| So it is my turn to blog about UF and funny. I don't feel like being funny at the moment, but it is my turn, so here we go. I will talk mostly about why I write funny, since I can't really speak for the whole UF genre. My late mother-in-law worked for a funeral home run by the mafia. At least it used to be run by the mafia, before it was somehow cleaned through financial machinations of staggering complexity and taken public. People at the funeral homes greet tragedy every day, because they deal with death. Death is one of those few things in life that is final. It's the end of all ends. There is no help for it. If you have lousy credit, you can work hard and pull yourself free. If the love of your life never wants to see you again, you can suffer and survive it. Being fired, losing your house, failing at your mission in life, all those things are devastating but they are only waypoints on a journey. Death is forever. We are not well-equipped to deal with death. Of all living things on this planet, we are possibly the only species able to comprehend the temporary nature of our existence and the inevitable finality of our departure. Against this awful reality we have very few defenses. We "forget" it's there, push it to the back of our minds. We have love. And we have humor. None of it can stave off death, but it can help us come to terms with it. The funeral home employees can't conveniently "forget" death like most of us. They may or may not be lucky in love, but they've raised the humor defense to the state of the art. They can see funny in just about everything. And their funny is pretty twisted. As told to me by mother-in-law, who was barely able to contain her giggling: "Okay this is going to sound really bad. We had a call today, and apparently, this little old lady, she went outside to drop her trash off. Her trashcan was just off her porch. So she drops her bag into it, but the bag is too big. So the old lady is too lazy to walk off the porch and get the bag to fit into the can. She gets a broom and starts pushing the bag into the trashcan, but it just doesn't want to go in. So she loses her patience, gets a hold of a porch post, and starts stomping the trash bag into the can. The can tips over, she falls and dies stomping trash. With her leg still stuck in the can." Is it a bit sick? Is it a bit funny? Is it both? To continue on Stacia's previous post: doing sexy and tough and serious is less risky than doing funny. Especially in UF, where the setting often resembles our reality, but where the world is a sharper, darker, more sinister place. Humor in a world like that is often on the sick side and it hits too close to home. One step to the left and the readers are repulsed, "It's not funny!" It's funny to me. One step to the right and they are outraged. "You can't make fun of that." Watch me. The worlds I create are pretty grim and the problems my heroes face are dire, because nobody wants to read how Prince Charming found Princess Wonderful on page 3 and they happily held hands through the rest of the novel. We read because we want to see the characters overcome adversity. In my messed up universe bad things happen to bad people and good people. Life in the fictional world is often unfair. Death strikes frequently and without warning. That's why my characters are like those funeral home employees, madly cackling over the laziness of a woman who couldn't be bothered to walk off the porch to fix her own trash. They laugh because they have to. My characters use humor as a shield and as their weapon. Sure, sometimes their version of funny is black gallows humor and sometimes it takes form of blistering sarcasm. When you live in an ugly world, you will get a bit of ugly on yourself. But to me as long as my guys are laughing, they are still alive and there is still hope. They ridicule the powerful, they dare the tough, and the make fun of the pompous, and occasionally they make total assess of themselves. It's more fun that way. So what do I give away? I will give you a choice: you can have a signed copy of Magic Bites now or you can have an ARC of Magic Burns in November. It is up to you. Labels: ilona |
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I started three different posts, attempting to be pre-caffeine introspective on humor in various careers and the cool thoughts from your post. But it's not working, so I'll just say: mentioned you on my LJ today. Yay pimpage.
Aw, my sweet & wise Russian friend... enjoyed the post- now enjoy the pimpage (as soon as I post it). Running late today.
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http://mela-lyn.livejournal.com/39558.html
Pimpage up. Some of my best and worst... sorry, it's early. And I didn't get to write down everything from the shower so oh well...
And I like either prize!!
Tm - thanks! I'm glad my post wasn't complete drivel :)
Melissa - Thank you for the pimpage.
Deleted comment - awww.
And the pimpage ensues! I enjoyed the post... see all that stressing out for nothing!
This one really resonates with me from the perspective of a different occupation. Most of my previous work has been as a child psychotherapist. I've worked with child protective services, a lot. You see such horrible abuse, that you have to turn to humor to make it through the day. After awhile, as bad as this sounds, even child abuse can be funny.
Six Feet Under dealt with small injections of humor more with the assistant, and then had it countered with one of the owner brothers snapping it back to a respectful somber tone, giving it all a nice balance.
I'm having fun in my current book trying get past the fact that so many of these zombies my character is smashing heads in on were recently living... it's dark and macabre, but the book is mostly humorous... I'm probably failing somewhere along the line but screw it! That's for my editor to worry about!
Hello Ilona,
I'm on page 127 of Magic Bites. I could praise it here, go on and on about the great writing, the cool environment and the steamrolling plot. I could innundate you with words like scrumtrulescent or fantabulous to describe your form, voice and story. But... certainly you're just plain old tired of that crap. I can't blame you.
So, I'll just say it was the best $6.99 plus tax I've spent in a while.
And she has to feed Slayer. How friggin' sweet is that?
I've yet to read Magic Bites - so count me in for that. Thanks!
abookworm1 at gmail dot com
My original post actually mentioned the hope that Mark would post, given his psych background. My mom's experiences in the med field were where I first got exposed to the necessity of humor. I work with a lot of limited people in my job and it's either burst into tears regularly or find the humor in it. Of course, this blog is a ready fount of humor, so yay to you.
You're giving away an ARC of Magic Burns?!!! Gasp!!!! Quick, what do I have to do???
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Hi, Ilona, I pimped your blog. It's a kind of depressing post but I tried. :)
sassyjinx.livejournal.com
Oh and if I win, I'd like the ARC of Magic Burns, I already have Magic Bites. *grins*
I would like an arc of Magic Blood, Book 3. Plskthx.
I grew up with a funeral director in the family, and jokes are definitely a part of how to make that job survivable. From the funeral director's handshake to introducing yourself by asking your acquaintence's height (coffin measurements), most of the jokes we got were about the profession, rather than the folks who died--but every once in awhile the dead themselves were funny, too.
Example.
I followed my father into the funeral home through the back door. There was a body laid out for a service, just there on a table, dressed, and I almost walked into it. Then I jumped and gasped, and my father just looked at me askance.
"You could have told me there was a body here!" I accused.
He just shook his head. "Sweetie," he said, "it's a funeral home."
(Which is all well and good to say when you know where you've left the bodies. I still think he was laughing at me just a little.)
I shall mention you all again over on my lj, particularly as it gives me a moment to talk about the funeral home connection. ;) (I'm http://alanajoli.livejournal.com/) Oh, and I've got Magic Bites out from the library, but I'd love to own a copy, should my name get drawn. ;)
Pimped
http://tezmilleroz.livejournal.com/20680.html
http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=191425349&blogID=311879693&Mytoken=3C43B4B4-2FC4-4AF0-963899258F30D10E65421154
http://tezmilleroz.blogspot.com/2007/09/bloodroots-first-chapter-gets-good.html
Have a lovely day! :-)
Ilona- the first deleted comment was me trying to fix what I had typoed... the dang-on thing put up the stupid mark 'deleted comment'. I could just kill it!!
So warning to all who post here... live with the typos even if you make a bad word like 'tits' like I did.
sadieloree - Thank you!
mark - sometimes that's the only you can deal with morbid :( When my mom died, the comment that sort of broke me was "So I guess you have a zombie mom now?"
Anton - glad I made a little bit of sense
brian - wow, thanks! So glad the book is turning out to be fun. I always worry.
abookworm - thanks, I'll add you to the list
kit - post a link to the league somewhere, even if it's in the email to a friend, let us know you did it and I will add you to the list
wendy - thank you, you rock!
jill - as soon as I get Magic Blood off to a good start, it's all yours
alanajoli - that's exactly what I meant. Thank you so much!
tez - awesome, thanks!
Pimpage away. Yeah a arc of magic burns. Dances.. Gets Jiggy with it. Tries not to fall over.
OK, I pimped, but I pimped everyone at the League all at once too. Do I have to go to each post and comment that for the contests?
http://janicu.vox.com/library/post/the-league-of-reluctant-adults.html