Writing Funny When You're Not Feeling Funny

There are 10,390,411 goats in Niger. Go on, count them. Make my day.

It's not quite as many as Kenya, but it's more than Brazil. I know this because the quiz website Sporcle tells me. It also tells me I've played this quiz sixteen times in the past year.

So, as you can probably guess, I obsess over things. At school, when most people were getting into drink and drugs, my friends and I experimented with different mental health issues. Like Skins with CBT sessions instead of orgies.

In fairness, the bulk of my mental health issues lay dormant until my 20s. But then they hit me like a six pack of Wotsits to the wotsits (I'm eating Wotsits).

Frankly the experience has exhausted me. This was me aged twenty-four, before my biggest struggles set in. Look at me. Young, optimistic, lobster hands.

… Compare that to me now, four years later.

The difference, as I'm sure you can agree, is shocking.

Various depressive episodes brought on by anxiety have stolen a large chunk of the last four years of my life, taking its toll emotionally and costing me a place in at least two England squads. Barring a miracle, I probably won't make Russia.

Depression isn't fun. It's not exactly laugh out loud funny. But it sometimes makes me cry and at the end of the day aren't tears just basically wet, really sad laughs? Actually, come to think of it, no.

STILL, as a comedy writer, it's my job to be funny. Or at least turn things that aren't funny into something that is funny.

But could I do that with my life? Here's how I got back to writing funny when my brain was acting funny.

The first thing I learned was…

JUST. STOP. WRITING.

…

Done. Home time!

My OCD manifests as intrusive thoughts. These lodge in my head for months at a time, circling around, getting me anxious. You know when someone sleeps on your sofa and says they'll leave tomorrow, but then they stay until April and you end up having to buy milk for them and they complain if you use their milk? And you're, like, Alan, put a name on it! Something like that.

When that's happening you just can't jump into writing and hope it'll fix things - there's no space up there. When I'm really bad my brain is an absolute market leader at convincing me I'd rather sit in bed and remember every stupid thing I've done the last decade in chronological order (BURST OF KOOL AND THE GANG'S 'CELEBRATION' PLAYS).

However, I could break the worry cycle temporarily by moving my focus into some intermediary. Go on a walk. Do some exercise. Stay up till 2am trying to remember the country with the largest goat population (tip, it's basically always China with these things).

Right James, just go ahead and delete Sporcle

Done and done, Amigo!

OK brain, I know a lot about goats now, but how can I focus on a script?

Well, in rare moments, I found I could redirect the same energy I gave to worrying to creativity.

I noticed this for the first time when I became a staff writer at BBC Radio Comedy.

My brain likes repetitive patterns. So I made some of my own to beat old brainy at its own game. I invented a technique I in absolutely no way recommend called 'Spanish Hell'. It's simple. You take this one hour loop of the 'Spanish Flea', shove your headphones on and then try and slip into a writing coma. Honest to God, every episode of The News Quiz I wrote, I wrote like this.

And that's how I learned the best way to write is by torturing yourself…

Anyway. I could focus my addictive nature on writing and I was in the best place for it - the BBC - getting high off the fumes of Steve Punt.

However, when I went freelance my drug was no longer as easy to get my hands on. Firstly, I don't know where Steve Punt lives. Secondly, I had more time on my hands. And the thing about worries is they LOVE time. Time to them is like those really fancy posh crisps which they sell in pubs with ideas above their station. Delicious.

Loneliness is bad

Most writers work freelance. And being freelance is hard. You spend long amounts of your day in a flat by yourself, desperately trying not to eat Quavers and play FIFA.

Where my brain was once tethered it was now on free rein, running around like a stray dog in mainland Europe, mouth full of jambon.

Remember Alan? Well Alan wasn't just on the sofa now, he was taking up every room of the house. In the shower. In the kitchen. One time I'm pretty sure he used my towel which is bang out of order. My bum's been on there, Alan!

For most of the day Alan was my only company.

Paths can change

For a long time I'd had a very rigid vision of how a career in writing works. Make it on the radio. Move to TV. Write films. Relocate to Hollywood. Marry Margot Robbie. Have the flat, Alan! Turn it into the milk paradise you desire, I don't care I'm drinking soya with the stars.

I was 22 when I started at the BBC. A bright young thing in the comedy world. And, honestly, I probably thought I'd be more famous by now than the Pringles dude (I like crisps, OK?).

But things aren't as smooth as that. Instead I was alone, unable to focus on writing and having an argument about towels with an imaginary squatter.

I knew I needed to do something about it. I needed a break from comedy and fortunately found a job in music telly. With no exaggeration, it saved my brain.

I realised my writing skills were more versatile than I thought. I was writing every day, spending my day with actual, great people. I even got to make my own comedy show. They didn't play Spanish Flea as much as I liked, but I did get to hear the same Ed Sheeran track forty times a day, so swings and roundy-b's.

James Bugg at the Brit Awards

I had some self worth again and, far from abandoning my comedy path like I had thought, I became a better writer. Plus Alan had moved out.

But what if it, I mean, Alan comes back?

He did sometimes. He had a key cut so he just let himself in occasionally but I got better at dealing with him.

Not all the time. Once you've had worries, they often come back in weird ways. I'd get confused. Worried whether things I knew had happened had happened. One time I genuinely convinced myself that I may not in fact be alive and had to ask someone 'am I dead?' Turns out I wasn't. In fact very rarely when I ask this am I actually dead. Result.

There isn't a yardstick for knowing when something's gone too far, but when you're asking people if you're dead, that's a pretty good sign.

I sought help. Had more counselling. My CBT guy told me it's most common to only have ten sessions but, not to brag, I needed over twenty so smashed that wheyyyyy.

And slowly, but surely, it helped again. Alan visits far less frequently now. Which is good because he's still a milky prick.

Aaaand reflect

So I'm now away from the worst of my worries. Here I am, happy little fella right?

I'm also far enough away to look back and go what the HELL was that all about??

Well, who knows. It's impossible to tell when you're slap bang in the middle of depression. Then when you're out it feels like a strange dream.

Having two near-breakdowns before you're thirty isn't fun … But it happened. And it was difficult to deal with but after a while you just go 'you know what? I'd quite like to be funny again now, please'. And you have to use everything you've figured out along the way to stay there.

I've always been open about these things. But I'm much more comfortable when I get to do it in a fun, self-deprecating way.

Depression is scary. But I guess if I get to the point where I can laugh at things, then I'm no longer scared by them. I'm in charge. Hopefully sharing my situation may make others want to share and possibly one day laugh at them too.

Either way, for years I didn't want to write and now I've written far too much. So that's good. At least for me. You're the suckers who have to read it.

Now. You've focused for a really long time. Treat yourself to a packet of posh crisps and the goat quiz. I'll get you started… Burkina Faso.

Note. I know this won't apply to everyone - everyone's situation is different. I'm just a pincer-fingered guy, trying to make you laugh with my own situation. And if that helps, terrific.