Writing Style

I use placeholders a lot when I’m writing. Sometimes in a script I’ll write: 

“MICHAEL: Neo in The Matrix did BULLSHIT. I haven’t seen a whiney white guy do less since [INSERT FUNNY JOKE HERE LATER, DANIEL].” 

And then, eventually, I’ll replace that bracket order with a funny joke.

I do it all the time because I try to avoid sitting around and waiting for the perfect joke to show up. I recognize that a JOKE should happen so I mark the opportunity, but I don’t want to dwell on it so I put a pin in it. I’d rather burn right through it and come back later, when all of the other work is done.

I bring this up because I’ve been going through the first draft of my children’s book and I came across the introduction. Here is the Author’s Note, in its entirety, for the first draft of my (one more time) children’s book:

Author’s Note

Life is cool, fuck off moms and dads.

[Immediately, I wish I could turn back time and replace that comma with a semicolon, but life is a series of small regrets and nightmares.]

But otherwise, hey, that’s literally it. Months ago I sent a multi-hundred page manuscript over to my publisher that included this as a placeholder for the Author’s Note (my editor responded with “Haha… we’ll change that, right?”). And it’s definitely a stand-in for my larger message for the book (”The world is more exciting/interesting than your parents/history teachers would have you believe, so read/research/listen more”), but I think it might also sneakily be the underlying thesis for everything I do/everything I think about comedy and life, I guess.

“Life is cool.” I believe that. All of it. It’s so dumb and weird and lucky that we’re all allowed to be alive. What a fun thing we get to do. The worst experiences make the best stories. Even when you feel pain, you should take a moment to appreciate the fact that you GET to feel pain.  

“Fuck off moms and dads.” That’s more about rejecting authority, which will always be important. One of the coolest things about life is that when someone tells you how it is, you get to say “No.” Everything I’ve ever written has been a reaction to someone else trying to tell me “how it is.” No. Fuck you,