BUTTS BOOBS POOP

Mudditor Meeting Takeaway — People Love Body Parts

Cranky Holly talked more than she wrote

I got both my Moderna booster and a flu shot on Sunday afternoon and hoped I’d have no reaction. Dragged myself out of bed at 7:45 a.m. — 15 minutes before meeting time for me on the West Coast, threw on sweats, and hoped for the best. After the hats were donned, I huddled into a jacket too because I was freezing. Uh-oh.

I didn’t faint Monday evening, unlike after my second Moderna shot, but lay low for 24 hours after our meeting on 13 December 2021.

We were hanging out on Slack, waiting for Susan to start our Zoom. Andrew’s comment, above, struck me as a possible prompt. Amy remarked that she’s getting her sea? see? legs back. She and I should write about it, being most qualified. Per Susan, people love body parts. ( • )( • )

I said I wasn’t going to take notes but couldn’t entirely stop myself. Is this story a decent length because Cranky Holly talked more than usual?

Meeting attendees

Why the hats? We were trying to hide our hair, which turned grey before Susan arrived.

The Cap’n apologized for keeping us waiting

then commenced talking about judging MuddyUm’s MWC submissions. LAZINESS was so popular it infected the judges, who promise to start judging immediately. Stay tuned!

Laughing, talking, listening, talking

• Amy’s glasses don’t work. She has both a large head and a large collection of glasses
• Baskerville Old Face (BOF) said Amy looks like a lunch lady, which luckily Amy took as a compliment
• Rachael suggested Susan create a separate Zoom link for Mudditor meetings. The one we use is shared by Garden of Neuro
• Let’s figure out a meeting time that works better for Anu Anniah in India
• BOF brought up Anu’s clever name story. Yay, I “got” it before he did! Usually he explains the point to me. Anu, we won’t quibble if you model your plural after p’s and q’s
• Amy’s in a sunny spot and BOF is obsessing about it. Is it a halo? Is she being beamed up into an alien spacecraft?

What is the Cap’n reading?

An Ugly Truth: Inside Facebook’s Battle for Domination, by Sheera Frenkel. It’s under #books on Slack. Are you a MuddyUm writer who wants to join us on Slack? Email Susan for an invite at [email protected].

Scott Dikkers’ books on writing funny often come up behind the scenes at MuddyUm. Andrew suggested last week that Mudditors familiar with Dikkers’ “funny filters” teach the rest of us about them. At least, that’s what I thought he meant, below.

Susan: Great idea! After Gary volunteered to go first, next Monday, she assigned him the Hyperbole filter. Gary hates hyperbole but apparently loves a challenge. Then she said everyone should write a short story or paragraph using hyperbole to share next Monday.

How did “someone presenting” morph into “everyone doing” before we’ve learned how? That sounds like homework. It sounds like work-work. Argh. I said something perceived as “aggressive” at that point.

I’m interested to learn about hyperbole and the other “funny filters” and hope my fellow editors’ presentations will inspire me to read How to Write Funny.

Susan called out Hogan as a master of the Shock filter. We suspected that.

People love body parts, especially boobs ( • )( • )

• Circumcision? Why did that come up again? Yet no one ever says, frowning, TMI. At this rate, there’ll be a prompt
• Amy achieved much acclaim — 7.6K claps — for her best boob story and suggested we each write one. Susan already did! And Then My Boob Exploded. Trauma + boobs = gold
• “I’ll add a Boob section to Butts” for newsletters! Rachael exclaimed. We ask ourselves, “What would Gary do?” He’s dominating butt stories. Should the butt prompt be renamed body parts? We’re already grandfathering in poop and hemorrhoids. Plus we own testicles, the tag
• “I need to write a boob story! Let’s do both a prompt and a newsletter.” Rachael decides

Andrew inquires how he — and men in general — could write about boobs inoffensively. He learned his lesson when I made him remove/reword “pussy” thrice in that one story. Men can adult. We women understand it’s hard.

• “Were you breastfed, Andrew? You could write about that,” I suggested. “No,” he replied, wistfully
• “All men are ensorcelled by boobs,” stated Gary Chapin categorically

Wrap-up

• This is “finals week” for Susan. She is geeking out — AI for cognitive psychology class. She asked how we’re doing on Newbie Onboarding 101/201/301. No one had time to work on it since last meeting, which was OK. Whew
• We don’t publish stories making fun of the disenfranchised, such as the poor
• We discussed a story that was turned away then resubmitted
• Per Susan, satire is hardest to write well, edit, and publish. It must be rock-solid on clarity and intention

My last note is a quote from Gary

Count De Monet — Sire, the peasants are revolting! King Louis — You said it. They stink on ice. — History of the World: Part I

( • )( • ) “People love body parts as long as they’re attached,” clarifies Susan.

Turn on, tune in, and drop antacid, my friends! Past meeting notes are here:

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