Hey! Look! Is that snow? I think that’s snow. Gosh, the first snow of the season. Lovely. Oh, shoot. Did I forget to do laundry? I haven’t even thought about dinner tonight…

No one can procrastinate like writers can. We’re a strange bunch; when it comes to actually sitting down and writing, our attention span suddenly morphs into that of a hummingbird’s. Scrubbing the kitchen floor never looks as appealing as it does when you have your novel to work on.

Some writers have no problems with this. Or so I’ve heard.

I’m a procrastinator of the highest order. If I have time, I’m tired. If I’m not tired, I have other things to do. If I don’t have other things to do, I don’t have the right notebook, pen, lighting, chair… Yeah, I’ve even used the chair excuse.

Don’t take this to mean that I don’t love writing. I do. However, when you get a case of the Evil Editors playing with your brain and let them win once, it’s like you give bunnies Viagra and set them loose; suddenly, the next time you go to write, you have thousands of Evil Editors in your brain telling you why you suck. A lot.

After my Evil Editors grew to plague numbers, I decided to come up with three things to help me focus:

1. Remind yourself that all you are doing is playing games with yourself.
2. Ask yourself what you’re so afraid of.

And

3. If the EEs still exist, give them room to roam on a blank page. Then pick them off in any way you choose.

I prefer a machete.

A writer died and was given the option of going to heaven or hell.

She decided to check out each place first. As the writer descended into the fiery pits, she saw row upon row of writers chained to their desks in a steaming sweatshop. As they worked, they were repeatedly whipped with thorny lashes.

“Oh my,” said the writer. “Let me see heaven now.”

A few moments later, as she ascended into heaven, she saw rows of writers, chained to their desks in a steaming sweatshop. As they worked, they, too, were whipped with thorny lashes.

“Wait a minute,” said the writer. “This is just as bad as hell!”

“Oh no, it’s not,” replied an unseen voice. “Here, your work gets published.”

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A screenwriter comes home to a burned down house. His sobbing and slightly-singed wife is standing outside. “What happened, honey?” the man asks.

“Oh, John, it was terrible,” she weeps. “I was cooking, the phone rang. It was your agent. Because I was on the phone, I didn’t notice the stove was on fire. It went up in second. Everything is gone. I nearly didn’t make it out of the house. Poor Fluffy is…”

“Wait, wait. Back up a minute,” The man says. “My agent called?”

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Q. What’s the difference between publishers and terrorists?
A. You can negotiate with terrorists.

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Q. If you were lost in the woods, who would you trust for directions: the publisher who prints everything you write, an agent, or Santa Claus?
A. The agent. The other two indicate you are hallucinating.

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Rules For Writers

1. Verbs HAS to agree with their subjects.
2. Prepositions are not words to end sentences with.
3. And don’t start a sentence with a conjunction.
4. It is wrong to ever split an infinitive.
5. Avoid clichés like the plague. (They’re old hat.)
6. Be more or less specific.
8. Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are (usually) unnecessary.
9. Also too, never, ever use repetitive redundancies.
10. No sentence fragments.
11. Don’t use no double negatives.
12. Proofread carefully to see if you any words out or mispeld something.
13. Eschew obfuscation.

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English language
Have you ever wondered why foreigners have trouble with the English Language?

Let’s face it
English is a stupid language.
There is no egg in the eggplant
No ham in the hamburger
And neither pine nor apple in the pineapple.
English muffins were not invented in England
French fries were not invented in France.

We sometimes take English for granted
But if we examine its paradoxes we find that
Quicksand takes you down slowly
Boxing rings are square
And a guinea pig is neither from Guinea

If writers write, how come fingers don’t fing.
If the plural of tooth is teeth
Shouldn’t the plural of phone booth be phone beeth
If the teacher taught,
Why didn’t the preacher praught.

If a vegetarian eats vegetables
What the heck does a humanitarian eat!?
Why do people recite at a play
Yet play at a recital?
Park on driveways and
Drive on parkways

You have to marvel at the unique lunacy
Of a language where a house can burn up as
It burns down
And in which you fill in a form
By filling it out
And a bell is only heard once it goes!

English was invented by people, not computers
And it reflects the creativity of the human race
(Which of course isn’t a race at all)

That is why
When the stars are out they are visible
But when the lights are out they are invisible
And why it is that when I wind up my watch
It starts
But when I wind up this observation,
It ends.
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