Finding humor wasn’t so easy for this screenwriter in recovery

Joseph Riedel’s dreams of becoming a screenwriter were interrupted by a cancer diagnosis — but he’s turning his illness into material for a web series as part of his 2015 Creative Resolution.

Riedel, a young man who lives just outside New York City, resolved to make a web series about his experiences currently dealing with his brain tumor. It’s a comedy called "A Good Sense of Tumor.”

When the new year began, Riedel was about to have surgery. When he checked into NYU Langone Medical Center near the end of January, Riedel was terrified to see that his brain tumor was larger than he had realized and that it was pressing against his brain stem. The gravity of his situation set in as he was wheeled to surgery. His last thoughts as he was put under anesthesia were that he might not wake up the same person he was.

Seven hours later he woke up in pain, horror and, to his surprise, relief.

“[The surgery] went as well as anyone could have hoped,” Riedel said. “My doctor, Dr. Zen, believed he removed the entire tumor, and with all the information we currently have, there's a very good chance that I'm currently tumor and cancer-free.”

Doctors believe they were able to remove the entire tumor. Riedel is slowly getting back on his feet, although surgery did put his his project on hold. He wasn’t able to read or write for about six weeks. Finding humor in his situation hasn’t been easy, but the recovery did give him ideas to use in the film.

For instance, Riedel does not enjoy the musical “Chess.” He teased his sister, whose boyfriend is currently in a production of the play. She got her payback when he came out of surgery.

“I'm lying in the recovery room after surgery and I can't really communicate with anyone. I just sort of squeeze their hand to acknowledge that I heard them,” Riedel says. “And my sister says to me, and when you're feeling better, Joe, we can go see my boyfriend in 'Chess.' And that's the moment when I muster enough strength to go: Noooo… “

While he’s returned to work part-time as a writing teacher, Riedel says that the amount of focus needed to get back to work has been too much for him to handle right now. He’s trying to do some behind-the-scenes production work on his project and has a small team to help out.

“I'm trying to cram as much writing as possible into the next two months. And, it sort of becomes a budget game at that point,” Ridel says. He plans to produce a pilot episode — you can read the script for his first episode here — that he hopes will draw investors and funding. He's also considering appeals on Kickstarter and Indiegogo.

“Just the amount of focus was too much for me to handle. It was a little discouraging, but I kept working on the behind scenes production kind of stuff,” Riedel says. “I have a small skeleton of a team right now, and we're all very excited to get things rolling.”

If you're starting on a creative project this year and need a morale boost this or some advice, join our Facebook group. Just search for studio360's Creative New Year's Resolutioners.