Category Archives: Humor

Ouch!

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Compliments of Guest Blogger, The Oldest Living Middle-Aged Writer

Slapped into a Nap

I didn’t see it coming. I was just minding my own business getting my paper and pen together, planning the day, and WHAM I was on the couch taking a nap. In retrospect, I should have been better prepared.

It wasn’t that long ago I was assailed by self-doubt. I re-read my current writing project (a mystery called Intimate Murder) and found it wanting. Or rather, the editor on my shoulder said very unkind things about it; he said my writing was pedantic.

Ouch.

Not pithy?

While I slept that night the parts of my brain that conspire against me whipped up a slide show of previous failings, including that time in college when I took a biology test without reading the textbook. At 2:00 a.m. it was presented to me in great detail and deliberation until in desperation I took a sleeping pill.

I remember I shrugged lethargy off when I got up. It’s not as if I hadn’t seen all the slides before many times. I keep them handy in little brain files for those anxious moments when I’m desperate to feel self-assured but need a reminder why I’m not. Like in Star Wars: “This is not the writer you’re looking for. Move along.”

Okay, inertia got the better of me and wrestled my self-esteem into an all-time low of humdrum, which is just barely above apathy.

But I cannot work under these circumstances. It is unprofessional. I demand respect. Where the hell is she? Oh there she is over there with recognition. They’re working on a new slide show with samples of my work and awards I’ve earned. It’s about time. By my age, I’ve pretty much accepted the fact that I’ll never have a bra that fits, but at least I’m sure that I am a writer.

And to the editor on my shoulder, time you moved along.

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Whether being pithy or irreverent, the Oldest Living Middle-Aged Writer (aka Pat Childers), is an award-winning writer and occasional blogger.

Questions from The Oldest Living Middle-Aged Writer

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Writer

by Guest Blogger, Pat Childers

Why do you write? I know why I write. I write for money. I write creative nonfiction for money, but I also write fiction to make myself laugh and so far nobody pays me for that. Sometimes I write to find out what I’m thinking and that can be really scary, but it does help me straighten out my medication.

I’m currently writing a science fiction thriller titled “Robot Love.” I thought of calling it “50 Shades of Robot Love,” but that would make it an entirely different book, albeit entertaining. I’m also writing a mystery that takes place in Chicago about a private investigator named Murray Antoinette. Anyway, I’ve had my picture taken for the dust jacket, written the prologue and thanked the people who helped me. It’s just that stuff in the middle (the actual text) that I’m having trouble with.

But what I want to know is: why do you write? What is it that you have to say that is so insightful, thought-provoking, or entertaining it needs to be shared with as many people as possible?  Do you have a story inside you that will cause a reader to pause and re-read a passage because it is so well said it is startling? Is it plot-driven, character-driven, or written in stream of consciousness like Virginia Woolf? I am anxious to know.

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The Oldest Living Middle-Aged Writer lives in Midwestern flyover country with her dogs. There have been reported sightings of her husband. In between innings of the Cubs game she is working on her web site and can be contacted at pat@pjchilders.com.

Not Famous Yet

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Compliments of Guest Blogger Ben “Bitter” Gardner

Not famous for this.

Not famous for this.

There are millions lot of reasons why I am not rich and famous. I don’t have movie star looks, I can’t act, or dance really well and my parents aren’t famous enough to start a reality show. I’m not fast, I can’t jump high, or skate fast or spike ball at a hundred miles an hour. I can’t spin a record, I don’t have 15 kids, or know an excessive amount of useless trivia. I can’t solve a math problem unless I have a calculator, I don’t have enough scientific ability to find a new element and I don’t have the guts to jump on 4 reds balls in an obstacle course.

I’m not naturally good at anything. I don’t have a rare ability that few people have, or a superpower. What I do have is ideas. Lots of them. Some really good ones that could make me famous. I have great ideas for apps that would be fantastic, or ideas for movies, or books, or businesses. I have vision. I know how to think outside the box. I’m so full of ideas, I don’t always know what to do with them.

But I think I figured out the reason. The biggest inventions or the greatest actors or most successful writer have two things. Not only do they have good ideas, but they had the ability to execute them.

Sure, she was a great writer, and great at executing, but also had a little luck.

Sure, she was a great writer, and great at executing, but she also had a little luck.

For instance, J.K. Rowling had a great idea, but she also had the skill to write it all down, edit it and get lucky enough for someone to read it. Edison not only had the fantastic light bulb of an idea, but was able to actually build the thing and lucky enough that it actually worked. Scott Adams was not only a hilarious person with a great idea about writing about the workplace, but he could also draw, and lucky enough that a comic about the workplace hadn’t really been explored. My theory is that most people have one or two of these things, but rarely have all three.

Don’t get me wrong, being famous would be good for a month, and being rich would be great for a couple of years, but if we had all those things, what would we have to complain about? What would I have to be bitter about?

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Ben’s alter ego, BitterBen, blogs to perfect the stand-up comedy routine he says he will never do. To get a full dose of his sardonic humor, check it out here.

Frenchman’s (Crap) Cove

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Pirate 1

 

By Contributing Blogger, The Oldest Living Middle-Aged Writer

 

Many years ago, during my WAA (Writing Avoidance Activities) days, I took three creative writing classes in a row, one I didn’t even register for.  A friend and I decided we would collaborate on an historical romance novel. We figured it should be about 100,000 words, so we could easily knock it out in four months. It would be about a female pirate in the 1800s, sort of between “Frenchman’s Creek” and a bodice ripper.

We then launched a time-intensive search for the perfect names for the lady pirate and the tall, handsome man she would fall in love with. Her name would be Maeve and his would be Claude. The ship would sail out of Charleston, South Carolina. We did extensive research on the ship – it would be wooden with large sails. With these essential details in hand, we began writing.

In re-reading the first page, I discovered that due to missing punctuation or perhaps a dangling participle, the father’s moustache was hugging the rail. Maeve’s startling ultramarine blue-hued speckled eyes were delighting in the wind whipping the sails, and Robert’s leonine sun-drenched yellow mane of hair flapped in the wind. Your teeth are like pearls, he sneeringly said. Gosh, this was harder than we thought. (Apparently, writing a book requires much more than a dictionary and a thesaurus.)

We almost made it to the third page before we gave up.

Not long ago I found a cardboard box in my garage labeled “bad writing.” I’m sure my pirate book was in there along with piles of other poorly written prose. I threw it away without opening it. It takes a lot of really bad writing to get to the good stuff. I should know.

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The Oldest Living Middle-Aged Writer (aka Pat Childers) is a regular contributing blogger who lives in Midwestern flyover country with her dogs, and the occasional sighting of her husband. In between innings of the Cubs game and contributing to this blog, she works on her web site. She can be contacted at pat@pjchilders.com