Unfocused? Time to Focus.

I feel awake, but unfocused. Active but unaware. What the hell should I do?

I have projects to work on, so that's the first move. Get a few pages done so I feel less stressed about it later. It's weird how much we do to avoid feeling like shit, and how much better it would be if it were just more rewarding. 

I think with art it's scary to try because there's no way of knowing if we're really good until we're exposed to the world. For something like comedy the only way to be successful is to have other people like your work. There is no success in this field without the opinions of many people put into a room. It's a populist art form at its core.

There's objectivity to it, though. You can dissect a joke into the performance and the writing. Dissect the performance into acting and pacing, then further into the very essence of communication and sound. Look closer at writing and you see if it's quality or not. You can get away with performing shitty material if the actor is capable enough, but it's hard to get away with good material if the acting sucks. 

I think I have more respect for my writing, strangely enough. Maybe it's just what I want to do. Next semester I'll be improving as a comedian from both sides of the coin, writing comedy and acting in a serious role. It's like the two sides of stand-up without doing stand up.

Also, on Monday, I need to perform Stand up. Geesh.

I think that should be first on my agenda, filling up slots for the Monday Open Mic. I'm not gonna lie to myself and say that it'll be a great event, but it should definitely be fun and cool to see Mark again. I also need to make sure I get the contract figured out. Once that's taken care of there will be less stress on my plate.

But what else do I need to do? This seems like the best time to figure that out. I rehearsed my rap, so that's coming along good. The movie has so much to work on so as soon as I start on that my time is taken up. I can work on Rick and Morty, if I wanted. I could do some research on my two group projects also. Honestly... That's about it. During class today I need to make sure I'm taking good notes so I get a good grade on my last test. When I say good grade, I really mean an AMAZING grade. I don't wanna fail a class, even though it won't even be a big deal! Not gonna happen. Not in my college career.

I could also write another entry in the other blog, but I'll save that for another day.  I want to have 5 by the end of this semester, 8 before I come back to school next semester. Originally I wanted 20 by the end of the year, but I should aim higher and say 30. 30 blog posts coming out of college, hopefully all of them leading to improvement and at least half of them worthy of sharing.

I have no idea how to get paid to do this comedy thing, but I want to give it a good shot. I'm prepared to get a real job for a little bit after college, but I know that I have the tools to build my life however I want to. I am better than a lot of the garbage that's being put out there right now. I just gotta make sure to write and write and write

And write.

The desire to procrastinate is unreal.

Unreal! So much of my effort is going towards not opening up another tab and dicking around for 30 minutes. Oh bother.

Work ethic is important, obviously. That's pretty much all I think about now, how do I work better. What do I need to do to be the best at what I'm doing. How do I get my shit together. What do I focus on, how do I spent my time effectively. I'm running out of time, but I'm not, but I am. It's crazy. Shit is crazy.

I am doing better than I thought, and this week is less crazy than I think it is. I don't have problems with money, but I kinda do. I don't have too much to write, but I have a million projects I want to get started on. I'm paid on dues, so that's a start. I don't really have my life organized, but I did spend a bunch of time cleaning and doing laundry yesterday so It wasn't a waste. I also got back on that melee grind, which continues today. I wrote my portion of today's work for Terps. I need to check on what I need for tomorrows argumentation class as well. I'm doing okay. I still failed a test before break, and I'm waiting to see just how bad it was. It's going to be pretty bad, that's for sure.

But in the grand scheme of things I can't be too upset. I have a good grasp on what my life might look like after college. I know what I want to spend my time doing. I have hobbies that are fulfilling. I have objects I can save money towards buying. I have an amazing girlfriend. I have a ton of connections and friends. I'm starting to regain some confidence.

And now I have to finish this post, and I forced myself to start it. For whatever reason, I hate writing. I don't want to start writing. I want to do literally anything else before sitting down and starting this blog. At the same time, I know how important it is. Freewriting is everything. Freewriting will open me up for good.

I have my other blog, too, that I havn't wrote in in a long time. What is the next Idea that I have? Maybe I can start writing about that Tacos thing. That would actually be pretty fun.

See you on the other side!

I really gotta write!

I have things that are due soon! I need to write!

This is going to be a crazy week, I know it already. I really have to come through and get everything done or else iI'm gonna be feeling the ramifications for the rest of the year, at least mentally. I could possibly ruin some grades too if I really blow it, so It's time to buckle down and really get some shit done.

Thanksgiving break was a huge deal, something I needed to get done a long time ago. It was a lot of fun, I spent nearly the entire time with Ashley, and as soon as I got back I ended up going food shopping and getting some cleaning done. Not a bad start.

The last couple of days before the break were not productive for me at all. I was still a little upset about fraternity stuff, which had some part to do with it. Honestly, I'm still thinking about all that shit, but it should get better soon. Spring is always a better time than the fall, so I bet I will be back to enjoying everything in no time.

Also, the show next semester should really be a game changer. That's gonna be another chapter, and it's cool that my last show in college will be as the lead. Maybe it will get my confidence up a little bit.

Speaking of bit, I need to make sure I write for my STAND UP on Monday! It's an open mic, I have no excuses at all! I hope we put on a good show, but I need to make sure I share it with a bunch of people and get as many people to sign up as possible. Laugh club can only take care of so many.


I got on a bit of a roll there with writing, I got in the zone a little bit. I think the next thing for me to focus on is going to be getting ready for work (lol) and writing a few skits for the show. I can trust my other cohosts to write as well, but I need to make sure they listen to my opinions when I feel strongly about it. I hope their jokes land.

Time to goooooooooooooOo0o0o0oO0o0Oo0Oo0Oo()

Free write before big boy work

I feel ready to take on this day.

For the first time in what seems like forever I'm sitting down with a to - do list and determination. I've been putting things off, and now it's time to make it work or break under the pressure. I've broke under the pressure before, and it freakin hurts. I've also reached peaks (relative peaks I should say) and felt that accomplishement before, and that is a great feeling. It also turns into momentum that makes the next week or two that much more rewarding. I say this all the time, momentum is everything.

I'm imagining a roller coaster. In order for the car to make the next peak, it needs to have time to fall down. That steep fall is what propels you into the next rising section. I feel that way with how I act, how I keep productive, how I keep momentum. Nothing kicks your ass better than falling way down. Bombing onstage inspires weeks of work, I only clean your car when it's dirtiest.

Maybe theirs another way besides "It's always darkest before the dawn." A way to keep the inclines and declines more moderate. Extremes are almost never a good thing, so why try to live within two extremes? That's a tough way to live.

Also, if you have a shit load of momentum, it almost has to lead to a crash. I imagine a drug addiction to be more of a fun roller coaster to ride, if these metaphorical roller coasters were options at a real theme park. It is definitely the one that makes the news for killing too many people, though.

Coffee is the successful, critically acclaimed roller coaster. The ones that aren't too edgy but are definitely sticking around for a while. Some people go on every single day.

Alcohol is definitely the spinning shit. My version was the gravitron, it spun you in circles until you could feasibly stand horizontal on the walls. Alcohol is wild.

I don'e care to finish this structured comedic post right now. I just need to keep writing. Sometimes this just turns into a freewrite, and honestly that happens most of the time.

I'm running low on the page, and I need to get started on my work right away. Right now it's just a race to get as much material on the page as possible so I can get started on my first responsibility, which is honestly the movie, so I don't know why I'm so hesitant to do it. Writing is really fucking hard, and Mark Cohen keeps reminding us of that fact. FUCKKKKK

Okay that worked somewhat. Freewriting is really important, so I gotta somehow bring it back to my script. Maybe I should look at my journal that I had. Okay, wait, I can just write about it on thiis post. I need to remember that this isn't meant to be read anytime soon and that it has a purpose other than brand building or publicity. Damn, okay, into it now.



Words I learned are two words: Roller coaster.

Cute Motivation

I'm hungry and tired and apathetic. I'm surprised I'm doing this right now.

Yesterday at 3am Donald Trump was announced to have won the presidential election. Obviously, that's insane and groundbreaking shit. I have no idea how to react, how to feel, what to do. There was a lot of fearful and unsure people walking around campus yesterday and I was one of them. I just have no idea what's about to happen.

From what I've been reading, Trump is going to do a lot of stuff that goes against the "liberal agenda". If I'm being honest with myself, I kinda like the liberal agenda. I like that cheaper education was a popular ideal. I was a fan of all the social progress we were making. It's frustrating, now, that a total homophobic, anti abortion evangelist is one heart attack away from the white house. This is a very scary time.

I have a positive outlook on it for the most part. For one, this is a great time to be a comedian. We haven't had this much ammo to work with since George Bush. The Onion has been doing a great job producing content, I think I saw them release about 9 articles since the election closed.

I just got distracted, I should have eaten breakfast. I blame my housemate for drinking all my milk and preventing me from having a banana shake. It would have been amazing.

I think I'm ready for post college life of writing comedy, practicing smash, and working whatever job I need to. If I need to work 40 hours a week and practice everything else on the side, that's fine. I want to build up a portfolio of comedy in college so I might be able to get a writing job right away. That's the dream, man. That's the dream right there.

I might be close to a completed movie script by the end of the year, so that's really exciting too. With all of these examples of writing, as well as Terps pushing me at least one more time (Terps is literally like a writing/performing/collaborating bootcamp) I am in a good place to refine my comedy skills before I graduate. I can be a writer. I will be a writer.

Wow, look at how motivated I got how cute.

This Weekend and How Much I Love Smash

I would expect the most fun party of my life to be with my fraternity. Loud music, plenty of alcohol, all my brothers in one place, what could be more fun? I've been partying with these guys for three years now, and there have been plenty of fun parties, but nothing will come close to this weekend.

Saturday was a tournament day. It was the "Big one," Cusetown Beatdown, and I was preparing for it for the whole semester. The tournament itself was a ton of fun. I didn't do as well as I wanted (I got 9th out of 80, which is just outside of the money) but I didn't fail by any means. The tournament as a whole was super wonky, upsets and last stock situations all over the place. The after tournament party is where the real fun started, however.

It was a party full of smashers! It was amazing! I distinctly remember one moment where I was chilling with 4 other smashers, listening to my lousy ass song and laughing our asses off. At one point I sit up and just go "We all love smash bros so much. This is so fuckin cool." And it was fucking cool. I can't wait until the next smash party.

There's something about the friends I make through smash that sticks with me. We have a distinct community that other people just don't understand. Very often we're questioned about our obsession with this 15 year old game and it's hard to give an explanation. Even now, with the freedom to think about my words and come up with a response, it's hard to justify our behavior with this game. It even got in the way of my relationship last night, as I got home and immediately started watching Summit 3 instead of talk to my girlfriend. It's that important to me.

It's honestly such a trip to surround myself with so many other inspiring smash celebrities. The fame, recognition, and (soon) money that comes with being a top player is incredibly desirable, and everyone that plays the game chases that same dream. To have another player beat you is a big deal... every match is talked about for months after and good wins are celebrated. Shit talk is everywhere online, and some people base all of their self confidence from their smash play. Others don't have many friends outside of the smash community. It really is a bizarre world that I belong to.

But I have that individual characteristic also of being involved outside of smash as well. This is a good and bad thing, but something I wouldn't change. It's good in that I have things for my family to be proud of me about. It's good in that I don't get too upset after losses or bad tournaments. The only bad thing is that I need to find time to practice the game. I need to squeeze in hours in between everything else I have going on and that can be very frustrating.

It's in this blog that I can take a moment of reflection and reaffirm what I want to do. I want to continue improving at this game and see how good I can get. With everything in the community, the 50,000 people watching smash summit 3 and hundreds of people who belong to each region, looking for recognition can be an appealing priority. It is for me too, but I need to be careful with how I approach each tournament match. The only thing I can do is try my best as often as possible, and hopefully that attitude spills into everything else in my life. The pressing issue right now is my comedy performance tonight. I gotta practice if I want to put on a good show, even if stand up is a frustrating thing to rehearse. I think I will practice, just set aside an hour at first and organize my set then start saying it to a mirror. If it goes badly, then I just have another learning experience. If it goes well, then the desire for recognition comes creeping up again. All I can do is try, right?

Words I learned to spell: Explanation

First public blog post!!

Now begins an interesting experiment. How will I follow through with a public blog?

I know that this place needs to remain a public journal. There's no shame in people finding this, but there's also no pressure. This is the safe space.

The other blog will be the "good stuff." I will try and expose those pieces to as many people as possible and show off my writing. I will put myself out there and hope it catches on.

This is a cool first step, I think. Keeping this separate blog as a place to free write is really important, I think. I would get anxiety about writing if I planned on released the blog shortly. I would try too hard to write good stuff if I thought people would be reading it. This is better. I don't give a fuck.

Having a different public blog is important too. I have people that want to read everything I put out (Family members, close friends) and exposing them to a daily blog with wacky thoughts and bad grammar isn't fair to them. Writing a post two or three times a week is not only more manageable, it's more marketable. Close friends and supporters are the only people I should be showing my work to until I get the hang of it, I think. A public entry with backlash might be important... later. Now, I just need to keep pushing and start producing. That's the path towards success and improvement.

So this blog is a long term project. It's warming up, its content for my fans down the line. It's nothing good, nothing valuable, and nothing that will ever make me money. But it's honest. It's a place where I can be honest with myself through writing.

It's also habit forming. The only way to fail at writing this blog is to... not write in it. Everything else in my life has potential for failure, but this is the only place where it's safe. Even this paragraph has failure in it where I begin by talking about habit forming. I didn't talk about habits right now, which is a mistake. But I can leave that there, because nothing matters in this space.

The question now is what to work on next. Another Jesse Has Ideas blogpost? I have an idea to write about, so might as well challenge myself to two days in a row. I can release it on Saturday, even.

And then maybe I can write an Idea about the Saturday event and blog about that. As long as I have an Idea I can share it, and I plan on sharing a lot more.

Marketing is important, too. I have been thinking about how important it is to put my name out there and place myself in different peoples minds.

Anyway, I'm bored. Gonna surf the internet for a while then get started on an idea. After all, I have 5 hours.

^^^^ That's a terrible mindset....


Learned to spell: Separate,

It's been a few days, but I'm doing hella good

It's been a while since I sat down and wrote!

I think lately I've been caught up in thinking about how this blog was going to be posted to the public. I need to chill with that and just keep doing what I'm doing. The point of this blog was to practice productive creativity, not to become famous.

This morning was very productive. I surprised myself with how quickly I dove into my work and finished stuff that was coming up. I'm on top of my work, at least when it comes to school, and that's a very good feeling. I don't have class tomorrow, I have LAUGH club tonight, and everything seems to be going fine. There are things coming up that need preparation, though.

First and foremost is this hosting gig I have this weekend. It all came together this week after being contacted more than a month ago, and it seems that it should go of without a hitch. I'm really excited to represent my club to a large crowd and start getting out name out more. Also, I get some easy community service hours.

The next day I have Cusetown Beatdown, my biggest tournament since Super Smash Con. With a good placing here I can cement myself as a threat upstate, so there's the possibility of a lot of pressure being placed on me. All I can do is play my best, and I intend to do so. I need to practice today for sure.

Sunday is a rest day. There's a tournament that day too that I'll probably do poorly at, depending on how hung over I am.

Monday is another big day, I'm performing 5 minutes of stand up for the first time since summer. I have all new material that I want to debut, but I want to spend time on it to make sure It's given a fair chance. Stand up might not be my number one goal, but it's really important that I keep performing as a way to practice my craft. Doing well is possible, I have a lot of the material written, so now it's just a matter of preparation. I plan on doing that right after this blog post.

Then there's more days of school, more homeworks being assigned and projects to work on. Still haven't finished my Rick and Morty spec, still have a ton of changes to give to my screenplay. I need to send a final contract to a comedian for the comedy show as well as start taking sign ups for the open mic. I need to do laundry.

I'm not sure what triggered my productivity this morning, but about one hour of work took a huge amount of stress off of ya boy. There won't be any nights where I stay up trying to finish a project, at least for the next couple of weeks. This semester might have been crazy, but I think I'm doing a damn good job.