mostly david ephgrave

The downside of writing a blog post every day is you'll sometimes think of a subject, only for a quick Google to reveal you’ve already written about it. Such was the case today. It didn’t help that I set to work quite late, after spending a couple of hours sifting through old posts looking for ideas for stand-up. The sift proved lucrative, but left me creatively spent. There’s only so much of my own writing I can take in one sitting. When it came to thinking of something new, I kept drawing blanks. That was until I remembered a conversation I’d had with my friend Steve earlier this week. We were talking about caricaturists – as you do – when I recounted the story of the time I posed for one as a kid. For some reason, I took it upon myself to pull a weird face to help the artist out; briefly forgetting which of us was supposed to be doing the caricaturing. In doing this, I scuppered myself, ending up with a picture looking nothing like me. I thought this would be good...

Some days you don’t want to try to be funny. The main reason I started a daily blog was to keep my brain ticking over and force myself to be more productive. Like most writers and performers, I have an in-built laziness; while I could spend my time being creative, I’d often sooner not. It’s much easier to just sit and be quiet (with an optional biscuit). So far the blog has definitely helped. I’ve always worked best with a deadline – and having self-enforced one every day has encouraged more proactivity. That’s not to say that it isn’t sometimes a pain in the arse. I’ve fired up my laptop on a fair few occasions without a clue of what I should write. I’ll flick through my ideas folder on my mobile (or in the couple of notepads I carry with me) – and sometimes draw a blank. Any time I get stuck, though, I remember that Richard Herring has kept a daily blog for the best part of eleven years – and suddenly the blank page in front of me d...