The Artist vs the Ego Monster

Or: I should really stop listening to that guy

Oct 16, 2024

Every decision I make about my comedy writing career is a boxing match.

In the blue corner, we have the Artist — a quiet little nerd, who knows there’s only one goal that matters: to make work I’m proud of.

But in the red corner, we have the Ego Monster — a much louder brute, who thinks that the goal is to win screenwriting contests, or get a literary agent, or somehow win the first Nobel Prize for Comedy (created, of course, in my honour).

It’s useful to listen to the Ego Monster some of the time, like when it tells me to write an essay about this (and that I should totally call it an ‘essay’). But it’s not a good idea to let it win too often, as I found out several times this year…

Round 1: Three Competitions

Back in early March, I learned there were three different screenwriting competitions with deadlines at the end of the month. Ding ding ding:

The Artist: “That’s only a few weeks away. You should focus on polishing your best script, and submit it to all three competitions.”
The Ego Monster: “That’s loser talk! You should submit a different script to each one! If you get shortlisted for all three — with three separate scripts — just think how impressive that would look to producers, agents and enemies!”

I knew the Ego Monster was being ridiculous. Only one of my scripts was in good shape; the second still needed a major rewrite, while the third didn’t even exist yet. Sure, it helped that each competition only asked for an extract, but it was still a long shot — especially since every script I had ever written had taken months to get right.

So naturally, I decided to listen to him anyway.

You’re experienced now! You’ll finish three scripts in no time!

Cut to a few weeks later: I hadn’t finished any of them. In the end, I only managed to submit the ‘good shape’ script to just one competition — and because I had neglected it in favour of the others, it was nowhere near as good as it could’ve been.

It did not get shortlisted.

Round 2: Choosing Projects

After that, I vowed that I would only work on one thing at a time. But this led to a new dilemma: which one of my three scripts should I focus on?

The Artist: “You should finish your sci-fi rom-com sitcom. I know you’re scared that it’s never going to work, and you’re daunted by the amount of work you still have left to do. But it’s the one you really care about. And if you manage to pull it off, I think it could be something really special.”
The Ego Monster: “Are you kidding me!? Choose the easier one! That’s the one you think producers are looking for! Sure, it’s a bit gimmicky and doesn’t really excite you, but there’s like a 100% chance it’ll be commissioned!”

I wasted weeks deliberating between the two options.

In the end, I opted for the sci-fi sitcom — but I still don’t know if that was the right call. Maybe the other project was the better tactical choice, and there’s a Hari in an alternate universe who’s now swimming in piles of sweet, sweet sitcom money. (This is also a universe where there is sweet, sweet sitcom money.)

But at least I chose something I was truly passionate about. And I’d already been working on it for over a year, so maybe it wouldn’t take as long as I thought?

Round 3: Taking Shortcuts

It took way longer than I thought.

Here is a summary of my current sitcom writing process: figure out the story in prose, get stuck, convert it into bullet points, get stuck, write it up as script pages, send it out for feedback, emotionally process that feedback, leave it for a week or two — and then repeat the process as needed. When it feels like it’s finally converging on the ‘finished’ version, I do one last polish before shipping it out into the world.

I started focusing on the sci-fi sitcom in July, in the hope of finishing it by September. But by early August, there were still major problems at the prose stage (i.e. I got stuck), which meant another decision to make:

The Artist: “Take as long as you need to do it properly. Trust that you will figure it out eventually, like you’ve always done before.”
The Ego Monster: “Go go go! Jump straight to the script pages! You know you’re running out of time to be a sitcom writer, right? You’re already 36, so you’ve only got a few years left before you’re basically dead to the industry!!”

You can probably guess who won this round.

I rushed to write up what I had, in the hope that no-one would notice the problems. Even worse: I spent time polishing it ahead of schedule, because I thought it’d only need minor tweaks (ego) and the compliments would come flying in (more ego).

The compliments did not come flying in.

So after all that, I had to go back and fix those fundamental problems anyway, which ended up taking weeks longer than if I had just fixed them the first time round.

Technical Knock-Out?

(I don’t actually know how boxing works.)

It’s now mid-October, and I’m finally on the home stretch of a journey that began all the way back in March. And although I went the long way round, I’m glad the Artist won eventually — because even if this script doesn’t go anywhere, it might be the best thing I’ve ever written. In other words: I’ve made something I’m really proud of.

And that’s the only goal that matters.

That and getting an agent.