RangerWickett
Legend
My friends tell me I’m not funny.
Alright, more accurately, they say I can’t tell jokes. They laugh at me all the time. It’s just that, well, my timing is off. It’s like, here’s the joke, here’s the set-up, and here’s the punchline. Beat. Dead silence. Then nervous laughter about how horrible my joke was. They actually at one point told me I should say ‘Wakka wakka’ after my jokes, so they’d know I was trying to be funny.
I can’t come up with jokes to save my life, but I do think I’m a pretty good storyteller. I like to repeat all the funny stories about my friends. I can do a pretty good job making my life or the lives of my friends sound funny, but, thank God, by now I’ve learned to stop trying to make up funny stuff. I just use the tried and true material that I hear from my friends. Unfortunately, my friends watch Comedy Central, so if I ever had a stand-up show, I’d probably be repeating stuff others have done, plagiarizing, like, “I have this friend, and he, y’know, he really likes red meat. He likes raw ****ing red meat, and he smokes, and he like, only eats meat from cows who smoke.”
That’s a Dennis Leary sketch, for those who don’t recognize it.
On a more serious note, I recently started writing a serialized fantasy story, and I’m nervous about it. See, I have lots of ideas for characters, settings, adventures, drama, but I wanted to write something that I hold close and dear to me. Like any geeky writer, I’ve got some characters that I’ve had kicking around in my head for a while, and I’ve wanted to wait to make sure I was good enough to write a story with them that would be entertaining. Something more than a cliché.
My problem is that, well, these are characters I came up with in middle school. They’ve of course grown and developed since then, and certainly my writing has gotten a hell of a lot better, but I don’t want to be trite, or silly, except when it’s intentional. This is a story that I love, and that I want to tell well, but I’m afraid that if I wait any longer, . . . well, I’m afraid that I might be too attached to the story. I’m 22, and I want to make sure I’m not still clinging to a childish dream (like when I was certain I was going to grow up and, like, be a paleontologist astronaut). So, even though I feel a trepidation that an old story, even one with a dash of maturity added to it, will limit me, I’m writing it anyway. This was the story that made me want to be a writer in the first place, and I’m a good person. I always repay a friend who does me a favor.
Now, y’all are my friends, so if you don’t like this story, I guess I’ll owe you a good one. Though this is honestly a slight attempt to get attention, I don’t want to hear praise. I have graduated from college, and am moving into a world where I must make my place. The time for friends’ consolation and mere group discussion has passed. It’s time to prove my worth as a writer.
. . . um, Wakka wakka? . . .
Dang it, you’re supposed to laugh!
See, told you I’m not funny. *grin*
Alright, more accurately, they say I can’t tell jokes. They laugh at me all the time. It’s just that, well, my timing is off. It’s like, here’s the joke, here’s the set-up, and here’s the punchline. Beat. Dead silence. Then nervous laughter about how horrible my joke was. They actually at one point told me I should say ‘Wakka wakka’ after my jokes, so they’d know I was trying to be funny.
I can’t come up with jokes to save my life, but I do think I’m a pretty good storyteller. I like to repeat all the funny stories about my friends. I can do a pretty good job making my life or the lives of my friends sound funny, but, thank God, by now I’ve learned to stop trying to make up funny stuff. I just use the tried and true material that I hear from my friends. Unfortunately, my friends watch Comedy Central, so if I ever had a stand-up show, I’d probably be repeating stuff others have done, plagiarizing, like, “I have this friend, and he, y’know, he really likes red meat. He likes raw ****ing red meat, and he smokes, and he like, only eats meat from cows who smoke.”
That’s a Dennis Leary sketch, for those who don’t recognize it.
On a more serious note, I recently started writing a serialized fantasy story, and I’m nervous about it. See, I have lots of ideas for characters, settings, adventures, drama, but I wanted to write something that I hold close and dear to me. Like any geeky writer, I’ve got some characters that I’ve had kicking around in my head for a while, and I’ve wanted to wait to make sure I was good enough to write a story with them that would be entertaining. Something more than a cliché.
My problem is that, well, these are characters I came up with in middle school. They’ve of course grown and developed since then, and certainly my writing has gotten a hell of a lot better, but I don’t want to be trite, or silly, except when it’s intentional. This is a story that I love, and that I want to tell well, but I’m afraid that if I wait any longer, . . . well, I’m afraid that I might be too attached to the story. I’m 22, and I want to make sure I’m not still clinging to a childish dream (like when I was certain I was going to grow up and, like, be a paleontologist astronaut). So, even though I feel a trepidation that an old story, even one with a dash of maturity added to it, will limit me, I’m writing it anyway. This was the story that made me want to be a writer in the first place, and I’m a good person. I always repay a friend who does me a favor.
Now, y’all are my friends, so if you don’t like this story, I guess I’ll owe you a good one. Though this is honestly a slight attempt to get attention, I don’t want to hear praise. I have graduated from college, and am moving into a world where I must make my place. The time for friends’ consolation and mere group discussion has passed. It’s time to prove my worth as a writer.
. . . um, Wakka wakka? . . .
Dang it, you’re supposed to laugh!See, told you I’m not funny. *grin*
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