Ep 187: Will Hines

First Draft Episode #187: Will Hines Will Hines, improviser and actor, host of the podcast, "Screw It: We're Just Going to Talk About the Beatles," and author of How to be the Greatest Improviser on Earth joins me to talk about using his Tumblr to test audience engagement; the delicate nature of writing about a community you are a part of; his thorough approach to making the self-publication process as professional as possible; and his next (fictional) book about improv, co-written with fellow improviser Billy Merritt, Pirate Robot Ninja.   Links and Topics Mentioned In This Episode Josh Simpson, an improviser and teacher at the Upright Citizens Brigade training school in Los Angeles, and co-host of The Meat, an improv podcast Jimmy Breslin, a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist and journalist, who wrote The Good Rat, The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight, and The World According to Breslin, and more The Upright Citizen's Brigade, the improv group and school founded by Amy Poehler, Matt Besser, Matt Walsh, and Ian Roberts. Will's Tumblr, Improv Nonsense, which gained traction and has been featured on Vulture and elsewhere   Truth in Comedy by Charna Halpern, Del Close, and Kim "Howard" Johnson, considered one of the premiere books about long-form improvised comedy Upright Citizens Brigade Comedy Improvisation Manual, the UCB training manual Improvise: Scene From the Inside Out by Mick Napier     Bird by Bird: Some Instructions of Writing and Life by Anne Lamott, a writing advice book that Will read as a young computer programmer Andrew Sullivan, a conservative author, editor, and blogger who featured Will's post, "Improv as religion," on his site, garnering lots of attention     The Life Changing Art of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron Repetition exercises as a part of the Meisner Technique study of acting     Tenth of December: Stories by George Saunders "A Lack of Order in the Floating Object Room," by George Saunders, a silly and slightly sci-fi short story that typifies his early writing and is the kind of humor writing that inspires Will John Hodgman, author of Vacationland: True Stories from Painful Beaches In writing, Will is concerned about what he calls "The Kevin Smith Problem," where every character sounds the same (a la Clerks, Mallrats, and Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back) Jason Mantzoukas, an actor, writer, and seasoned improviser who Will saw constantly improving his craft Offset printing, a style of printing on the page that is "the way to make your book look beautiful," according to Will, but it is more expensive, and requires a minimum print run Artist Maëlle Doliveux, who drew the cover of Will's book Chip Kidd, a well-known book designer of Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton; Dry by Augusten Borroughs; and Naked by David Sedaris (he also has a hugely popular Ted Talk!). Daniel Clowes, a cartoonist, graphic novelist, illustrator, and screenwriter. His work is collected in the solo Eightball project. The Pirates, Robots, Ninjas theory, coined by Billy Merritt, a fellow UCB alum and teacher     The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho; and   "Carry On, Jeeves," by P.G. Wodehouse; and Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams are some of the funny books Will recommends Without Feathers by Woody Allen, a collection of his writing which Will read and enjoyed as a masterclass on comedy before we knew all that awful stuff about Woody Allen Out of Sheer Rage: Wrestling with D.H. Lawrence by Geoff Dyre, a meta novel about a man who wants to write about D.H. Lawrence but finds himself wanting to focus on anything else Steve Martin, who blurbed Geoff Dyre's book and has written his own, Born Standing Up: A Comic's Life (nonfiction) and Shopgirl: A Novella (fiction) Subscribe To First Draft with Sarah Enni Every Tuesday, I speak to storytellers like Veronica Roth, author of Divergent; Michael Dante  DiMartino, co-creator of Avatar: The Last Airbender; John August, screenwriter of Big Fish, Charlie's Angels, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory; or Rhett Miller, musician and frontman for The Old 97s. Together, we take deep dives on their careers and creative works. Don't miss an episode! Subscribe in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. It's free!   Rate, Review, and Recommend How do you like the show? Please take a moment to rate and review First Draft with Sarah Enni in Apple Podcasts, Google Play, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Your honest and positive review helps others discover the show -- so thank you! Is there someone you think would love this podcast as much as you do? Please share this episode on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, or via carrier pigeon (maybe try a text or e-mail, come to think of it). Just click the Share button at the bottom of this post! Thanks again!