Just Do It

Deece Casillas joins Richard Lowe (The Writing King) on Author Talks for a loose, candid conversation between two people who each built creative careers the hard way.

A touring stand-up comedian moving toward writing and his debut comic book, Deece is frank about the grind behind stand-up and makes a simple case: if something matters, you find a way, and the thing stopping most people is fear, not ability.

Deece Casillas is an internationally touring stand-up comedian, writer, and host of the weekly talk show The Social Hour. He filmed his first comedy special, Not Your Cup of Tea, self-published a book, and is at work on his debut comic book.

For more conversations with creative people, see Author Talks with Richard Lowe.

DISCUSS YOUR BOOK

Full transcript of the interview follows.

A Touring Stand-Up Comedian

Richard Lowe: kind of got off on a tangent there. But once you tell me a little bit about yourself, so you’re a comedian.

Deece Casillas: Yeah, yeah. So I’m touring standup comedian. I’ve been doing comedy for a long time. I just feel my first special not your cup of tea available now. At least comedy.com Just my first name and comedy.com We’re doing a special right now it’s available for donation only so you can name your price $1 all the way up to a million and you’ll get the you’ll get the link for the download but

Richard: obviously I’m gonna put a million dollars on that. Yeah.

Deece: It was I’ve had people throw in $1 You still get it you throw in 20 bucks you still get it? Anything helps in the the old copper there. So and yeah, I’ve right are also working on my debut comic book actually. That’s kind of the next project that’s coming down the chute pretty quick here.

And yeah, I’ve been a writer for done writing for different websites. I wrote for some, some punch up for some script stuff when I lived in LA, where I’m from, and all kinds of stuff.

Richard: You sound kind of like me and we I was born in the tech field. Yeah, I started in tech for 33 years and then decided to become a writer full time, and that’s what I do.

Deece: You can end up you know, it’s like, you don’t have one, you don’t have one full time job you have 18 part time jobs, you know, it’s a it becomes this a every little trickle into the bucket, you know?

Eighteen Part-Time Jobs

Richard: Well, now I’m diversifying a bit and I’m starting a line of PDFs that are courses on how to write. Okay, I just started that. And then I’m also selling on eBay. I’m going to be selling. What’s it called? Drop Shipping on eBay, and I’m selling a lot of junk that I have. Well, it’s not junk. It’s good stuff. But yeah. Probably my Omaha the cat dance or comic books. Yeah.

Deece: There’s a market for it out there somewhere.

Richard: Well, I have original hardcovers that are signed. They should be worth a little bit. Yeah, yeah, definitely. And they’re just collecting dust.

Deece: Eventually, you just got to let them go. That’s it. I keep thinking I hope I have a buddy who loves I don’t have any kids up everybody that loves comic books, because they’re gonna get a hell of a collection when I die.

Richard: Well, I just looked around and thought, you know, I’ve got about 50 grand worth of stuff here. That’s just collecting dust. It’s time to sell it on eBay. Yeah. Some of it

Deece: should have hit it during COVID. Man, everyone had that extra money they’re burning. I’ll tell you what the the comic book market was crazy that people were I mean, all the collectible market people were just spending all that extra money on trying to, you know, ribeye their childhood and

On Writing Books for Others

Richard: yeah, I understand a lot of I got my business went up during COVID to people wanted to read books. That’s mostly what I do is write books. Okay. 48 for other people so far. Wow. In 10 years,

Deece: any Are you allowed to talk about any of them or any ones you’ve like,

Richard: wrote about an Afghani politician. That was quite interesting. He had a different life. Lot of Metaverse and AR and AI type books. children’s book on artificial intelligence and a children’s book on on cyberbullying. And young adult book that was young adult books, my favorite. It’s my favorite story.

The lady was under seven years old, and she had a dream of writing a book all her life of her dreams. Yeah. So she wrote and wrote all her dreams. She hand wrote all her dreams, I had to come, I had to translate all that. Transcribe. And she wanted me to write her a book based on those dreams.

So we did took 16 months, got published, she was so happy. And she passed away. Three months later, but she achieved her goal.

Deece: Well, hey, sometimes it’s all it takes, you know, you just want to say you did it.

If It Matters, You Find a Way

Richard: Yeah. My advice to anybody is if you’re thinking about a book or any kind of big item, just do it. Yeah. Court and you’ll figure out how, yeah, definitely,

Deece: definitely. I mean, yeah, I self published a book like, God 2009 2010 2010, it probably was, so about 12 years ago. And yeah, you just kind of figured out, you know, the writing the editing, the publishing, and you just kind of figure it out. So

Richard: yeah, I found that if it’s important to you, you’ll find the money you’ll find the way. Yeah, I’m a premium Ghost Rider. So I’m expensive. Like most people’s minds, but if it’s important, you’ll find a way to do it. It’s not important. You won’t write works in life, you know?

Yeah. People come to me and say the books the most important thing in their life, it’s a bucket list item, and then they can’t do it, or won’t do it. Yeah, I guess it’s not the most important thing in their life.

Deece: Well, I think, you know, it’s so funny. I talked about this all the time. It you know, I think people are just scared. Come, you know, what, what’s familiar is comfortable for him. So it’s easy. And, you know, it’s not that those things maybe aren’t important, but man they just taking those steps are hard and scary.

And it’s it’s easier to just live in misery or unhappy with what you’re doing and to like, push through the uncomfortable phases to get to the things that will make you happy.

Richard: Yeah, my attitude is Don’t get yourself don’t step out of the box. Just get rid of the box entirely.

Deece: Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Richard: Why are you in a box?

The Grind Behind Stand-Up

Deece: Yeah, it’s, it’s, I mean, when you talk about things like stand up comedy with it, if you if I sat down and told someone how, what it took to get to where I’m today, you know, being able to do stand up comedy full time and been able to do it that way for several years, which, I mean, there’s, there’s comedians I know that have never Like specials that still have a job, you know, because it’s just it can be tough to really make a living at it.

And, you know, there were times when you this the, the logistics of it seem crazy, like no one would you’d never say no one would ever start, you know, it’s like, oh yeah, I’d get off work at 6pm and drive, you know, three hours would show and get paid $20 to do five minutes, and then I’d have to drive three hours back because they didn’t give me a hotel.

And I did that Thursday, Friday, Saturday, while working my day job. And it’s like, you do that for like, you know, eight years and then maybe you’ll start making some real money at it. It just seems crazy. let’s get just go to DS comedy.com. Check out everything going on, you can follow me on destaque comedy on Instagram, I’m touring across the country.

If you’re in America, I’ll be somewhere near you. You can check out my tour dates, you can buy the special ad DS comedy.com. Again, for as little as just $1. And also, yeah, new comic book, debut comic book coming to more details on that will be released on Instagram.

So follow me. And you’ll get that too. That’s kind of the next time I’m trying to tour less and do more on the writing and the comic book. I’ve got a couple of ones I’m working on. So those will be kind of the next chapter of my life.

Richard: Alright, nice. Well, thank you for coming to our author talks. So hope you enjoyed it. Yeah, thank you. And this is Richard Lowe. I’m a ghostwriter. Which means I write books for other people. I’m a writing coach. So if your writer need help, come see me. And I’m on LinkedIn branding or spirit.

So if you’re not getting any traction on LinkedIn, I can help with that. And that’s over and out until the next one. Thank you.

Quotable moments

Frequently Asked Questions

Who is Deece Casillas?

An internationally touring stand-up comedian, writer, and host of the weekly talk show The Social Hour. He filmed his first comedy special, Not Your Cup of Tea, and is working on his debut comic book.

How did he get into writing and self-publishing?

He self-published a book around 2010, figuring out the writing, editing, and publishing as he went, and has written for various websites and done script punch-up work. His next projects lean toward writing and a debut comic book instead of constant touring.

What does he say about the reality of a comedy career?

That it’s a long grind. He describes years of finishing a day job, driving hours to perform five minutes for $20 with no hotel, then driving back, doing that for years before making real money. The logistics, he says, seem crazy, but that’s how you get good.

What is his advice to people sitting on a dream?

Just do it. He argues most people aren’t held back by ability but by fear, because the familiar is comfortable. His approach: don’t just step out of the box, get rid of the box entirely.