I'm nervous. I checked out a book, Careers in Comedy by Sharon Menzel-Gerrie, which explains much of the struggles of stand up comedy. It explores stand up comedy as a career and it was clear for me that stand up comedy just wasn't for me. Stand up comedy basically involves a lot of travel and rejection. What really got me was the rejection part. I can't even get girls because of my irrational fear of rejection. Besides the rejection of club owners, the book talks about what happens when the audience doesn't laugh.The book details experiences of stand up comics who tells jokes to audiences who simply grunt at the punch lines. Apparently, the key is self confidence, a key I've never been able to turn.
Coffeehouse is in 3 days and I'm not confident in my jokes. The book reassures me with examples of famous comedians who bombed their first performance. The thing is, though, I can't deal with rejection as I already said. I'm really nervous that I'll go up there and just nervously laugh at the audience and say, "your turn." None of my friends understand my dilemma either which should be a comfort, I guess. They assume I'll be funny up there. Practicing in front of friends is a good idea apparently but I don't wanna ruin their expectations. I'll wait for Tuesday to do that.
There is a lot of negative energy here and it's really messing up the feng shui of this blog post. A big part of self confidence is positive energy and  I need to remain positive because I've literally been dreaming about this career since 8th grade. That's a long time and I have to be at least mediocre for the sake of my dignity, if nothing else.
So moving on from my overwhelming stage fright, I've actually accomplished quite a lot this week. As I already said, I checked out that book. Besides its depressing elements, it really does have a lot of good information. Like the author discusses different ways to find material for one's act which was really helpful to me. I've already been doing the notebook thing that she suggests but new ideas like just watching people (a little creepy but apparently effective) energized me. There's an entire section titled "Have Patience, Persistence, and Faith in Yourself." It's important to remember that at the end of the day, I'm still funny and this should be my driving motivator.
I've also narrowed down my act to about 7 minutes. The one thing I haven't been able to do is organize my act. I just have a couple of developed jokes here and there but they're not connected. I remember Russell Peters used to make his act seem like he was just thinking of it at that very moment. That's the kind of act that I've always wanted. That requires practice and some more practice and practice is what I'm really lacking. Speaking in front of a mirror just seems narcissistic to me but I need to get over myself and practice my act over and over again. Self-confidence comes with practice so I guess that's what my weekends gonna be about.
A short word about mentors before I close. Friday was the deadline to find a mentor and sadly, I have nobody to present. I messaged somebody really funny who graduated last year but I haven't gotten a response yet so I'm keeping my fingers crossed.