quoth the ravin’

George Washington’s brother, Lawrence, was the Uncle of Our Country.                                                                                       —George Carlin Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.                                                    —Groucho Marx Whose cruel idea was it for the word “lisp” to have an “s” in it?                                                                       —Steven Wright If you ever start feeling like you have the goofiest, craziest, [...]

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laughing in the dark

Real, for-true life has been getting in the way of my writing, twittering and blogging.  It’s been just awful.  Ask my dog. Freckles and I did get to attend a nifty writing workshop thrown by Dan Schwabauer–author, speaker, writing coach extraordinaire.  We spent an afternoon looking at elements of story, as illustrated through the silver [...]

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what’s so dang funny? the characters

I think about 15% of my time with my friends is spent in deep, serious discussion.  The other 85% is spent laughing.  Giggling, guffawing, snorting, chortling, snickering, tittering, sneering… Etc. Pretty sure you see the point bearing down on you like a freight train: we like people who make us laugh. And we like our [...]

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what’s so dang funny? the plot

You might be Robin Williams in everyday life, but that won’t do you much good in your WIP.  When a writer uses humor, it has to serve the story.  Otherwise, you get a bunch of random one-liners that jump out at the reader like an Attack of the Living Dead. Buff up your plot with [...]

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what’s so dang funny?

People love you when you’re funny. You can get all scientificky and say the reason is laughter releases dopamine–the pleasure hormone.    And endorphins, your natural opiates. C’mon. It’s more than that. When someone diddles your (READ THIS WORD CAREFULLY)  titterer, you feel immediately closer to them.  That’s why icebreakers always have some facet of humor [...]

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guest-blog #2

I’m baAaAaAack!!!! 1st- The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson 2nd- Mike Rowe’s Dirty Jobs 3rd- Spongebob Squarepants 4th- Criminal Minds 5th- Bones 6th- House 7th- Law and Order   Mike Rowe’s Dirty Jobs   Mike Rowe started out in a paid program called QVC. He was fired many times for reasons unknown. He tried [...]

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