The Dangers of Polishing a Turd

Giving your jokes your best is a good strategy. Until it’s not. When reworking your material becomes a strategy of avoidance, you should take a step back and evaluate your process.

“It’s not perfect yet.”, you say to yourself. And you are right. And also it will probably never be perfect. So there will come a time in any jokes life when it will just have to face the music.

Hemingway said: “Writing is rewriting.” And I believe that to be true. But rewriting becomes infinitesimally easier when you already have some feedback. Additionally all the time you spent working on a joke that turns out not to work is time wasted.

The difficult thing is to strike a balance between making it presentable and fussing over it too much. Sadly you will only find the right balance by doing it. By getting experience. There is no way around that.

In the beginning, just being aware of maybe overdoing it, should save you some time.

But if it happens - and it will - don’t worry! It is simply part of learning your craft and you will do better the next time.