A Quote by Mike Birbiglia
My writing process is very feedback-based. When I do stand-up, I listen to the audience. I try to understand what's connecting, what's not connecting, and then rewrite, rewrite and rewrite.
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My writing process is very feedback based - I listen to the audience. I try to understand what's connecting, what's not connecting... and then rewrite, and rewrite, and rewrite. Chris Gethard and I have been on the road a lot together. When we get on the bus at night, we talk about the jokes that didn't work and the joke possibilities that could work. I think this is a little different from other writers.
I rewrite everything, almost idiotically. I rewrite and work and work, and rewrite and rewrite some more.
Good writing is writing and rewriting and rewriting and rewriting. Sometimes, it happens to work right away, and that's amazing. But most of the time, it happens to work, and then you rewrite and rewrite and rewrite, and maybe it even comes back to the thing it was in the first place, but then you know for sure that it is good, and it's what you wanted to do.
Where I thrive is with my hands on the keyboard or my pen on the paper. One of the things I get to do is I get to rewrite. I rewrite, and I work hard on my scripts. You can rewrite until you're 'perfect,' and that's something that's safe for me.
Rewrite, rewrite, rewrite, don't be precious about your first draft, it's an architectural blueprint to a whole building, be your own worst critic, confront your weakness and remember it's a craft.
There were guys in 'The State' who would take one script and rewrite it and rewrite it and rewrite it and fight for it for a whole season, and after a couple of seasons, you realized that doesn't work. You have to just be willing to throw something away, no matter how good it is, and write a better joke.
I try and get it right the first time. I may rewrite a sentence four or five times, but I rarely go back and kill a whole page and rewrite it.
I write very quickly; I rewrite very slowly. It takes me nearly as long to rewrite a book as it does to get the first draft.
In the TV business, you've got to write fast, and someone will tell you, 'Can you rewrite this episode before... 6 P.M.?' So that's when you rewrite it. You can't wait for the muse to show up.
In the TV business, you've got to write fast, and someone will tell you, "Can you rewrite this episode before... 6 p.m.?" So that's when you rewrite it. You can't wait for the muse to show up.
I do not rewrite unless I am absolutely sure that I can express the material better if I do rewrite it.
Write freely and as rapidly as possible and throw the whole thing on paper. Never correct or rewrite until the whole thing is down. Rewrite in process is usually found to be an excuse for not going on.
I always rewrite the very beginning of a novel. I rewrite the beginning as I write the ending, so I may spend part of morning writing the ending, the last 100 pages approximately, and then part of the morning revising the beginning. So the style of the novel has a consistency.
I never think of an entire book at once. I always just start with a very small idea. In 'Holes,' I just began with the setting; a juvenile correctional facility located in the Texas desert. Then I slowly make up the story, and rewrite it several times, and each time I rewrite it, I get new ideas, and change the old ideas around.
I write very quickly; I rewrite very slowly. It takes me nearly as long to rewrite a book as it does to get the first draft. I can write more quickly than I can read.
I really - I don't take my work that seriously, and I think that's what keeps me loose. If I try to write, if I catch myself trying to write, I'll fall right on my face. I'll see it. If I see in the prose that I'm - 'Boy, look at me writing,' I rewrite it. I rewrite it because I don't, because I think it's distracting.
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