I can appreciate that, Tony, and well done to you - you deserve to. I would like to think that a pure gag writer such as yourself would get work without Twitter as a platform. For those of us who write in a different style, putting two-liners or comic ideas (as opposed to straight gags) in the public domain is a good way to test whether or not an idea is funny, but makes it less easy to adapt them to use in narrative comedy writing if they are disseminated. I think that stand alone one/two-liners bear repetition better than (forgive me) more nuanced/abstract jokes.
I've never considered myself a topical joke writer and used Twitter to test myself whether I could do it on demand, using each day as a writing "deadline". I found I can do it (with varying degrees of success, admittedly). I did this partly so if I ever found myself being offered writing work on a topical show, I would know whether to risk saying yes. The money is somewhat better than writing non-commissioned pilots, which is an important consideration.
