Despite All Warnings
Despite all warnings, I feel an innate need to write with humor. Every day I risk my writing life going for the smile, the chuckle. Of course, I’ll never see the smile or hear the chuckle of a reader, but I can dream. That’s what writers do, dream. My mother used to accuse me of being a dreamer as if it were a bad thing. Little did she know one day I would earn my living from putting my dreams down on paper.
Dorothy Parker, one of the most noted female humorists of all time said it best: “There are those who, in their pride and their innocence dedicate their careers to writing humorous pieces. “Poor dears, the world is stacked against them from the start, for everybody in it has the right to look at their work and say, “I don’t think that’s funny.”
I am a “poor dear.”
Many people remember my late husband Dave Madden as Reuben Kincaid on the sixties’ television series The Partridge Family. Before he became a regular on Laugh-In and several other fun and innovative sitcoms of the sixties and seventies, he worked his way across the country as a stand-up comic. Dave once told me, “You can never project your sense of what is funny to a mass audience and expect them all to accept it. Once you can accept the simple premise that everyone will not enjoy what you write, say or do, you are well on your way to dealing with rejection.”
I risk rejection rather than compromise my voice because I really have no choice. And more than ever before, we need the escape, the smile or the laughter humor brings to our lives. “Laugh as much as possible, always laugh. It’s the sweetest thing one can do for oneself & one’s fellow human beings.” –Maya Angelou
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