It's Friday! Rejoice! In honour of this special day, I'm starting a new tradition here at "It's a Mystery", Fun Friday. Jokes and funny stories about writing will be the order of the day. I hope you enjoy this first installment. The travel mug at the top of today's post makes me snigger. It reads "I'm writing a book. I've got the page numbers done."
#1: "...Yeah, I make $75,000 a year after taxes."
#2: "What do you do for a living?"
#1: "I'm a stockbroker. How much do you make?
#2: "I should clear $60,000 this year."
#3: "Gee... hmmm... I guess about $13,000."
#1: "Oh yeah? What kind of stories do you write?"
A. Two. One to screw it almost all the way in, and the other to give it a surprising twist at the end.
***
A: Ten
1st draft. Hero changes light bulb.
2nd draft. Villain changes light bulb.
3rd draft. Hero stops villain from changing light bulb. Villain falls to death.
4th draft. Lose the light bulb.
5th draft. Light bulb back in. Fluorescent instead of tungsten.
6th draft. Villain breaks bulb, uses it to kill hero's mentor.
7th draft. Fluorescent not working. Back to tungsten.
8th draft. Hero forces villain to eat light bulb.
9th draft. Hero laments loss of light bulb. Doesn't change it.
10th draft. Hero changes light bulb.
***
This joke is especially for two of my follower friends (and I consider them real friends too!) who work in linguistics. With love.
A linguistics professor was lecturing to his English class one day. "In English," he said, "a double negative forms a positive. In some languages, though, such as Russian, a double negative is still a negative. However, there is no language wherein a double positive can form a negative."
A voice from the back of the room piped up, "Yeah, right."
Elspeth - I am so, so happy you started Fun Friday. I look forward to it every week :-). I really do. And I really do love that last joke ;-).
ReplyDeleteWhat fun. I especially like the joke about the screenwriters. Someone in the film business once told me that if there are more than two names in the screenwriting credits for a movie, look out.
ReplyDeleteHa ha on that last one - I love it. Must be my revising mind. Thanks for being the one other folk doing a Friday thingy! We preach to the gone...keep us amused dear goil.
ReplyDeleteLast one is awesome! Thanks for the smiles :)
ReplyDeleteLove love LOVE the light bulb joke. Am wondering how and where I can steal it. ;)
ReplyDeleteMissed you!
Margot; Thanks so much for your faithful support!
ReplyDeleteMaryann; I must admit that would worry me - I know a bit about the screenwriting biz.
Jan; Can you see me waving to you?
Jemi; You're welcome! Do Ontario people get a long weekend this weekend?
Elisa; I missed you too! I think the lightbulb joke applies to almost any type of writing. Everyone thinks their version is better...sigh.
ReplyDeleteYay, it´s Friday! I loved the one with the surprising twist :)
ReplyDeleteAs soon as I started reading I remembered this from my "lurker days."
ReplyDeleteI love all your posts.
These were all splendid! I'm glad you showed the post again, because I missed the first time. I especially liked the last one and the screenwriters one, but really I liked them all. I know I'll be quoting them to friends at writer meetings.
ReplyDeleteDorte; YAH!! Friday!! And here in Canada it's a long weekend...bigger YAHHH!
ReplyDeleteMary; I'm so glad you stopped your lurking and starting commenting! Thanks for your kind words - it's comments like yours that make it all worthwhile.
Elizabeth; Spread the joy! If we can't laugh at ourselves, we're in trouble.
I love that last one!
ReplyDeleteI especially love the first one and last one. My kids liked the last one too :)
ReplyDeleteCarol; I'm glad! Have a great weekend.
ReplyDeleteSarah; Fun Friday: fun for all ages!
Thanks for the laughs. No wonder I have so much trouble changing light bulbs.
ReplyDelete