Tag Archives: humor

Date: by | Categories: Being Different, Empathy, Humor, Misfits, My Childhood, Stories I Inherited, Things We Learn, Uncategorized

Humor Saved My Life

"smile" by kennymatic

“smile” by kennymatic

“You’re only given one little spark of madness.
You mustn’t lose it.” – Robin Williams

I think it’s safe to say that laughter saved my life.

Not in a keep-the-body-working escape-death sort of way, but in a keep-the-spirit-soaring sort of way, a feed-the-soul make-it-all-worthwhile sort of way.

Most of my early health issues took place between the ages of just arrived and six-years-old, and the biggest near-death moment of my youth happened at thirteen. I mentioned in an earlier post that I spent my teen years utterly terrified of death. Well, I’ve been thinking about that a bit lately – death itself, but also that paralyzing fear I had back then.

For some reason, I’ve also been thinking a lot about humor.

How rejuvenating it can be, either in the moment, or cumulatively. How life-changing, life-preserving laughter has been for me.

Lafayette Wattles as a Boy

Lafayette Wattles as a Boy

I honestly don’t remember having much of a sense of humor before we moved. Before everything changed. I was nine then.

When you move, it’s often like hitting reset on a game. Sure, you’re the same person you were before you got in the car that took you from one spot to another. It’s not like we transform in a matter of minutes or hours.

Yet, in a way, we do.
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Date: by | Categories: Guest Blogger, Humor, Misfits, My Childhood, On Writing, Reading List, The Writer's Quest, Uncategorized

What is Ron Koertge Writing For?

Batman and Robin by MrSchuReads

Batman and Robin by MrSchuReads

I didn’t grow up with some prized comic book collection, like one of the characters on Big Bang Theory might have, but I’ve always been a fan of superheroes. Still am.

After spending a few years without television, I recently caught up on the final season of Smallville. That’s right. I admit it.

And, yes, as a boy, I did imagine myself saving the world each time I leapt off the picnic table in the backyard, trying to fly.

As a boy, my favorite superheroes were Superman and Batman, sure, but I also used to imagine The Thing and The Hulk engaging in epic throw downs.

Maybe it’s the way each superhero has flaws, vulnerabilities, perceived weaknesses which they don’t just manage to overcome, but which, in the end, often turn out to be strengths as well.

Maybe that’s why Ron Koertge’s poem “Sidekicks” speaks to me so strongly, in part because it’s not a poem about superheroes, but about their sidekicks, characters who tend to exist in the background. They don’t usually represent the best of us, not in a sense of possessing superhuman abilities, but they do represent the best of us in the way they selflessly put the needs of others ahead of themselves, the way they exist outside the spotlight and still do what we need them to do. Not for fame, but because it’s the right thing. In some ways, they are misfits, yet misfits who often save the day.
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Date: by | Categories: Humor, Misfits, My Childhood, On Writing, Stories I Inherited, The Writer's Quest, Uncategorized

Family, Friends, and Our Stories: Continued

famsmallIn the beginning, FAMILY is pretty much all we know.

While we’re infants, they’re perceived as an extension of us (in regards, mostly, to how they meet or neglect our basic, inherent needs).

Most of the early truths and discoveries we make are learned through our experiences with family. Our values, our beliefs and attitudes, are influenced by them (as we grow to accept or to resist theirs).

As we age, as we approach and then navigate the muddy waters of adolescence, our FRIENDS assume a much larger role in shaping us (or at least in influencing how we shape ourselves) into the people we’ll become.

All of this may be true. All of it may, and does, and will influence our stories.

But, as Willa Cather stated: “most of the basic material a writer works with is acquired before the age of fifteen.” I can say that most of my personal stories, most of the memories I draw upon when I write, are from that time in my life. They’re related to experiences I had with my family, and adventures I had with my friends back then.

A few of them, in particular, have in some way influenced the novels I’ve been working on recently, but not in the ways you might think. Not for the events themselves, in most cases, but for something more.

Here are a few specific events I recall from when I was between six and nine years old:

The Great Carpet Incident
Broken Bones & Concussed Noggins
Shattered: Or Wrong Place, Wrong Time, Wrong Body
The Land of Up & So Much Falling
Climbing the Walls
Rooftops & Hurricanes

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Date: by | Categories: Guest Blogger, Humor, On Writing, Reading List, Uncategorized

What is Stuart Gibbs Writing For?

Stuart Gibbs“It is never too late to be who you might have been.” George Eliot

I admit it. I’m flat out and unabashedly envious of those writers who’ve always known this was their calling. Those people who’ve had a lifelong love affair not just with books and with words, but with storytelling.

Back in May, I first encountered the fun middle-grade novel Belly Up by Stuart Gibbs which follows twelve-year-old protagonist Teddy Fitzroy as he sets out to uncover who’s behind the mysterious death of FunJungle theme park mascot Henry the Hippo. Since then, I’ve added another novel by Gibbs, Spy School, to my queue of must read books for this summer.

When I consider that what I most enjoyed about Belly Up was the playfulness of Gibbs’ storytelling (a delightful lighthearted combination of adventure and humor), I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised to learn that he was one of those childhood scribes I mentioned above, the sort who’ve been concocting stories most of their lives. 



Gibbs is the first of several writers I admire whom I’ve asked to write a brief guest post for Write Side Up based on the question, What Are You Writing For?

A Guest Post by Stuart Gibbs

What am I writing for?

I am writing because I love it. I have loved writing for as long as I can remember. That’s not hyperbole.  That’s what I did in my spare time when I was a child. I wrote. I still have folders full of stories I wrote back then. (That comment prompted the question: what did you write?)

I wrote all sorts of things, though I guess the common theme was that they tended to be about animals, rather than people. Among the things in my ‘archives,’ I have a story about dinosaurs coming back to life and showing up in a small town, and a whole book about a dog and a cat who were friends. (I actually tried to get the book published when I was in first grade. My first grade teacher helped me send it in to a publisher. I actually recall getting my first rejection letter quite clearly.)

I’m not sure exactly when I did the writing, but I probably did a lot of it in school. I seem to recall having a lot of teachers who were very supportive of me writing stories. (After all, it’s a very quiet activity.)

Possibly the best experience was that one school put one of my stories — the one about the dinosaurs — in the school library, which meant other kids could check it out and read it. It was a really wonderful, supportive thing of my school to do and it was very encouraging to a young writer.

It’s little wonder, I suppose, that Gibbs adds:

I always wanted to be an author.

I used to go into the bookstore or the library and find the spot on the bookshelves where my books would be, if they existed. So now, the thrill of seeing my books in a bookstore or library is indescribable. And it never gets old.

However, there is now another reason I write, something I could never have imagined back when I was a child. I have children of my own. I didn’t really set out to write middle grade fiction; that’s just how things worked out. But now, the fact that I am writing books that my children can read — or that I can read with them — is truly wonderful.

As rewarding as it is to write because that’s what’s in you, because that IS YOU being “the person you might have been,” I imagine experiencing your stories through the eyes of the people who matter most in your life must be incomparable.

I’m glad that Stuart Gibbs is getting such a chance. For selfish reasons, I’m also glad he didn’t let that early rejection stop him from doing the thing he’s always wanted to do. After all, I for one enjoy a good story and look forward to what Gibbs does next.