SHOCKINGLY LATE NEWS
The 2.5-Hour Mudditor Meeting of October 18, 2021
Of purple pigs & edible prompts & the zoomathon
Brevity Is the Soul of Wit Except in This Meeting
“The time has come,” the Walrus said, “To talk of many things: Of shoes — and ships — and sealing-wax — Of cabbages — and kings — And why the sea is boiling hot — And whether pigs have wings.” — The Walrus and the Carpenter, by Lewis Carroll
Susan Had Important News to Impart
- Big pubs are going away because owners & editors are tired of & frustrated by not being paid. Ev suffers from guilt
- Our Boss’s Day newsletter was a surprise!
- Straw man post on Facebook Outlaws group. Should we move MuddyUm off of Medium? Rename? We’re in exploratory mode to determine what’s possible
- Scraping — stealers of content. Medium doesn’t guard against scraping. Susan believes it should be a management function, not pushed off on vigilante writers. IchiPro? News360?
- Anu’s skills, demonstrated in setting up the Bootyque, will come in handy if/when we switch platforms
- Turn excitement into money. Leave MuddyUm in place as a listing service
- Like Medium but with ethical advertisements — for instance, NO pharmaceutical ads. Medium will close if it depends on venture capital
- “Funny” to start; scalable growth model
- Susan’s famous “cobra story” came up. She told it again in the second hour for Sara Z’s benefit. Perhaps if you beg, she’ll retell it as a zoomathon encore
- “Buying writers” isn’t meaningful
- Alex Steullet’s Salt piece led to a lively discussion. Medium isn’t recognizing its global audience
- “Ride the humor horse broadly” — no niche. MuddyUm espouses two rules:
- No punching down
- Make ’em laugh
Such humor is educational & provides a service.
These Are Your Prompt Ideas
- Amy’s perfect neighbors story might inspire others & Susan wants her to write another one
- How does it feel to be an American right now? Everyone agreed: Not Good
- It’s farting season. Anu said that ppl in their 40s fart. BOF is a self-described whiny old fart.⁴² Amy called BOF — her putative dad — a baby
BOF wants to make authentic Outlaw masks to sell in the Bootyque. Susan plans to lunch with MuddyUm’s 1720 branding person & will supply BOF with a transparent bottle thingy.
Zoomathon — what are we doing on Sunday, November 14?
Mudditors will perform in various ways to thank you for your generosity in our ongoing fundraiser. It’s not too late to donate. It is now the Official MuddyUm Editors Emergency Fund. Link follows:
- Two sessions, a.m. & p.m.?
- Do other Outlaws want to participate?
- Who can make a funny trailer to advertise? Susan & Nanci. They need a 10-second segment from each Mudditor, presumably strutting our stuff
- BOF claims this is easy & tried to explain how, but I wrote down only WINDOWS so am still all at sea
- Inept ppl like me can be recorded via Zoom
Stay tuned for more details regarding the zoomathon.
Susan Again Nibbled 1/8th of a Gummy
These Are Your Prompt Ideas on Drugs
- Zoomathon stories! “What are telethons” could be the writing prompt. Jerry Lewis & NPR fundraising are examples
- Edibles! What are they? Anu didn’t know the term, which apparently is American
BOF told two hilarious stories about relatives, one who ate brownies unknowingly & later said they never had so much fun & another set who ate gummies then called the hospital to report they’d died. I hope he writes about them. I’ll have a Mary Jane story out soon.
Anu once ate too many brownies with a couple of friends. She couldn’t move but her brain was rapier-sharp. Her equally high but motion-capable friends disagreed on how best to help Anu recover. One wanted to feed her salt; the other, sugar. I was laughing too hard to write it all down, but I think:
- SUGAR friend was insistent on getting her way. She gave Anu sugar first, then came back with water. Anu asked for sugar water instead & SUGAR friend said, “it’ll all mix together in your stomach anyway”
- SALT friend retreated into another room & did yoga while thinking good thoughts, trying to inspire Anu’s muscles to move
We Should Have an Edible Meeting
Someone suggested this. Hmmm. Are the rest of you able to take notes while laughing hard, unlike me? Perhaps we could record ourselves. How embarrassing would that be? The idea of setting my Monday alarm earlier in order to eat an edible at 7 a.m. my time isn’t appealing. I know! Let’s have a MuddyUm Comedy Camp Mudditor Cannabis Conclave.
Amy may parody The Rainbow Connection as The Gummy Connection. She suggested I do so then kindly explained it to me. I’m not a Disney animation, muppet, or Sesame Street fan. Give me a nice violent action movie any day.
I then noted send Amy a drug picture but have not yet done so. Will get right on that? When I figure out how to take a selfie?
We talked about things writers might find confusing that are old tricorn hat to us, such as kickers, & how/when to respond to notes.
- That’s a prompt for Mudditors
- If a missing kicker holds up publication, Mudditors may make one up at their discretion. Writers are, of course, free to edit after publication if they object to the wording. BOF plans to enter “DEAD FISH SLAP” in place of missing kickers, going fwd?
Strong statement from Susan:
The rest of the world is the USA’s conscience right now. Medium shouldn’t exclude the rest of the world.
More discussion ensued of the manner in which big MWC winners were announced. The subtext of Mother Ship Medium’s statement is offensive. The Americentrism of the MWC process & results, including that “suicide prevention” link, is offensive.
In our new platform, MuddyUm will do better.
Susan reiterated her belief that Medium is a house of cards & isn’t operating under a viable business model. Its payment program doesn’t generate anything productive, especially loyalty from writers. Her cobra story illustrates this.
Susan & Nanci need a 10-second segment from each Mudditor for a funny zoomathon trailer.
Wrapping up, we brainstormed what we could each do for 10 seconds. Perhaps I’ll oink my purple pig? Amy reminisced about her awkward experience dating The Man from Iowa (TMFI). A gift-giving opportunity arose. They hadn’t been dating long, so Amy gave TMFI a pig.
She described the pig, but I didn’t write that down so can’t satisfy your curiosity with details. TMFI gave Amy a book of Italian poetry. They broke up.
Last-Minute Prompt Ideas
- “Red flag” gifts! Young love!
- “Private Notes I wish I could take back”
The Real Dirt
Lucia planned a newsletter about MWC.
We Finally Discussed Editing
Outlaws, did you know we can’t see your name and picture when editing your draft? Unless we pay attention in the queue, we don’t know who wrote it. Perception is different depending on the gender of both writer and reader. Amy edited a story recently that she initially thought was written by a man. Once she realized a woman wrote it, her private notes took a different tack.
Don’t edit if you’re in a bad mood. That has come up before in meetings.
This l-o-n-g Mudditorial Zoom drew an unusual number of participants: Susan Brearley, Baskerville Old Face (BOF), Anu Anniah, Carol Lennox, Lucia Siochi, Nanci Arvizu, and me — AKA Editor Fairy, plus the better late and clever Amy Sea & Sara Zadrima
⁴² All that farting inspired me to demonstrate a cute little latex pig I bragged about buying at Costco for myself, not the dogs.
The dogs love only plush squeaky toys but I love sound effects. Mudditors love to laugh during meetings so I knew they’d enjoy Purple Piggy too. Susan suggested I hot-glue poodle hair — the byproduct of home-grooming — onto the pig’s latex skin to turn it into a plushie.