Known Unknowns #4, Guest Post #2: Joe Randazzo

Hey! Hi! You may remember — this was waaaaaay back on Friday — I posted a piece about knowing when things are done. In that piece, I mentioned that I was going to be cajoling people from other creative avenues (Comedy Street, Television Parkway, etc.) to lend their perspectives on done-ness. Incredibly enough, it worked, and now I’ll be posting these all week, one per day, in addition to my regular Tuesday and Friday pieces. Enjoy!

Joe Randazzo, Editor of the Onion

For me, it’s always such a battle to summon the energy needed to focus long enough to write something, that I’m generally overly eager for it to be finished. In fact, I don’t think I can actually consider something done until I’ve triggered several false alarms declaring it so—otherwise, I will refuse to go back and read what I’ve written, and I have to read it to know that it is, clearly, far from finished. Then I will revise, prematurely call it finished, and repeat.

It’s similar with my standup, except in that case I have to go so far as to perform it in public without rehearsing to know if something is ready to perform in public.

I think when I’m writing, my focus is so intense and tenuous that I can’t bear the thought of it not being any good, so the only way I can ever keep at work on something is to take a leap of faith, every single time, that it is at least not laughable. In the end, though, I’m not capable of calling anything finished until the deadline.

Joe Randazzo lives in Greenpoint with his wife and son. He is currently at work on a million different things. Who has the time for a bio anymore?!