WRITING ADVICE IN THE FORM OF BAD WRITING

I have interns. It's so dumb. The fact that I'm in a position to offer advice on career or craft to others should scare them at least as much as it does me. I don't think it does though. They're young. So I get to write stuff like this email I just sent them - rambling, semi-coherent and unedited - and pass it off as wisdom. I'll probably hate it in the morning. 

The idea will seem simple… when you're done. 

In the meantime, keep looking. Work hard. Challenge one another. Kick each other's asses. Write and rewrite and don't forget to rerewrite. Watch your go-to Internet videos, and TV reruns and old movies and standup, and figure out why you watched them again. Steal from them: Not the idea, but the reason the idea was good. Don't be afraid to write the stupid stuff first. The bad stuff. Get it out of the way. Then maybe come back to it when you realize what the hidden gems were – that the pun wasn't the joke, the joke was that there was a pun. Put in long hours and late nights if you have to. (But don't if you don't have to.) Keep banging your heads against the walls and the desks and each others heads until something other than pink and gray goo comes out. Or just sift through the goo if goo is all you get. Look until you find something. Something you love. Clean it off, take its picture, and put it in your wallet so you can show all your friends. Then, sleep the sleep of the righteous. For the night at least. You'll probably hate everything in the morning. 

Goodnight!