How To Write Humor

I totally wanted to write something epic today about how I woke up and ran outside in my underwear to put out a fire that could have burned the whole building down but instead I ate two bagels and stared at my computer monitor for several hours, looking at Google results for ‘how to write humor’.

I have serious hangups about writing. I have spent years and years trying to find that one sexy trick that she’ll hate you for, hoping that I might find a method to curing one particular itch. That itch is my dream to be A SUPER BELOVED AND MEGA FAMOUS WRITER.

I mean, it can’t be that hard write? Er… Right? My husband reads Jenny Lawson religiously and I work with a guy named Dave Barry that isn’t that Dave Barry. Both of these people just write funny stuff all the time. Funny stuff about their lives. Stuff that just happens to them. I want to write stuff like that, too. I want to write anything. DAMN IT I WANT TO BE A WRITER.

I know one of my biggest problems is that I have this complex about needing restrictions and guidelines. I have a hangup about needing to have my hand held but without being led by the hand. I wouldn’t feel as comfortable with another person looming over my shoulder, telling me how to do something but you give me a checklist of do’s and dont’s with a defined starting point? I’m happy as a clam.

My brain expects writing anything to be like Legos.

“I want to build something! Ooh! That thing is a space ship. I want to build that. Here is my eighty-five dollars and change because they are Legos. Yay I am home let us tear open this box which has always been thick and rigid despite the fact that nothing about assorted Lego bricks is fragile. I will follow these steps, interpreting the somewhat vague pictures to assemble this space ship. I am done and I have a space ship that I am proud of and can show to everyone!”

Of course writing doesn’t seem to work quite that easily.

The advice I see so often is just to be honest and write about funny stuff in your day. Does funny stuff happen to me? It must because I know I’ve spun yarns that make my co-workers and family laugh. Are those observations actually funny though? Do I have a technique that will put those observations on a page that will amuse people? I want those people to like me!

Aaand there it is. That’s when I crash. That is always, always the thing that makes me grind to a halt… Then blink a few times… Then close the browser window. Those words are gone forever and I am briefly depressed by my failure… Until I immediately re-open said browser and type “google” into Google and then type “How to write humor” again.

I know I stress way too hard about doing things write and proper. I know because I’ve known myself for a while now and also because I have a therapist.

I just did the write/right thing again. Completely by accident. Was gonna edit that out but, you know, fuck it. That’s funny right there.

But totally I am a crazy person. I want to write funny stuff. Jesus I want to write anything at all and in the back of my brain is this persistent need to have it be visible and enjoyable but also I feel like I have no idea what I’m doing because I have to know what I’m doing. There has to be a set of parameters and guidelines to creativity, right?

If you’re reading this that means my mouse cursor briefly hovered over the X in the upper right corner of the screen, trembled for a moment, and then moved away. If my will was weak I apologize, for you will never get to read this masterful pile of garbage some call words.

So yeah, that’s still a big problem for me. I’m led to believe I’ll never find the mythical mad libs page that I seem to think exists. The framework for successful word assembly that I have conjured in my dark fantasy world. There’s a wild magic boiling inside me and I want to conjure dancing lights to amuse the masses. Without the proper incantations, however, I could explode all seventeen of it’s sleeping inhabitants into a fizzling mass of screaming shards.

This is my madness.

I’m a crazy person who is terrified of writing and wants to be famous on the internet.

Shit, son. I really am a writer.