Comedy writing is often compared to physical exercise. Both require endurance, stamina, and often, working through the pain. Another similarity with both is that the more you do it and push yourself the easier it becomes.
When you start running, running one mile is agonizing but if you stick with it, soon that same mile is a breeze.
So that’s what this exercise is designed to do…help you push yourself a little further.
As you know if you’ve been reading RT and/or following us, we advocate having a daily quota and sticking to it. So now what we want you to do is to take that number—whatever it is—and double it.
If your quota is writing 10 jokes a day, we now want you to write 20. BUT…and it’s a big but…only for 1 week.
For the next 6 days…yes, you deserve one day off for rest…we want you to push yourself and do double your daily allotment.
There are a few reasons for this. One it stretches your comedy writing muscle. It may seem hard at first but by the end of the week you may find the challenge gets a bit easier. You also may find that to hit your daily mark you’re actually writing more unique and better material.
Also doing it for only one week is doable. There is an ending point so it doesn’t seem as daunting.
When you go back to your regular writing schedule you may find that it’s easier. You’re not struggling as much. You may even decide to up your quota.
There is also a good chance that you will surprise yourself and it’s not as difficult as you thought. Sometimes we just don’t know what we are capable of until we do it. And you may even want to keep it going.
So that’s this exercise…For 1 week, double your daily writing quota.
And, as usual, have fun!