@jacques_aih turned comedy writer, through the power of social media

I’m writing this on my PC at work while my boss’s presence looms over the department like a pinstriped wring-wraith. Apologies in advance if I cut away abruptly. It’ll be because he’s swooped in to assault me with some wretched marketing buzz-phrase like ‘Are we picking the low-hanging fruit today?’. Er… well, I’m eating a banana, if that helps? Failing that he’ll be after the code to the photocopier again. It’s your own fucking name, you muppet.

I have a full-time job; a bog-standard nine to five with all the pressures and politics of any other office job – ie none. Why am I here? Well it pays OK. But the main reason is the shivering schoolboy part of me feels cosy in the safety blanket routine it offers. My chair swivels. I can, and frequently do, hide in the disabled toilet for hours on end doing a sudoku. The vending machine stocks jumbo packs of Revels

But the shouty, smart-arse part of me yearns to be spending all day composing killer one-liners that would leave a filibustering Fry floundering, or stun a speeding Coogan on the run.

People say I’m funny, but then they probably said that about Hitler. They probably didn’t actually, I don’t know. But my point is made. One man’s funny is another man’s Cheggers. What it comes down to is self-belief.

So when I finally decided to take the whole comedy thing a bit more seriously, I signed up for a couple of courses. In retrospect, courses on Indian cookery and car mechanics were bad choices, but they at least taught me the importance of not putting diesel into a petrol engine, or indeed, into a chicken korma.

I listened instead to the work of the comics and writers I rated. I did my bit for comedians’ welfare worldwide by liberally downloading their material free of charge from YouTube. I honed my own stuff till it could be honed no more and I knew I had a few decent jokes in the portfolio. But what I didn’t know was how to communicate them. Friends suggested stand-up – the very thought of which made the shivering schoolboy’s sphincter twitch.

Others suggested sending sitcoms ideas attached to bank-notes to the BBC or sleeping with influential producers, neither of which survived first contact with my wife’s hard stare. I felt that writing topical gags for others to deliver was the only route for me. HIGNFY? I’d shit it. But how could I get my voice out there? And who would listen?

Then there was Twitter. Oh, big, lovely, creaky, ego-massaging Twitter.

I’ve been tweeting for a year now. When I first started I made a conscious effort to remain anonymous. This was partly to indulge some half-arsed fantasy of becoming a kind of Twitter Banksy (A Twanksy?) ie. an online vigilante, popping up with a pun or a searing political insight when you least expected it, then disappearing back into the ether leaving you Gasping for more. I even chose a profile picture that had a kind of undercover urban edge to it – see above. All complete bollocks, of course. What anonymity gave me on a practical level was the ability to keep my real life and online life entirely separate.

My wife and a few close friends know I’m it’s me but precious few others do. And for now at least that’s how it will stay. If work found out my twisted plan then I would have some tough questions to answer. And doubtless it would be back to the low-hanging fruit for me.

So that was the strategy. Tactically-speaking I actively targeted a few Twitter celebrities who I felt would appreciate my sense of humour. Several were receptive and followed me back immediately, others I had to work on for several months with a subtly-blended combination of genuine friendliness and weapons-grade sycophancy.

A few never returned my tweets (Bill Hicks) and one even took out a banning order (Jim Davidson). But perseverance paid off and after six months I was up to 500 followers. Then at nine months it was up to a 1000. More importantly for me personally, I’d sold my first joke - to one of the professional comedians I’d met along the way. I have that cheque for 47p framed on my mantelpiece.

And all this time I was tweeting under the radar. Train journeys into work became a frantic effort to find something funny to say while reading the paper over someone’s shoulder and trying not to miss your stop and end up in Birmingham.

Lunch hours flew by in a blur of Subway sandwiches and tortured puns about halloumi cheese. I even found myself tweeting from my Blackberry in an executive board meeting. Did I have the monthly sales figures? Er… no. But my Dannii Minogue joke has been retweeted by Richard Herring! Impressed?!

*pin drops*

So was this an obsession? Maybe. But I saw it as a means to an end. My wife would curse as I tweeted whilst she watched Strictly Come Dancing. It became such an issue that I eventually lied and told her I was surfing porn instead. Strange times indeed.

But to use the mother of all clichés, it’s been a journey. I’ve sold some more jokes, have provided comedy material for a number of publications and websites, and there is even the possibility of getting involved with a major show at the Edinburgh Festival this summer. All of which would have seemed ludicrous 12 months ago

And all through the power of Twitter!

But hey… gotta run. My boss wants a coffee. Laters.

Follow Jacques at @jacques_aih