The Madness!!!

In all honesty, March is not the best time for my writing. There's this little thing called March Madness that eats up a lot of my writing hours. You may have heard of it. I think even our President filled out a bracket. And, in case you somehow missed that story, I should also tell you that he appeared on Jay Leno and made fun of handicapped people. And then he went on 60 minutes. I think he also got his kids a dog and a fancy playset. These are important things.

But enough about him, let's get back to talking about me. After all, that's why we're here.

1. The VP has not responded to my email. The Wife is not surprised. She thought I was rather rude and therefore deserve no response. I argued that most of the emails he receives are probably from people who take things just a tad too seriously. I would think his staffers would appreciate reading something a little more lighthearted. I'm still holding out hope for a resolution.

2. Like I said, the writing is going...um...slowly. I've trimmed the fat from the manny by getting rid of characters, scenes, and lots and lots of words (went from 44,600 to 31,500). I know how things are going to go and some changes I need to make. Now, I've just got to write some new scenes and edit some of the old ones. The good news? I'll have all of spring break to work on it.

3. I'm experiencing an altogether new emotion that as far as I can tell (by using Google) is called "self-doubt." Here's the deal: I have a second manuscript. It's written for young adults and is meant to be humorous (meaning I think it's flipping hilarious, but I'm not quite so egotistical to believe that everyone in the world shares my sense of humor. For instance, there's this reader of Anita's that I'm pretty sure would hate the entire work.). The self-doubt comes into play because I'm pretty sure it lacks a plot and I've read that publishers tend to like those things.

Now, here's my defense, and if you've also written a funny book without a plot, feel free to use it as your defense too. I have read funny books with plots, funny books with poor or barely held together plots, and funny books without plots and as far as I can tell, I didn't really care one way or the other. If the book was funny, I kept reading. For instance, I would argue that the Wimpy Kid books are largely plotless. They are episodic. It appears the author just took a bunch of stuff from middle school, made all that stuff funny, and threw it into his books. Then he went back and tied some of it together, but still, no real plot.

I also recently finished When You Are Engulfed in Flames, which is a collection of essays. There are some common themes running through the book, but, it being a book of essays, no plot. Apparently, no one cared because it sold a whole lot of copies. I liked it because it was funny, even if there was no "problem to be solved."

I guess my argument is this: If the book is truly funny, most people could care less about the plot. Agree or not? (And please say you agree.) As always, you must support your opinion with supporting details and examples from the text.