ComedyMindset

This book won’t make you funny. Or an overnight success on TikTok. It certainly won’t make you rich or lead to a life fully lived.

I’m telling you this because a lot of books and videos and courses on learning how to write comedy promise things like that.

“Just follow these five easy steps to write the next hit sitcom!”

“Read this guide and become the next Stephen Colbert.”

But the only thing promises like that do, is setting you up to be disappointed. If someone tells you to just follow their methods and you will be a guaranteed success and then… you aren’t?

Well, then it must be your fault, right?

Nope.

There is nothing wrong with you. No shoe fits all. What works for them won’t necessarily work for you and vice versa.

The wonderful writer John Rogers once wrote:

“Every screenwriting book is 90% useless but for the two specific ideas in it you find personally useful. It is never the same two ideas for any two readers.”

And this certainly applies to ComedyMindset as well.

But that’s not a problem because comedy is more journey than arriving. It is about refining and adapting and lifelong learning.

There is this saying:

“Comedy is not a sprint, it’s a marathon.”

I say it’s not even a marathon because marathons end. And they end mostly after asking myself: Do I wanna run a marathon? And then thinking: No. I really don’t.

What I want to say: Marathons do have an end. Writing comedy doesn’t. There are certainly milestones like writing your first five minutes of Stand-Up Comedy or finishing a sitcom script. But that’s all that they are: Milestones. Markers on a lifelong journey that you have to define for yourself.

There is also good news: The only difference between you and overnight success are a measly ten thousand hours of practice.

Not talent.

Hours of putting in the work.

And that is something we all can do.

With ComedyMindset I want to give you not only the tools necessary to write comedy but also the understanding of which tools are the right ones for you AND hopefully the patience that it’s not the tools who will make you a great writer. But the amount of time you practice with them.

The wonderful comedian Simon MunneryThis isn’t the source of the quote. I just really like Simon Munnery. once said:

“Comedy is not a sprint, nor a marathon. It’s a dance.”

And by god that is true.