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The
Novice Humorist Every
year, a book fair takes place in New Delhi, where I live, and the magnanimous
reader that I am I never miss an opportunity to fill the coffers of all those
enterprising publishers that set up their stalls there. So last year as always,
I dragged my mother off to one of these book fairs. There is something about
hundreds of shelves stocked with masterpieces that fills the heart with hope and
inspiration and whatnot else. Among
the twenty or so books that we filled our bags with, one of them was on writing.
My mother just happened to see it, and, taking a fancy to the title, picked it
up. Now, I had done some exemplary writing in my student years, as in ‘Write
an essay describing your favorite pet.’ But pursuing a writing career
alongside my day job was a thought that had never occurred to me before. One
reading of the book changed that. My
head was immediately filled to the brim with thoughts of penning a best-selling
novel, and winning the Booker, Pulitzer and other prestigious prizes, and
finding a place in People magazine’s
'50 Most Beautiful People Of The World.' But I soon gathered my wits together
and realized that achieving so much fame and fortune so quickly might well
unsettle my friends and family. So I opted to set my sights lower and start with
an article instead. Now
that I had decided to compose an article, I faced the trickier problem of what
to write. I couldn’t write romance – I was ill-experienced for the purpose.
No horror either – the few books I had read of this genre compelled me to seek
refuge behind a quivering blanket. I couldn’t write erotica – there are…
ahem… any number of reasons why I couldn’t. In desperation I turned to the
chief maxim advocated by all writing-related books and websites – write what
you know. Well, I knew best how to crack jokes during all my waking hours. Corny
jokes, maybe, and not all of the rib-tickling variety, but jokes nevertheless. And
so, with
the honorable intention of providing wholesome family entertainment to the
masses I set about writing several humor pieces on varied subjects. To this end
I dutifully jotted down some general observations in a notebook, and used these
as the foundation for writing my first draft of an article. After the usual
round of writing and rewriting, I finally made the bold move of presenting the
finished draft to my perpetually nit-picking family to hear their opinion. To my
pleasant surprise, the piece drew several chuckles, nods of agreement and thumbs
ups. I was thrilled. This was exactly the reaction I was looking for. Thus encouraged, I e-mailed off my humor piece to the editor of the leading women’s magazine in India, together with a very proper covering letter. Of course, I followed the sound advice of experienced writers all over the world, and made sure not to mention that my family found the enclosed piece a rollicking good laugh. I had learned by now that this was a fairly common novice-writerly gaffe. In
any case, my newbie-writer’s mind had envisioned the editor’s wildly
enthusiastic response galloping back to me within the half-hour, stating that
this was positively the most uproarious article she had read in her life, and
that she would be scheduling it for publication in the next issue itself, or
better still, would be pre-poning the next issue so that the public would not be
deprived any longer of the pleasure of my wit. But
no such luck. A month passed by with no response. Frequent and fervent checking
of all forms of mail, whether postal or electronic, did nothing for my nerves.
Every day I opened up my humor piece in the word processor, and with each
reading it appeared to me that the funniness in it was dwindling to such dismal
proportions as to evoke little or no laughter from the reader, unless someone
was physically tickling him as he read it. At the culmination of another month
of waiting I decided to let go. If my article was good enough it would be
published. If not, it would remain as an organized collection of bits and bytes
on my hard drive. Within a week of this momentous decision I received a cheerful e-mail from an Internet friend, congratulating me on my stupendous success in publishing my first article in one of the most widely-read magazines. Soon afterwards, I received my copy through snail mail, together with a healthy check. I found out later that this was the publication’s modus operandi. But I couldn’t have cared less. There was my precious piece, all neatly laid out in large font on one full page. The sight filled my heart with joy – to think that I had given so many people the chance to clutch their sides in mirth. After all, laughter is the best medicine. Finale Writing
and getting published is very well, but ‘tis not all joy and jollity. Two
incidents confirmed this for me. A few days after my article publication, my
father chanced upon the gift subscription of the National Geographic Society
that my brother-in-law had given me. My dear old man went overboard in his
paternal enthusiasm, and firmly believed the gift subscription to be specially
conferred on me as a result of having an article published in a popular
women’s magazine. Then
the other day I was toying with the idea of writing a humorous non-fiction book
that enlarged on the theme I had adopted for an article. This piece was as-yet
unsold and I was awaiting a response from a national newspaper I had sent it to.
And believe it or not – the very day I came up the book idea, I got a
rejection from the newspaper (first time I got any kind of response from them).
I know this is not precisely the end of the road for either my article or my
book, but am I glad that I didn’t write the entire book first! At present,
however, I am engaged in a battle of wit with my IE (Internal Editor/Internet
Explorer). Gargi Choudhury is a
published writer from India. She is a software engineer by profession, but a
writer at heart. Despite the best efforts of her family and friends, she writes
humor pieces in a determined effort to unite the two sides of her brain in
cerebral harmony. To shower bouquets or brickbats, contact her at gargihc@indiatimes.com
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