Writing Humor Update: EarthDate April 27, 2010

Yay! My topic got featured on Cracked.com!

(The usual note: Cracked.com is an irreverent humor site, and not suitable for all audiences.)

Kirpatrick Swayzerussell: The Perfect Man

Basically, it's a breakdown of how Kurt Russell and Patrick Swayze are the same person, with a little extra info thrown in about Kurt Russell. (For those of you who know how Topics work on Cracked, the topic is about Kurt Russeel specifically.)

Interested in learning about writing topics for Cracked.com? Check out the Cracked Topic Editor Hangout Page on the Cracked Forum, or send me a note if you have specific questions about how it works.

And here, for your viewing pleasure, is a rundown of some of my (wonderful, obviously) recent humor articles:

Cracked: 5 Movie Romances That Won't Last (According to Science)

Regretful Morning: 5 Reasons Your Gaming System is Better than your Girlfriend

Gunaxin: Seven Types of Animal Lawn Ornaments Explained

Read about my Writing Humor for Gunaxin and my Writing Humor for Cracked.com (and Regretful Morning) for more information.

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RavenCon 2010: SF, Fantasy, Writing and Gaming Con in Richmond, Virginia

From April 9th to April 11th, I attended my first RavenCon: RavenCon 2010 in Richmond, Virginia. The con was at the Holiday Inn at the Koger Center (which, by the way, was a great venue for the event).

The main reason I decided to go to the con was to attend in the various science fiction and fantasy writing workshops and panels. I got to participate Allen Wold's excellent writer's workshop again, which I first experienced a couple of years ago at  Capclave in Rockville, Maryland. Allen is a great encouragement to beginning writers, and even took some time out of his busy schedule to give me some very astute advice that I hope will greatly improve my fiction. Other panelists at the workshops and panels included Leona Wisoker, Laura J. Underwood, Peter Prellwitz, Michael Kabongo, Kalayna Price, Gray Rinehart, Laurel Anne Hill, Rachel Caine, and more to numerous to list here.

The con also featured a gaming room complete with miniature games, role-playing games, and other games that I didn't really understand, but that looked really interesting. I don't know a lot about gaming, but the players were more than happy to tell me how things worked. I'd be interested to learn more about gaming in the future, although I admit I'm a little intimidated!

There were other things as well - people in costumes ranging from favorite character homages to the simply bizarre, women from the local roller derby (River City Rollergirls), musical performances known as "filking," and a LARP (Live Action Role-Playing) game. All in all, it was a great experience, and I highly recommend the con to anyone who is interested in the production or consumption of all things fantasy and science fiction.

Want to learn more about science fiction and fantasy writers' cons and conferences in the Mid-Atlantic region? Check out Mid-Atlantic Science Fiction and Fantasy Writing Conventions.

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The Freelance Writer's Resume

Update: I'm working on publishing my first science fiction novel! Check out the Kickstarter page to learn more :)

A few weeks ago, I applied to write for one of the big online content sites. This site required that I submit a resume and a writing sample. So, I dusted off my old resume, tweaked it a bit to add my (at the time, somewhat sparse) freelance writing experience, and sent it out.

Unfortunately, the site turned me down, and I have to wonder whether it might have something to do with my resume. I did some research, and came across this interesting resource, written by Moira Allen at Writing-World.com.

I hadn't really stopped to think that a writer's resume might be different from any other type of resume, but according to this site, it was. I thought back on what I knew about resumes, and specifically what I knew about formatting your resume when you're changing your career (which is, after all, what I'm doing). The thing is, companies hiring freelance writers want to know specifically that those writers can, well, write more than they want to know what jobs they've held over the past five, ten, or fifteen years.

Writing Humor for Gunaxin

Okay, so I got a little spacey, and forgot to check out Gunaxin for a couple of days... during which time my article was published!

Seven Types of Animal Lawn Ornaments Explained

I had the idea for this article while making the long trek from Virginia to Maryland, during which time I got to thinking about different types of things you see while driving. My mind eventually wandered over to pondering lawn ornaments, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Gunaxin was one of the sites I found from reading the forums over at Cracked.com. After writing my Cracked article, I applied to Gunaxin and was accepted. The Gunaxin setup is different from the setups of some of the other humor sites that I've written for. For one, you not only write the article, you also enter it into the Wordpress form on the site yourself, and find images to go along with your work. You might find this a bit tricky if you haven't done any blogging or working with .html in the past, but the people at Gunaxin are very helpful if you have any questions. It is nice having someone else do part of the work when you write an article, but frankly I liked the control of being able to set up the layout the way I wanted it.

Oh, and Gunaxin is a paying market, which is nice :)

Interested in trying Gunaxin for yourself? Check out the Gunaxin Contributors Page.

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