Generally Speaking

On any given day I can be found reading about sports, web design, finance, digital content strategy, politics, music, writing, relationships and all sorts of miscellaneously categorized stories. I find people, interactions, and life in general so incredibly interesting and fun that I can’t get enough of learning as much as possible about it all. But in the last year I’ve come to the realization that having wide-ranging interests has kept me from writing, and sharing, about any one of those particular interests.

That is unacceptable to me.

I want to change that, because I love writing. My love of writing is the reason I cofounded an event for other fans of the written word to share their work; it’s the reason I used to write corny super spy stories (the bubble gum gun was a favorite weapon of mine back then) back in elementary school; it’s the reason I wrote comedy sketches for live shows back in college; and it’s the reason that even though my degree indicated I’d be surrounded by computer hardware and software forever, I found my way back to writing and sharing stories on the web as a full-time gig.

I’ve taken to the 140-character crutch instead of spending a few extra minutes to fully articulate my ideas. I need to do better than that, so I’ll work on it.

Here I am, now, writing and pressing “Publish”. The first of many baby steps forward.

*high-fives self*

A Few Words Read Out Loud Once

On April 8 and 9, my partner in crime, John-Mark, and I successfully pulled off a two-day, As Was Written event.

The experience was fantastic. All of the performers came through big time (see the full list here) and the crowd was wonderful. Even moving from a tiny townhouse seating 60ish people to the Lyceum with 140-plus, the crowd has always been just as attentive and as receptive as anyone on stage could ever ask for.

Even with double the seats to fill from our last two shows, we surpassed our numbers from last year. Friday sold out, with standing-room only in the back of the room. We were just short of selling out Saturday night, but it was a hell of a finisher. Feedback so far has been very positive and encouraging, and overall I am very pleased with how the show has grown and excited about what we have in store for AWW down the line.

We will do our next show later this Fall. We’ve already begun the search for talented folks to fill our next lineup. This part, where we scout talented song, poetry and prose writers, is my second-favorite part of the experience. Putting on the show(s) without a hitch – knock on wood, we’ve been fortunate so far the last two years – is my number one favorite part of the process.

I’ve promised to share pieces before, so I figured I would do that this time around. Here they are, two pieces from the April 8 and 9 shows:

• Drinking and Dating (April 8, 2011)
• Killing in the Name Of (April 9, 2011)

I don’t have the audio for the two nights yet, so the PDFs and single photo below performing at the Friday show will have to suffice for the moment.

Thanks to everyone for supporting this event that JMD and I thoroughly enjoy putting together twice a year. If you’re a writer who wants to submit your work to read in one of our future shows, send an email to submissions@aswaswritten.com. If you’re just interested in staying in the loop outside of updates here and on the As Was Written website, you can sign up to receive email updates here. Bear in mind we maybe send to the list three times total before shows. This go-round one of those emails will be a presale discounted ticket, so it might be good to stay in the loop that way.

Keep up with our website and I’ll post updates here as well when new announcements are made about the show moving forward.

Reach out to me if you have general questions or feedback about the show: tim@aswaswritten.com.

Judd Apatow On Writing, Reading, Funny →

In this interview with The New Yorker, Judd Apatow talks about his writing inspirations, collection of new books he reads only 5% of, and a collection of short stories he recently edited called, “I Found This Funny.”

One of the better parts about the interview is a story Apatow shares about a charity event he put together right before “Knocked Up” was released. I found to be quite funny:

Years ago, I put together this benefit that was a parody of benefits, a fundraiser that raised $140,000 for 826LA. But the premise was we did the benefit before “Knocked Up” came out—before Seth Rogen became popular—and the evening was a tribute to Seth Rogen for the charity work he has not done yet. So we had everyone in show business show up for this charity event to honor someone that no one knew. We had tribute videos with Brad Pitt and Robert Evans telling him to please do charity in the future.

Apatow’s habits surrounding reading and writing are right up my alley. He’s got more new books than he’s read. He started reading impossibly long and difficult books in the beginning, but has recently settled for collections of short stories, which are less demanding of time and attention span. Ditto over here. Though, I did just power through the last 100 pages of “The Sirens of Titan” by Kurt Vonnegut tonight. A quality line from the book that is mostly unrelated to this Apatow interview, but an infinitely good one that’s worth a pondering:

‎"The worst thing that could possibly happen to anybody, would be to not be used for anything by anybody.“

Keep on reading and writing, my dear peoples.