Writer's advice

Eight haikus to inspire the mind

Please consider giving this outlet 1.5 Dunkies a month so we can keep being Shaun’s financier. A paid subscription makes you a patron of the arts! Depending on your definition of ‘art.’ - Bill

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Dear Shaun,

I’ve been wanting to get back into writing. I used to love it as a teenager, and thought of myself as pretty decent. But now that I look back at it, I wasn’t very good, and was probably expressing my cringey teenaged feelings. I write to you, someone who writes for a living and often. How do you do it? Is there a process? How do you not hate your work? Please help me learn to not just write but learn to love what I make!

- Worried Writer

Dear Worried Writer,

I guess you are technically correct when you say that I write for a living. Though, if I lived off the cash my boss Bill Shaner pays me, I’d be an actual starving artist (editor’s note: ungrateful). It is also sweet that you think I like my work. Truly shocked when someone actually hits the like button on this service, or quotes a line back to me. If anything, I enjoy the process of writing but do not like the finished product most times. Every once in a while I get excited about a specific line, but most of the time when I turn these essays in I am embarrassed. That may be a ‘me problem’ and something I should work out with my therapist.

I am on vacation up in Maine this week, so I decided to write eight haikus to inspire you as a writer:

Pick up the pen, sure.
Or type in your phone the best
”to do” list for you.

Sexy ass rabbits.
Big bosomy black bears that
make love in your dreams.

Fan fiction is a
good route for instant feedback.
”Smeagol and Orc Screw.”

Controversy gets
eyes on your grand ideas.
“Ivermectin: Good!”

(Editor’s note: “ideas” is two syllables, actually? I-deas. Or maybe it’s three. I-de-as. I don’t know. Whatever. Also—who cares.)

Sometimes writing is,
reading other’s to inspire.
Or you can steal it.

Bob Dylan, Tom Petty, and
Joni Mitchell are in common.
All of them are hacks.

Science fiction is
a good way to teach sex to
unattractive nerds.

I am prolific.
But a lot does not mean good.
Consider: cocaine.

NEWS

Thanks to everyone who came out to Ahmed Bharoocha last week. He crushed and the crowd was hot! Like I said, I am on vacation, but I have a show in Portland, Maine tonight at Lincoln’s on Market St. It is a speakeasy and one of the best shows around. Come make a trip out of it!

Next Friday is The Sort of Late Show: Hot Dog Edition. It is going to be so wild. We are kicking off the Worcester Hot Dog Safari and there are going to be some great bits and some very exciting surprises. Don’t miss this show. Tickets can be bought here, or I have 24 physical tickets if you want to avoid fees. Just email woocomedyweek@gmail.com or you can Venmo me @wootenanny and in the description write, “hot dogs!”