Some people like to purge out a draft and just let it go and then go back and fix it, but I'm a writer-rewriter. I can't move on until I feel like it's presentable.
I see myself as a first-draft writer, so when I sit down to write something, the first draft is usually pretty close to the end draft. There will be some tweaks along the way, but it's not like I'll go 20 pages and throw it out and start again.
I felt like if I could get the epiphany out of the way in my drafting process, through my eighth or tenth draft, then that can just be part of how I've assembled the character, and then we can move on and move forward with it. In general, I don't ever want to feel smarter than my characters, because I just feel like that's not a great way to write a story.
I write until the first draft is finished, and then I feel that I can get out. But, during the time of the writing of the first draft, I don't go out. I'm just locked away, writing. It's a time of meditation, of going into the story.
I know a lot of bands that will make their first record and get to a certain level, and then when the second record comes out, they can start where they left off as a headlining act playing in front of a certain number of people, or they can go back out and make a lot less money and open for people. I feel like if you go out and just go right back into that headlining stuff, you're playing to the converted.
On draft day, I wasn't really nervous at all. Then you turn on the draft, the first five picks go by, and then you still thinking, 'Oh man, I don't know where I'm going to go.' It's really just, by the time draft hits, that's when you get nervous.
I am somebody who usually writes out the rough draft in longhand. Then I type it into the computer, and that is where I do my editing. I find that if I write it on the computer, I go too quick. So I like getting that first draft out and then typing it in; you are less self-conscious about it.
A lot of times, you land in a city, and you're like, 'This is not my people.' I'm gonna do the show, but you don't feel like this is for you. And then, some places, you just go and just fall into a groove, and you're like, 'This feels right.'
I take a subject, then I go on stage, and whatever is in there comes out. You can edit as you go and continue to work it out on stage until it's something you like, but I never think about it. I just go up and flow.
I just kept going to the gym, and luckily I have a gym at home, so I just go in there probably for 30 minutes and then I go back out and then I go back in for another 30 minutes and accumulated like about three-and-a-half hours of working out a day. It was a lot. It was ridiculous. But I said I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it right.
I like to wake up late, around 11 A.M., especially if I have been out the night before. Then I go to brunch with either my friends or my girlfriend. I then like to just chill out: read the papers, read some scripts and then take it very easy. If it's sunny, I go for a walk with my dog, Niles, in the countryside.
For people who don't love running, they don't understand - but I never feel like anyone is putting a gun to my head to go out for a run. I feel like a kid going out to play - that feeling of when you had a bike as a kid and you'd go out and just ride and be free and have fun.
That's kind of my job in the writer's room. I'm always the guy going, like, 'People wouldn't say that there. They wouldn't say that.' Like, I hate when I watch sitcoms and something crazy happens, and people just kind of go, 'Huh?' and then they just go on.
Editing is just ongoing. I don't count drafts, or know what would fully constitute a draft. But I try to fix as I go. And there's always more to fix.
Prayer for many is like a foreign land. When we go there, we go as tourists. Like most tourists, we feel uncomfortable and out of place. Like most tourists, we therefore move on before too long and go somewhere else.
I have a few things that I have written over the years that haven't been made, but I sort of feel like there was a good reason why they were not made. So I am not anxious to go back and fix them. I don't have something in the desk drawer that I think, "The time is right now. If I just do this, it'll be great." It is kind of out of sight and out of mind. I am thinking ahead rather than back.
For me, if there's something that I don't succeed at, I'm not doing well, then I absolutely have to go back until I feel like I'm confident with it.