Recently, I spoke with Michael Jamin, Emmy-nominated screenwriter and author of “A Paper Orchestra.” Known for his work on “King of the Hill,” “Just Shoot Me,” “Maron,” “Tacoma FD” and more, Jamin tackles “writing what you know” through seventeen personal essays spanning childhood, college and career with gripping insight and masterful comedy.
When approaching the personal essay genre, Jamin found inspiration in the works of David Sedaris. “I was doing a show on the Sony lot and my commute was just well over an hour each way, so I would listen to his audio books. So, I ordered all his paperbacks, and I started reading them now, [because] I’d only listened to them, and it’s a very different experience when you read a book. And so, I thought, this is wonderful, and I just started [writing],” Jamin said.
“A Paper Orchestra” marks a departure from Jamin’s professional career in television writing, yet his skilled understanding of story and character provides a fresh, captivating execution. “My training is as a comedy writer. And I want to make things funny, because I like to make people laugh,” Jamin said.
“The problem with comedy, in my opinion, is that it hits your head, and it makes you laugh, makes you think and that’s great. But it doesn’t hit your heart. Whereas a drama, if it’s really well written, hits you in the heart and it can stay with you for days afterwards,” Jamin said. “And to mix the two, I feel, is the most powerful thing of all. Because, when I’m using comedy, I’m trying to get you to laugh and I’m trying to get your guard to come down. So, you think, ‘oh this is going to be fun, this is light.’ Now your guard is down and just when your guard is down, that’s when I come in and I hit you hard with the drama right in the heart. That’s how I use comedy. It’s a way of just getting you to lower your guard.”
The anthology opens with “Escape from Kelly Jelly Belly,” throwing you into the deep end with Jamin’s wit and neuroticisms. Throughout the collection, Jamin recounts a series of relationships, both past and present, with shocking sincerity. “When I’m writing these stories, I’m telling them from my point of view, and I’m doing them authentically,” Jamin stated. “Even though I make fun of people, I’m harder on myself than I am on anybody else in the book.”
Often times, a story will come from the unlikeliest of places. “Sometimes I’ll force myself out of my comfort zone … if I go to an event or do something I don’t really want to do, I know I will probably get a story out of it,” Jamin said. “That’s, you know, good enough reason to do this. To get a story. As a writer, you’ll look everywhere for a story, because they’re hard to find.”
“I keep a list of memories, or moments from my life. I don’t have a lot of them, but when something occurs to me, I just write it down and keep it in the list and then, when I want to start a new story, I go through my list and I go, ‘Is there enough here?’” Jamin said. “Then hopefully I’ll find something that sparks with me. And then usually, if that memory elicits an emotion, then I might be onto something. If this memory made me feel guilty. I can explore why I’m feeling [guilty]. Without the emotion, it’s just an anecdote. It’s a funny thing I did. Who cares? And it’s light. It’s comedy. But with the emotion, then I can go deeper, I can dig into the drama.”
Sometimes, a story falls into place a little more naturally. Take, for example, “Alone,” a look into Jamin’s mindset as his daughter leaves for college. He draws on two television shows, “Alone” and “Tidying Up with Marie Kondo,” that he watched at the time. “That’s one of the few stories in the book that really came together very organically,” Jamin said. “It just so happened that at that time in my life, I was feeling alone, and I was feeling the answer to the problem was to declutter. And so that’s just a happy accident that it worked out that way. Usually, life is not that neat.”
In “Alone,” the story’s titular television show, each contestant prepares a selection of survival items for their journey. “At night before I go to sleep, I’ll often think about one problem that I’m working on, and hopefully the answer will crystallize in the morning. Or, if I’m driving in the car, I’ll turn off the radio and I’ll think of one problem I need to fix. Maybe it’s the entrance of a character. What’s a better way to introduce this character? I could just fix one problem at a time, they add up,” Jamin shared.
The titular story, “A Paper Orchestra,” highlights Jamin’s unique perspective on finding a story. With what began as a search for potential essay topics, Jamin discovered an entirely new angle. “[When] I was in college, I spent a semester in Spain, but I had a serious girlfriend and I used to write her, you know, all these letters. And it was almost like a diary. So, I figured, if she remembered something about this, maybe I could write a story about that,” Jamin said. “And I did get a story out of it. Just not the story I thought I was going to get.”
“I thought she was [going to] share memories of when I lived in Spain. And then I read these letters that she kept. I didn’t know she still had them, but she had them. And I read them over and I was very disappointed with what I saw. None of what I wrote was interesting. It was just stupid and shallow. But then, as I was in her house, I was being very mindful. I was staying in the present. I was observing how I felt. Every time she’d say something, ‘how do I feel?’ And every time I say something, ‘how am I feeling now?’ And because I was staying in the present, I was able to come up with a good story,” Jamin said.
In “The Marisa Disclaimer,” “Fourth and Long,” “The House on Witherspoon Street” and “Le Flâneur,” we’re transported to Jamin’s college days where his dreams of writing began. “I was in college, and I wanted to be a writer, and I applied to the creative writing program, and I got rejected twice,” Jamin said. “And it’s [because] I didn’t know how to write, and that’s what I wanted, to learn how to write. And then I became a TV writer, and so this is the book that I wanted to write in college, but I didn’t know how to.”
“The House on Witherspoon Street” details Jamin’s first opportunity to write professionally at a shabby radio station down the street from his college campus. But how have those opportunities changed for college students today? “Oh, it’s different now. I mean it’s way different now,” Jamin emphasized. “You could make your own TikTok channel, and you could script your stuff, and you could shoot it with your friends.”
“When I was a kid, it was very hard breaking into Hollywood,” Jamin said. “Now you can shoot a movie on your phone for zero dollars, and you could post it to the Internet for zero dollars and it can be seen by millions of people in a matter of minutes. We have these resources at our fingertips that we didn’t have [back then]. But you have to be good. The writing has to be good, or else no one’s going to watch it.”
Although Jamin maintains a social media presence, writing remains at the core of his character. “I’m really more concerned with making sure people see me as a good writer, not as a good person, as a good writer, [because] I’ve spent 28 years doing it, and when you do it for 28 years, you better be good at it, or else, what has this all been for? So, when I put myself in the book, it really was with the intention of, let’s just put it all on the line so that people think I’m a good writer,” Jamin said. “Even if you don’t go professional, [writing is] a wonderful thing to do for yourself. It just enriches your life. And so, I encourage people to do it.”
“A Paper Orchestra” can be found at a variety of retailers. Jamin performs his stories in a live show which he brings to cities across the country.
Daniel Estrin can be reached at [email protected].
