Tag Archives: Humor

The Act of Searching for a Literary Agent

Memoirs, Social Networking, Writing, , ,
Decisions...decisions....

There are few activities that make me want to claw my eyes out with a spork, but a couple immediately come to mind:

1. Having to explain the special theory of relativity to Sarah Palin.

2. Having Sarah Palin explain the special theory of relativity to me.

3. The natural desire that most people have to claw their eyes out with a spork that comes naturally any way.

4. Having to search for a literary agent to represent my novels.

As much fun as the first three might be to explore, I’m going to talk about number 4 right now because, well, that’s really the one I wanted to talk about when I started writing this post. Now, that can be a problem for me whenever I start a post, because I might start with a desire to talk about literary agents, and next thing you know, I’m discussing cute fuzzy bunnies. You know, the cute little ones that are always jumping around, stealing your wallet and…wait, I wanted to talk about literary agents. That’s right. Back to my original subject.

You see, I’ve been looking for a literary agent for about as long as I’ve been able to write. I’ve had one of those weird writing careers that most other writers can’t relate to because they’ve either a) Already got a successful writing career and really don’t care one iota what I have to say about anything, or b) they just don’t seem to understand how everything went so bad.

Years ago, and I’m talking back in the prehistoric days, when you had to actually use your telephone to connect to the Internet. No, let’s go all out on this one. I’m talking about the days when you hooked up your modem to your telephone and there was no Internet because Al Gore hadn’t invented it yet. Yes, that long ago. Anyway, back then, when we were still using stone tools to build Deloreans that would travel back in time, I had a somewhat growing writing career where I wrote lots of interesting stuff and these strange people called “editors” would accidentally mail me checks after publishing those stories in their magazines. Some of my stories actually became series of short stories where people would get out pen and paper, write me nice little letters about how my character was obviously being handled incorrectly because in Issue #17, the hero had used the Quantum Destabilizer Unit on him, which meant that in Issue #43, there was no way that he could have phased into the neutramatter universe to chase after the Viscuous Ant Man, one of his mortal enemies. And then they would put a stamp on that letter and go back to reading their next issue of Peter Parker the Spectactular Spiderman, which was “so much more superior than that crappy story you keep publishing in that magazine that must be run by some deranged lunatic.”

Anyway, my point is, at one point I had a bit of a writing career. And then I contacted an agent, who read one of my science fiction novels and LOVED IT, saying she wanted to represent me and was planning to use my writing to make herself us rich. And then she got into some kind of accident involving a head injury (this isn’t a joke here), disappeared for a couple of years, and then came back and no longer recognized my name. So when I contacted her, after realizing she was looking for clients again, she asked me to send her a current copy of whatever I had recently written. So I did. And then she contacted me again, asking me to send her a copy of whatever I had recently written. So I wrote her and told her I already did. So she contacted me again, asking me to send her a copy of whatever I had recently written. After about the fourth time, I got the hint. I probably wasn’t going to be represented by her because I was in some kind of Twilight Zone of continuous emails about sending a manuscript that was getting tired of being sent through the ether.

So, I’ve been looking for an agent ever since. And for some reason, even though I’ve written 12 or 13 novels (depends on if we count the erotic novel, involving the midget, the monkey and the same sex trees that were in love with each other), I can’t seem to get past the query letter stage with any of these agents. It’s like the whole world moved on without me, and I don’t seem to live in it any more. I send out my stuff, but it’s not even making a dent these days. Some of my latest writing is phenomenal (just ask my mommy), but I can’t even get an agent to read any of it.

So, Oprah, please tell me what to do? Oh wait, this isn’t that show, is it? So, um, imaginary reader who I keep writing these blog posts imagining you exist, please tell me what to do? Should I give up writing? Join the Army? Marry Peggy Sue? Return all of those diet Dr Pepper cans to the supermarket for their redeemable values?

I’m so confused and unsure of where to turn….

"Did somebody call for a cute, fuzzy bunny?"

Stewart/Colbert hold a real rally, but no one will probably take them seriously

Politics, Television, , , , , , ,

Jon Stewart of the Daily Show is planning to hold a major rally in Washington, D.C. that is a direct response to some of the stupidity that has been happening by pundits and/or politicians like Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin. The theme of the rally, being held on October 30, is “Rally to Restore Sanity”. Stephen Colbert, not one to miss out on the fun, is holding a counter rally at the same time, in the same location, titled: “March to Keep Fear Alive.”

The significance of this event (these events) is that politics and media have gotten stupid lately. So, what better way to hold them in check but to call them out on it.

The problem that I perceive is that the news media doesn’t even realize that it’s being ridiculed for how bad they’ve gotten. What is most likely going to happen is some pretty face is going to announce the success of this “event” and treat is as if they’re somehow “in” on the joke. I think that’s what pissed me off the most about whenever the news covers Stewart and Colbert. They so often are NOT “in” on the joke, but the actual butt of it, and I’m sorry but laughing about it doesn’t make it any different when they go back to doing exactly what they were doing that caused the ridicule in the first place.

Unfortunately, this is a one time event. Which means that the media will get right back to being stupid again.

Humor Writing Gets Very Little Respect These Days

Uncategorized, Writing, , , ,

I’m a humor writer. Been one for a number of years now. Sometimes it involves fiction; other times it’s incorporated into non-fiction. Either way, it is something I enjoy doing.

What I have discovered is that no matter what genre or style I utilize it in, it rarely gets a lot of respect by anyone in those respective fields. And that’s what I’d like to talk about today.

First, as most people who attempt to write humor know, good humor is very difficult to write. You either know what you’re doing, or you don’t. Those who don’t know how to write good humor end up writing really bad humor, but think that they’re funny. Such writing is very difficult to read, and quite often these conversations go something like:

You: “Um, I really like what you did with this piece.”

Attempted Funny Person: “What did you find funny about the piece?”

You: “Um…” Which quite often is followed by you dropping one of those smoke pellets that were used in cartoons and really bad spy films, where you make your get-away, realizing that if you don’t disappear quickly you’re somehow going to have to answer that unanswerable question.

Which then leads to the mistake so many people make when they think that humor must be so easy to write, and anyone can do it, even though they personally can’t do it themselves. This culminates in the erroneous postulation that humor is never to be taken seriously, so therefore it is not important enough to be used by “real” writers.

And this is the problem I find myself in today. As a serious writer of fiction (when I fall into my self-important moods), I find that some of my best fiction has been the type that has been developed through humor. My latest novel is probably the best novel I have ever written, and it is a full-fledged story of humor, involving a Greek epic of ridiculous proportions. Having said that, I have also discovered that when I discuss this novel with other people, they don’t take it, or me, seriously. They hear the “humorous” parts and immediately fall into this belief that both me and the novel are not to be considered serious, as in writing and writers. The fact that it is some of my best writing ever does not seem to make a difference. The fact that it involves some of the strongest uses of metaphor and allusion that I have seen in most modern day novels does not seem to cause anyone to consider it seriously. To everyone who looks it over, it’s a 300 page joke that doesn’t deserve that much attention.

I’ve discovered this to be the case with most humor I write. And people don’t even seem to realize that much of the humor I put forth has very serious implications when dealing with important issues. It’s just a different aperature to observe such circumstances. But because it made someone laugh or smile, it’s not to be taken seriously.

 This happens with my nonfiction writing as well. In a recent article, I attempted to deal with the concepts of cults and religions by pretending to create my own cult. The responses I received were usually derision and not very serious themselves. The fact that seriously important issues were being broached in an absurd way should have given people a reason to think about their own normal concepts, but instead of doing so, they saw a “ha ha” moment, and nothing was seen as being in any way serious.

Sadly, most humor writers, especially ones who write so that issues can be approached from a different perspective, are rarely taken seriously, except by very few readers who seem to “get” it. It’s like a conversation I had about science fiction on television, in which I was trying to argue that some of the greatest drama of our time has been covered by the science fiction genre. A person responded to me with: “I prefer real dramas, like Gossip Girl, so I don’t have time for science fiction.” Unfortunately, she wasn’t joking.

I find that same sort of criticism with humor. And no matter how many times I try to joke about it, it still manages to bother me.