Jun 11
12
Voices In My Head
I used to drive a lot. To and from work 45 minutes and before that to and from university about the same. I didn’t mind so much, I used to do a lot of thinking while I drove and, while still being an active sketch comedy writer and performer, used to generate a lot of material.
Whole sketches, blocks of dialogue, musical numbers would be derived and iterated in my head during these commutes. I considered them fairly productive. But somewhere around 2005 — probably this time of the year, since hockey free agency kicks off July 1 and I’ve been a long time hockey fan — I started listening to sports talk radio on my daily commute.
This was a terrible decision.
First of all, I don’t think sports talk radio stations expect to have more than an hour with listeners and certainly not at multiple times throughout the day, as they did me. They re-hash the same bullet points again and again, re-air the same interview clips. It’s really not as dense you might think.
Worse for me, it wasn’t giving me any useable creative input; nothing I could parlay into sketch material or use to kick off a creative idea. It was all calories and no nutrients. And it was preventing me from using a single second of those ninety minutes each day for anything that didn’t involve plus/minuses and goals against averages.
There is a finite space for the voices in my head (you know what I mean), and my creative ones were being squeezed out.
Fast forward six years. I no longer drive, I no longer work at the same company. I no longer participate in sketch comedy, though I still try to write. I do still commute, as ever, 45 minutes. In fact, I’m doing that now. But despite recognizing how fattening talk radio had been to me, I still bombard my head with talk. No longer radio. Now it’s comedy, technology, and writing podcasts playing back to back in my iPod.
I’m a bit of a podcast junkie. Can’t miss an episode, don’t want to fall behind.
So here I am, still not giving myself mental quiet time in which to germinate new ideas. It’s been months since I put a line of dialogue on the page, months since writing “FADE IN” anywhere. And as much as I enjoy the company of these familiar voices in my earbuds, I know they’re still keeping my writing voice at a distance.
So, audio recordings, I’m thinking it’s time I heard a little less of you. Maybe once a day, not all day. Maybe fewer of you altogether. I have a couple of my own who would like to get a word in edgewise.