Me! Pick me! What about me?! And me! You can't leave me out! But you can't include everything. Your book/essay/show/standup comedy set can't go on forever.

There are so many things to write/talk about, so many stories, and so many beats in each story, that sometimes it's hard to decide which to pick.

Here are 9 great reasons to choose a piece of material:

1) IT'S FUNNY - That's enough of a reason, especially if you're working in a comedy format. Funniness is less important when you're going for tragedy.

2) IT'S TIMELY - Something that just happened has an urgency and energy when you try to communicate it, whether it's something in your personal life or in the world. If you're performing live, especially with stand-up comedy, a major story from the news of the week will be on everyone's mind and something big like Michael Jackson dying is almost a required topic. The audience wants to know your take on it.

3) IT'S IN YOUR WHEELHOUSE (i.e., area of expertise, specialty)- Everyone has some deep well of content. Julia Cameron calls it your 'vein of gold'. It's the area of material you can always talk about. For some it's the topic of family or your job. For some it's current events. For others is spirituality or sarcasm. If you work in your particular wheelhouse, any given piece of material will more easily connect with other pieces to help create an integrated world-view in your work.

4) IT'S EASY - Nothing wrong with that - especially if you're on deadline! One deadline, of course, being that they're announcing you to go onstage. Also see my previous blog on Low-Hanging Content.

5) YOU HAVE A CLEAR ATTITUDE TOWARDS IT - Listen to any great comedy and you'll see that the laughs almost always come on the attitude. That's often you're way in and/or the throughline of the material too.

6) IT'S FUN - It's comedy, right? Sometimes, it's OK just to play.

7) IT'S IMPORTANT - It could be really meaningful to you personally, or you might think it's really important for that particular audience. Aiming high is good too.

8) YOU JUST WANT TO - After all, it's probably going to take some work to get the material into clear, tight shape, and you're going to have to stay motivated. Beth says when she looks over a list of possible topics, one of them actually feels like it has a lot of energy around it.

9) IT MAKES YOU LOOK HOT - Perhaps the most important criteria for any material is that it makes you look good. Although if the idea is to get laughs, it's often the material that makes you look the worst (shame, humiliation, embarassment, epic failure) that gets the best response and therefore makes you look the best. Comedy, like yoga, is often an upside-down practice.

These pearls of wisdom were gathered from years of producing comedy shows like the Un-Cabaret, working with Beth on her material and teaching at the Un-Cab Lab Writing & Performance Workshop.