Find Your Funny Bone

Defining humor and how to write about it creates the first challenge. Humor relates directly to the sensitivity of one’s funny bone for the nuances in life. The discovery of humor in unlikely situations takes talent.

What makes me laugh might not do the same for someone else. I don’t give up a chance to make a humorous connection in my search for silly because laughter’s my buddy. I humor on.

Humor must have evolved as a survival skill. Imagine primal humans hunting all day and suddenly a sabre-toothed tiger charged from behind a bush. One hunter said to the other, “Distract him while I run back to the fire and get help.”  Almost any situation can lead to a twinge of humor . . . for someone.

Dave Barry, a universally appealing humor writer, feels humor relates to fear and despair. The series, M*A*S*H, delved into these stressors of life and played with dark humor. Having the ability to add a humorous twist to any tragic situation, Shakespeare must have had strong stomach muscles from chuckling as he wrote. Even scientific research has shown the benefits of laughter in the healing process.

If we didn’t have laughter to keep us buoyant in a world that twirls way beyond our control, gravity certainly would keep us grounded. We need to stimulate our funny bones to release fears and anxieties. As Dave Barry says about humor writing, “A, keep it moving, and B, spend a lot of time writing it. And C, after you're done, show it to somebody.” I’d add, show it to someone who likes to laugh.

Find humor in a serious situation. Lewis Grizzard said when you write humor, you only have to look at the world from the front of your eyelids forward and soon you’ll see something funny to write about.

Freedom to Explore

You don't dance to get to the other side of the floor. 
- Alan Watts

In our goal-oriented world, we often neglect the process of getting somewhere.Time and rush compete to finish a project or reach a destination. 

On any journey, the sights, scents, and sounds mean as much, if not more, than the ending.

When dealing with ideas and creativity, the mind requires freedom to explore  The quality of attention and focus will expand as rhythm enters and circulates with a creative write.

Take a walk in a park that provides a variety of nature's treasures. Search for balance with simplicity. Enjoy performance as a ride over the falls. Relax into movement in each moment. Permit patience to ride along.

In this way dreams will move into possibilities as the moment unfolds.

Persist in the search for awareness. Watch the shifting and changing mind as it connects with curiosity.

Write to overcome self-imposed goals. Let the words flow without judgment to force limitations aside.

Moments in Writing

"When I write, I author the present, and in authoring the present, I create myself.  I disappear when I write"  - Bob Hicok

Author, Bob Hicok feels, "A poem is that focusing activity, an opportunity to give flesh to my mind, to make it actual, to give the internal a physical, external existence."

Hicok promotes writing as performative. Writers need to move. He advises students to, "Step into the moment that's coming into existence, rather than insist the moment take on a predetermined shape."

"There's a delay between you doing a thing or thinking a thing and your awareness of said doing or thinking but I still have the desire to live and write without hesitation, and from that immediacy, surprise myself away from the known patterns of my mind," Hicok says.

The creative stage of the writing process provides the opportunity to energize and disappear in each moment. Move into the mind's flow. Without judgment, let the words flicker and fly. Surprises arise with each bounce of words.

Disappear into the immediacy of the moment. Amaze and amuse yourself. Let the words spread, splay, and sprout from the fingers.