John Swartzwelder, Sage Of “the Simpsons”

I must admit, I had not heard the name John Swartzwelder before seeing several friends tweet about him and this New Yorker interview. Maybe you hadn't either? He's considered one of the "most revered" writers of early episodes of The Simpsons and holds the record for most episodes written (fifty-nine). He is elusive and does not tend to give interviews. He is also, unsurprisingly, very funny.

Even with zero context about Swartzwelder, it's a great read. There are lots of funny little quips throughout but I rather enjoyed this description of how he writes:

How much time and attention did you spend on these scripts? Another “Simpsons” writer once compared your scripts to finely tuned machines—if the wrong person mucked with them, the whole thing could blow up.

All of my time and all of my attention. It’s the only way I know how to write, darn it. But I do have a trick that makes things easier for me. Since writing is very hard and rewriting is comparatively easy and rather fun, I always write my scripts all the way through as fast as I can, the first day, if possible, putting in crap jokes and pattern dialogue—“Homer, I don’t want you to do that.” “Then I won’t do it.” Then the next day, when I get up, the script’s been written. It’s lousy, but it’s a script. The hard part is done. It’s like a crappy little elf has snuck into my office and badly done all my work for me, and then left with a tip of his crappy hat. All I have to do from that point on is fix it. So I’ve taken a very hard job, writing, and turned it into an easy one, rewriting, overnight. I advise all writers to do their scripts and other writing this way. And be sure to send me a small royalty every time you do it.

Carve out some time for the full read, it's worthwhile. I'll be diving into one of his self-published books next.