QUIETER THAN USUAL

Susan Turned the Zoom Over to BOF After 30 Minutes

Reflections on the Mudditor meeting of 11.29.2021

Were we in a delayed-reaction holiday food coma? Susan warned us at the top of the meeting that she’d have to leave halfway through our scheduled meeting time to take her Spanish houseguest to the airport. Susan lives an exotically interesting life, compared to many. OK, compared to mine.

How was Thanksgiving?

My family of three ate nontraditionally — delicious “velvet chicken” stir-fried with asparagus — and Susan and I began bonding over saké talk before BOF arrived, complaining about his story that didn’t yet take off and his family that gets weirder every year. It was Gary’s first time hosting Thanksgiving, vegan style, for a group of 12 including family, his wife’s theater friends, and his band members. BOF’s Thanksgiving included too much wine. Mine did too.

Andrew’s Thanksgiving was good but he’s reading a Native American story and isn’t feeling good about the Thanksgiving holiday concept. Susan, who’s deeply interested in indigenous studies, agreed we should remember their stories and noted that:

Thanksgiving is a triggering holiday for indigenous people, who are less than 1% of the American population. She doesn’t post, or say, “happy thanksgiving.”

The topic of saké, Japan’s sacred wine, once part of the installation of new emperors, arose again. Susan’s favorite brand is Rihaku Wandering Poet Junmai. I customarily drink Hakutsuru Junmai, Susan — it’s cheaper. We agreed that a glass of wine, rice or grape, goes very nicely with an edible. We also agreed:

Our mood today is somber and contemplative, but we get high off of life.

After a final recommendation of CBD ointment or goo to Rachael, Susan left tending our Zoom to BOF’s tender mercies.

→ ☠️ 🦜 ⚔️ ←

I published my notes from last week’s meeting just before this meeting started, so remembered we’d planned to discuss organizing information on MuddyUm’s Outlaws tab. Luckily, the others weren’t 100% prepared for that yet either.

Is it funny?

We talked about how time-consuming it can be to help writers edit their own stories to be funnier — is it good or bad when writers simply copy an editor’s example of different wording?

• Susan “teaches people to fish” by recommending Scott Dikkers’ book How to Write Funny, which not all Mudditors have read yet
• Cultural differences play in. What seems unfunny to one Mudditor may be funny to another. We continue using Slack to ask for each other’s viewpoints

Cross-cultural funniness sometimes doesn’t transfer well and can be triggering. BOF said “there should be more joking about religious things and God” and someone responded “we can’t make fun of Kali.”

• Sometimes stories don’t work for MuddyUm but fit under one of Susan’s sister publications. Let’s encourage writers of such stories to post them on Facebook in the Outlaws group

Newsletters

Anu

• is drafting the next 3+1 newsletter and asked for +1 suggestions. I learned that +1 writers are not current MuddyUm writers! We’re trying to attract new piratical humorists
• is not married to the 3+1 newsletters! We should feel free to volunteer for them in future. Andrew volunteered if he can feature his own stories¹
• clarified how 3+1 newsletter stories are picked. Editor’s choice! It’s not based on clapping. So we’ll need to keep an eye on Andrew?
• BOF will provide a Background Noise Comics piece for the 3+1

Rachael

• suggested butt stories for an upcoming newsletter. Thanksgiving overflow will make up today’s newsletter, then 3+1, and we’ll need to think about other holiday newsletter editions soon
• is organizing us in advance RE newsletter topics. She’ll put draft stories in the queue and we all should drop links

Newsletter ‘rules’

We include as many Muddyumprompt stories in newsletters as we can, but prompt response ≠ newsletter inclusion. MuddyUm’s “never expiring prompts” are a popular feature of our pub. We aim for 10 stories per newsletter with a maximum of 12.

Back to the ever-popular butts

We jump around topicwise in these meetings. Gary has written four butt stories so far. We’ve seen several poop-related submissions lately, including this feculent Poop Hanger story by Liv Pasquarelli, which I made a point of reading after our meeting ended. It’s so nice to know one’s not alone, isn’t it? Gary has written a poopy story too. Stories featuring poops and farts are grandfathered into the butt prompt.

Onboarding of new writers

After warming up, we felt ready to address this partway through the newsletter discussion.

101, 201, 301

• Andrew: 101 consists of the absolute basics, short and sweet, “mandatories” — don’t submit unless you’ve met these basic criteria
• Anu: we all should critique what’s needed for 101, 201, and 301
• Andrew: someone do a draft!
• Gary will put a draft 101 story in the queue for us to discuss next Monday

BOF then briefly seized control, as was his brief,

by asking, Who’s doing something interesting? Then he answered himself. He’ll be singing Handel’s Messiah soon. Apparently, the rest of us lead dull lives. Or perhaps I jumped in too quickly to ask,

Are Mudditors ever going to explain themselves?

I think I asked for clarification of something from last week’s meeting; that is, Mudditor & Brudditor “Who Am I” stories.

• Are we supposed to write about ourselves?
• Is my recent Brudditors story a Muddyumprompt-for-Mudditors response?

I’m still not sure, because I wrote down only short blurbs about each Mudditor before Anu, who missed their first meeting, asked the two new Brudditors to reintroduce themselves.

Andrew

Andrew explained how Susan had him on the hook then reeled him in. He experimented with being “Mudditor for a day” — wherein he bravely edited stories ON THAT DAY WITHOUT ATTEMPTING TO MEMORIZE THE OUTLAWS TAB — then thought he agreed to be “Mudditor for a year.” He wanted 6 months to think about it; Susan gave him 9 minutes. She invited him to the next Mudditor meeting. In the middle of it, she faxed him a contract and said, “sign here.” Turns out,

• Andrew is paid in dryer lint
• Holly is paid in dust bunnies
• Rachael is paid in rum
• Anu is paid in gummies

Do we have grounds for a suit? Perhaps these are the new forms of currency for the apocalypse.

Gary

• explained “phwaw,” a word from this story that’s also included in my recent Brudditors story
• was depressed so wrote a lot and now has a book out
• attended our zoomathon and became friends with Amy Sea, who convinced him that being a Mudditor would be cool
• loves editing — it was a former job — and runs an accordion orchestra
• is going to Los Angeles tomorrow

Muddy zoom parting shots

• BOF isn’t a promiscuous clapper. If he clapped, he read your story. He mentioned his “Hi, I’m God” stories, which have arisen in three previous meetings so it must be a sign of something, but what? I need to read them and find out
• Gary wrote a pet/accordion story, which could be featured in the next pet story newsletter if he provides a link
• Rachael asked about referral link inserts, so BOF educated us about Audience Development developments during Rachael’s hiatus, including the pros and cons of links and their forms, box and inline

BOF: Is everyone talked out? Apparently so! Bye till next time!

→ ☠️ 🦜 ⚔️ ←

Zoom attendees besides Susan Brearley and me were Gary Chapin, Baskerville Old Face (BOF), Andrew Rodwin, Anu Anniah, and Rachael Ann Sand.

¹ How’s this for an idea? Each Mudditor gets to publish a newsletter of their own favorite stories, at least one of which must be on MuddyUm, on or around their birthday.

Hasta la pasta, cicci! Past meeting notes are here:

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