Mike Sacks, author ofAnd Here’s the Kicker: Conversations with 21 Top Humor Writers on Their Craft,has a new book out today. This one’s calledPoking a Dead Frog: Conversations with Today’s Top Comedy Writers.What the hell’s the difference, you ask? Well, that was our question, too. Here’s what Mike (who happens to be a longtime reporter-researcher here atVanity Fair*) had to say: “I suppose the main difference between the two books is that I wrote the first one out of a deep love for comedy, and this new one purely for money. I desperately needed a cash infusion to pay for calf implants, as I intend to move full-time to Ocean City, Maryland, in order to open my own bay-side oyster shack called Shuckers.”*

Now that that’s cleared up, here’s a chapter featuring advice from IFC star and podcaster extraordinaire Marc Maron, one of 45 professional wisenheimers—from __Amy Poehler__and Patton Oswalt__to__George Saunders and Mel Brooks—who mine their pain for laughs in the book. Read this, then buy the whole damn thing on Amazon. Please, don’t make us spend another year looking at Mike’s God-given calves.

Pure, Hard-Core Advice from Marc Maron

Host,_WTF with Marc Maron_podcast; Performer, Late Show with David Letterman, Late Night with Conan O’Brien,andComedy Central Presents;Creator/Writer, IFC’sMaron.

For a while, I hit a wall where in my mind the choices were pretty dire. I didn’t have any idea how I was going to continue to make a living. There was real fucking fear there. For one reason or another, the timing was right in the medium (podcasting) that I chose, in 2009, and things evolved.

Quite honestly, I try not to have regrets in my life, because it is what it is. But whatever I went through, there was not a plan. My process creatively is not an easy one. I’m impulsive, I’m filled with anxiety, I don’t have the ability to compartmentalize, I don’t have the wherewithal or the confidence to plan and follow through when working toward a goal. Everything has always been very immediate to me, and that is exhausting. It could really have gone either way. In talking to other people and looking back at my own career, the people who were more aware of their talent and how to use it, and more aware of their limitations and what they were really shooting for, were able to find their place a little easier. If you start out as a comic, you want to be a big comic. But as you get older, you realize, “Wow, there are only a few of those at any given point in time, and it’s a tough life.” The possibilities of not getting to that level, where you can really bank some money or build a career, are very high. Depending on what your ego can handle at those crossroads in life, you might say, “I do write great jokes, and I know I want to be involved somehow, so how do I adapt?” The ability to get away from your ego enough to recognize your limitations, and to take action toward becoming a writer or working for a sketch group—that’s a big moment. The thing I now know is that the people who were aware and cognizant of the business ultimately found a little more peace of mind—a place to express partially, if not more so, their particular sense of humor.

A lot of the dudes I started with, the ones who didn’t fall away or end up club comics for life, very early on went into writing. Whether you get into producing, or directing, or management, relationships are built early on; crews start out generationally. You build those relationships when you’re all struggling, and those are the relationships that are going to carry you through a career—if you’re lucky enough to have one.