's mostly wasted effort, it's that I did more editing that weekend than I have ever done on any of my previous "comedic" work. And even though I didn't think the final draft was worthy of posting, I firmly believe it was about a thousand times better than the first draft. So I have a lot more faith in editing (and my ability to do it effectively) than I did before. And I would be remiss if I didn't also mention that I had the benefit of a really fantastic editrix, in the form of my BFF, who critiqued the first draft and sent back some really fantastic and perfectly-worded guidance.

(Boy is she ever going to regret THAT!)

So I'm optimistic that even these horrible first drafts may yet be saved. Well, some of them, anyway.

I've just realized that I have inadvertently continued the unofficial tradition of naming the Sketch Challenge posts using song lyrics. That one up there is from Neil Halstead's "Sometimes the Wheels", which has recently become an anchor in my daily writing playlist, and which I find very comforting whenever I feel another nervous breakdown coming on. Because "Sometimes the wheels fall off, and sometimes you can't get up...and Sometimes the world moves fast, and sometimes you can't keep up, and sometimes I just sit and think, and I don't think much". BONUS: It contains a brilliant 2-line indictment of skinny jeans! Recommended.

Sketch Challenge, 3rd Set: "Ack"

I'm applying the "Accountability" label here, even though it doesn't really fit. Because I am completely letting myself off scot-free.

According the various and constant warning alarms on my iPhone, iPod, and laptop, tomorrow is the deadline for the 3rd set of sketches. And John Finnemore blogged about having a show at the Albany tomorrow night, which is basically like a backup alarm for same. So what's my progress looking like?

Nothing. Not a single sketch. Please don't steal my terrible ideas, but this is what the current set looks like, compared with the last set:

Oops.

Wha' Ha' Happen' Was...

*Clears throat* I spent a day visiting my brother in Augusta and when I came back I found a stray dog and he kept me up all night and I didn't get rid of him until the next day and then I was supposed to leave town but my cat sitter went AWOL 12 hours before departure and I had to take an extra day off work to hunt her down or find a new one and I drove all over Buckhead to drop off a key and then I went to Florida with my family so there was no way I could concentrate and when I came back I was too sunburned to move and then I had to go back to work and apparently we're being bought so I had to go to a bunch of special meetings and I was going to write after rehearsal on Wednesday but it was the Summer of Fun so we had a surprise party and I stayed out til 11 and came home too drunk to focus and then I got cast in a show last night and now I have less than 24 hours to write 60 pages of sketches!!!!
(end of excuses)

I barely even scribbled down any ideas for sketches in my trusty notebook. It's been a real setback. And my initial intention when I got up this morning was to power through and try to finish on time, but I've had a realization, and it is as follows: The major problem was being out of town for 4 days. The other things were largely out of my control (with the exception of the sunburn and the drinking) and genuinely prevented me from writing. The perfectionist voice in my head feels very strongly that I have to adhere to the original schedule because the whole point was to write on exactly the same schedule as John Finnemore's Sketch Night. But just between you and me, I rather suspect that JF had some warning about this whole thing and could move his travel plans accordingly. Whereas I literally just woke up one morning and said, "Hey! I know what would be a good idea!" So the 3rd set is hereby postponed, and an additional fortnight of sketch-writing is hereby tacked onto the tail end of Kimberly Welsh's Agonizingly Slow Sketch Suicide, Currently With No Sketches About Coffee, Screaming Children, Or Anything Else For That Matter.

The focus for the next two days will now be internet writing (since I've only written one pitiful little blog post this week, and that was interrupted FIVE TIMES by lengthy phone calls). But it might interest you to know about the one thing I did manage to accomplish: I updated the photos and captions on the home page slideshow AND stashed 4 "pages" (which are not the same thing as "posts") around the blog. Secretly. Like Easter Eggs. Happy hunting!

Sketch Challenge, 2nd Set, Final Report: Who's That Girl?

I don't know why I always feel compelled to use song titles for these. Anyway.

It is noon on Saturday, 7/2/2011, and the second 60-page set of sketches is more-or-less finished (pending a printout, lunch, and a walk before coming back to it for final notes. You have to breathe sometime). I was obliged to wrap it up a little earlier than usual today, as I am expected at a family cookout this afternoon, followed immediately by a crew shift at the theatre that will keep me out until 1ish. So how do we feel about this set, as compared to the last one?

Overall, I think this set is much stronger. It flows a little more smoothly and features an improved joke-to-exposition ratio. I'm pretty pleased about that. The biggest area for improvement is consistency in work habits. I got a little busy with other things these past two weeks and didn't maintain the focus I had before. I think this set would've been even better if it had gotten the benefit of my attention more often. Lucky for me, I get to do this [at least] three more times, so I can take that lesson into the next few sets! Like I said at the end of the first set: the whole point of this exercise was to learn and (hopefully) improve, and I can honestly say that I've definitely learned a few things and I like to think I'm seeing improvement. Though I'm not sure I'm the best judge of that.

In a weird and unexpected twist, the Incredibly Mundane Sketch Challenge and Psychological Torture Chamber, Now With Less Coffee and More Xenophobia has also resulted in some surprising changes in my appearance (hence the title of this post). I've lost 6 pounds so far, and I'm far more tan than anyone who hasn't been on vacation has a right to be. And it's all traceable to 3 important aspects of the Psychosketchual Challenge for People Who Feel Compelled to Mentally Flog Themselves:
1. Anxiety-induced lack of appetite: Anxiety as in "HOLY CRAP WHAT IF I'M NOT FUNNY AT ALL AND EVERYTHING I'VE EVER WRITTEN SUCKS?!?!?"
2. Busy-ness-induced lack of time to eat: Have you ever tried to have a full-time job, apprentice at an improv theatre, publish at least 3 blog posts per week, submit items to Funny not Slutty, write an hourlong sketch show every fortnight AND bathe regularly? It's time-consuming.
3. Head-clearing walks: Remember when I said I felt like my brain was in a blender and/or beaten with a meat tenderizer? I wasn't kidding. I find it increasingly necessary to go walk continuously for at least an hour and half while thinking about nothing (THAT PART IS IMPERATIVE). And since I'm privileged to live in the bright, sunny South...I look like I've been sunning! And it's burning all the calories I didn't have time to eat. On Wednesday, someone actually asked me "if I'd been working on my guns". No, I have not been working on my guns. I've just been trying to walk off the crazy.

So however this whole thing ends, I'll at least be healthier for it. Well, if you don't count the skin cancer I'm probably giving myself. But speaking of "how this whole thing ends", I'm starting to think that if I was really being honest with myself, this is not the pure writing exercise I told myself it was. I'm not getting up at 6:30 on Saturday mornings "as an exercise". And if I am, that's ridiculous. My high school English teacher was always pointing out that plays are meant to be performed, not read, and Mrs. Lacy knew her stuff, so I'm starting to think the same is probably true of sketches. And when it's all over, I might make a sincere effort to do something with these. I just need to find someone who can handle *all* of the technical side for me. Because I will not be doing that part.

Anyway, that's the distant future. In the meantime, I need to focus on the 3rd Set. But I have a very busy day ahead of me (see first paragraph) and a day trip tomorrow, so I'll be taking some time off before getting back to work on America's birthday. And I'll also be out of town next Thursday-Sunday, which means I have to do A LOT more work in the first half of the two-week writing period. Wish me luck.

And now for the weekly expression of gratitude to someone who said something nice which helped keep me out of the state institution in Milledgeville:
John Emily of the Week! (not like that)
This week's John of the week is... Emily! Emily was a friend of mine when we were both knee-high to a grasshopper in elementary school. We also went to the same high school but didn't hang out that much since I was a band geek, and she...well, I guess she was probably having a life instead. Anyway! This week, she discovered my blog and said she was going to pour herself a drink and spend Thursday night reading it! Because it was "fun"! And thus did I live to tell you about another week. Thanks, Emily!

Sketch Challenge, Second Set: This is My Brain in a Blender.

So I'm about 2 days behind on updating you about the PsychoSketchual Challenge, and that is because I feel like my brain has been beaten with a meat tenderizer. There are a number of reasons for that - it's not entirely the fault of the Incredibly Mundane Sketch Challenge and Cry For Help, Now With Practically NO Sketches About Ordering Coffee. For one thing, I wrote a little breakup letter template for Funny not Slutty. That was super fun and I hope you'll read and enjoy it, but wasn't a sketch. And this is also one of the busiest times of the year for my day job [PUKE], which is seriously cutting into my writing time. AND I had an improv show Thursday. But enough with the jibber jabber and excuses! Current page count for this second set of sketches stands at 44. As a reminder, there are to be 60 pages, all edited to the best of my ability, by this coming Saturday.

Yikes.

So I'm cutting it a little closer this time around, but I'm also going about it a little differently (as part of the trial and error to establish my own optimal process), such that the first drafts aren't *quite* as rough and raw as the last set of first drafts were. Hopefully(?) this means I'll require slightly less editing time. Ta. Da.

And now for a new and almost certainly not regular feature...
John of the Week! (not like that)
You may recall that last week's John was Finnemore, who made my week by commenting on the Viagra post. This week's John is Raffa, who is one of my good friends and fellow improv actors! He didn't comment on anything, but he did specifically request that I write him a part in the Sketch Challenge. His exact words were: "If you're writing it, I want to be in it." Awwwww. And that made my week, which makes him...John of the Week! Congratulations, Raffa! Don't let it go to your head.

If Anybody Ax You Who I Am...

Today marks the first deadline in "Kimberly Welsh's Beyond Redonkulous Sketch Challenge That Only A Complete Nutjob Would Attempt, Now With a Slight Reduction in the Number of Sketches About Ordering Coffee". If you're new to the group, background on this can be found here. As you may recall, I managed to write the requisite first 60 pages with a full week to spare, which I used for tweaking/editing/rewriting. In theory, I needed to end today with 60 pages of sketch material, edited and organized such that I would be perfectly happy to hand it to a bunch of my actor friends and say "GO!"

I am 20% "pleased" and 80% "in total disbelief" to tell you that I HAVE ACHIEVED THIS. There were definitely times when I felt like I was being put through a wringer, and I've noticed that I've taken to saying "Wow. I look really tired." out loud every night after I take my makeup off, but I DID IT. I'm not saying it's all comedy gold, but then again the thing I'm most hoping for (and most excited about) is that I just might be able to see discernible improvement from Part 1 to Part 5.

Now, before you look at the title of this post and recognize it as a line from the R. Kelly song (brilliantly covered by Bonnie "Prince" Billy) entitled "World's Greatest", I must remind you that this is only the beginning. John Finnemore's Sketch Night plays on 5 dates, which means that in order to complete the Challenge, I have to do this 5 times. This is just #1. So we aren't at the "Hey I made it / I'm the world's greatest" part of the song yet. Far from it. We're more at the "I'm that little piece of hope / With my back against the ropes" part right now. The good news is that I stockpiled some more ideas during editing week, so hopefully I'll have something strong to work with when the clock starts on part 2. Which will be bright and early tomorrow morning!

PS - I'm trying to seem all cool and chilled out about it, but I would be remiss if I didn't at least mention the fact that John Finnemore himself commented on one of my blog posts yesterday, and he said it made him laugh. If you'd like to know how I feel about that, ask literally anyone who spoke to me for any reason at any point since it happened, including the tollbooth attendant on Georgia 400. It *might* have made my week ;)

The High Price of Success

As of last night, I have completed the first 60 pages of rough drafts for my Incredibly Mundane Sketchstravaganza Challenge Mostly About Ordering Coffee! It was not easy and a lot of the time it wasn't even all that fun. But it's done now! And I have a few days to edit and improve it before it's time to do the next set. Phew!

I was so happy about it that I went and ordered $70 in nail polish. That wasn't exactly part of my master plan - I think I was just so delirious that I wasn't fully in control of my faculties. Or my credit card. At these prices, who can afford to complete the Beyond Redonkulous Incredibly Mundane Sketchstravaganza? Not me. I might have to hide my credit card from myself when I hit the 40-page mark next time...

How I'll Spend My Summer Vacation

Just as an FYI, I’ve decided that the “trying really hard to be funny” thing, while entertaining (for me), is not a sufficient raison d’être for a whole entire blog. I will still be doing that going forward, but today’s post is the first in an occasional series of exciting glimpses inside my actual head! At long last! PROOF that something is happening in there!

As some of you may know, I’m on The Twitters (@kwerky_girl - follow at will!). I’ve been pleasantly surprised at how much useful information comes through that timeline, and one of the more wonderful items in the past few weeks was the announcement of fortnightly sketch shows penned and performed by one of my most revered writing role models, John Finnemore! They’re taking place in London, which might be a problem for some Atlantans, but not me! My first thought was: “HELL YEAH I will be dumping my savings account into a duffel bag, carrying it to the nearest Delta agent, and yelling ‘LONDON PLEASE’ at the top of my lungs.” But then I remembered that before I can do that, I have to dump $200 of my savings account into a much smaller bag along with a picture of myself to be delivered to the US State Department, then wait 4-6 weeks for them to get out their damn glue stick and slap the picture on a new passport, because the Delta agent will almost certainly notice that my current one expired earlier this year. There’s no way I can make it. [insert heartbreak here] I mean, they do can do a 24-48 hour renewal in extreme/emergency situations, but I bet they have a loophole that excludes “I will kill myself if you don’t give me a passport” from that. Otherwise everybody’d be doing it.

So I was despondent for a while there. I pulled the website up and just to see how nauseatingly affordable the tickets would be if I could just get there (answer: £6. ARGH!). Then I saw the text on the ticket-purchasing site, which reads as follows:

The triumphant return of the least imaginatively named show since 'Cats': John Finnemore, writer and star of Radio 4's Cabin Pressure; regular guest on The Now Show; and popper-up on things like Miranda and That Mitchell and Webb Look, presents an hour of brand new sketches every fortnight over the summer. Completely different material every show. Bloody hell. Now I see it written down, that's a lot of sketches. I should probably get on with them.

And as I read those last few sentences, I thought, “Christ! That really is a lot of sketches. Assuming one page=one minute, that’s 60 pages of original sketch material every two weeks. Jesus. Someone send that man a metric ton of coffee.” And then I thought, “Wow. That would be a really incredible challenge. Especially for someone who, say, needed to dust the cobwebs off her brain and get back in the habit of writing sketches regularly.

Like she used to.

Yep.

60 pages every two weeks.


Quite a challenge.”

And then a [really stupid] part of my brain said, “I ACCEPT!” And thus was born Kimberly Welsh’s Sketch Night. That happened a week ago today, and so far I have 15 pages. And based on their content, I had to modify the name to Kimberly Welsh’s Incredibly Mundane Sketch Night (Mostly About Ordering Coffee). Then I realized that there won’t be any public performances, so the “Night” part doesn’t really fit. So: Kimberly Welsh’s Incredibly Mundane Sketch Challenge (Mostly About Ordering Coffee). I’ve spent more time rewriting the name than finishing sketches. Not exactly epic progress, but give me a break! I had to work 40 hours and spend 2 evenings at the theatre. I have most of my weekend free, so hopefully I’ll be able to get on track now. Wait - not “hopefully”; DEFINITELY. And while I’m not going to get all obsessively serious about it, I will keep you posted. Why? Because you care.

The good news for everyone is that this will keep me off the streets this summer. And it has taught me a valuable lesson about why it’s important to keep your passport up-to-date at all times: Because you never know when John Finnemore will start a run of sketch shows. Apparently.