This week in my online humor class, several of us felt a bit like Grumpy Cat does every day–

And a few students were even thinking of throwing in the towel.  Not a pretty towel, either.  This towel.

Because the truth is that humor writing is hard.  And sometimes humiliating.  Which…is actually kind of funny, when you think about it, but isn’t much fun when you’re the one feeling like a dweeb waiting for the laugh line to kick in while the silence drags until finally one lady in the corner gives you a sympathy squeak that might not have been a laugh at all!

We love to have people laugh WITH us, but aren’t so keen on being laughed AT and trying to write humor leaves the writer exposed.

So the class discussed, and our teacher bolstered, and we pressed on.  I do think we’re getting funnier…though I know that’s also hard to tell from where I sit.  What do you think?  Here are two one-liners I wrote for the first week of class:

Peanut-allergy sufferers march on Planters—none survive

Study shows that popular game Candy Crush packs pounds on players

And, here are two I turned in for last week:

The government shutdown reminds me of an old man who pled with his assailants that
he couldn’t give them any cash—his wallet was empty.  But when they stuck their knives in him, he
bled money.

Hoarder goes into cleaning frenzy and sweeps out all her treasures.  Realizes next morning that she also threw out
her husband and dog.

What do you think?  Would the ‘faceoff’ prize go to my first week, or fourth?  Or, neither?  I suspect I’ve still got a ways to go, but I’m okay with that.  I love the tools I’m learning–how to use subtext, filtered through irony, hyperbole, character, etc.  And thankfully my fear–that learning more about the internal workings of humor would make it all just look like a big pile of guts and ruin funny stuff for me–hasn’t been true at all.

I still think this is hilarious–

And chuckle over this poor guy and his doctor–

Which is good news for me–without humor, I might pull my hair out when my kids play ‘What does the fox say‘ for the four hundredth time, instead of either a) plugging my ears, or b) jumping up and joining them while they dance.  Or, c) tweeting about how done I am with that song, but so long as it doesn’t come out in a whiny voice I’m counting that as humor, too!

As for this week’s FFF award–

It goes to Grumpy Cat.  Because she scratched me.

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