Writing humor when all you feel is fear
By Kjersten Hayes
This month I celebrated the book birthday for THE ELEPHANTS’ GUIDE TO HIDE-AND-SEEK, written by me and illustrated by Gladys Jose. My first published picture book. Hooray! It’s a funny book, yet it exists in large part because of something that’s not funny at all—fear.
Without dwelling on it, I’m a PTSD survivor. The nutshell story—my dad died in a horrible accident when I was young, and then I survived a series of awful accidents myself. The resulting accumulative anxiety eventually was diagnosed as post-traumatic stress disorder.
Where I write
I bring it up because learning to calm extreme anxiety is a practical skill for many PTSD survivors, myself included. And since my funny book is coming out during an anxiety-inducing global pandemic, I thought I’d share some approaches I use to calm my own nerves while writing humor.
What to wear when you want to be fast on your toes while writing.
Lower the bar.
When my brain is heavy with worry, play helps. I set aside intentions of writing anything “good” and aim for play instead.
Gamify.
When I feel fear, it’s like I’m a deer-caught-in-headlights. I freeze. But gamifying tricks me into unfreezing, which relaxes me. Quantity challenges and time challenges usually help. For example, write 20 ideas for a main character in 20 minutes—GO! Then I set a timer and see if I can do it.
YES AND...
In improv comedy, comedians use this mantra called “YES AND...” They say YES to whatever first comes to mind, AND they roll with it. They do it over and over until what they are doing is so ridiculous you can’t help but laugh. Doing this with writing is funny too. So, I say YES to every silly thing that comes to mind, AND I write it down. Thinking fast usually makes things silly. And silly calms.
Brainstorming
Using “YES, AND” when I am writing (instead of performing live comedy, which I would never do) means I don’t have to only say yes to the first idea that comes for each part. In fact, it’s often more fun and sillier if I say yes to the first ten ideas. So, I do. I write them all down. This also moves my mindset from one of scarcity toward one of abundance. And it’s soothing on the nerves to feel like the sky is vast with options. Plus if I brainstorm a list of options, I can pick whichever direction delights me most, which makes my work funnier.
Bird by bird
This is a phrase writer Anne Lamott uses in her book of the same name to describe working on writing one step at a time, instead of getting overwhelmed with the entire project all at once. It’s calming to focus just on what’s at hand and build on it. So—from the idea stage, to figuring out characters, to conflict, to solutions—for every part of writing a full draft, I keep the bar low, I gamify, I say YES AND, and I brainstorm. I do this step by step, over and over, until I have a full draft of something. Bird by bird I build the laughs.
Elephants with glasses are fun!
While I’m no advocate for extreme productivity under duress (be kind to yourself!), I’ve found writing humor in this way to be empowering. It’s a coping strategy that helped bring my first published book into the world—THE ELEPHANTS’ GUIDE TO HIDE-AND-SEEK. Writing it made me laugh. And best of all, now I get to share those laughs, too!
Kjersten Hayes
Kjersten Hayes, the debut author of THE ELEPHANTS’ GUIDE TO HIDE-AND-SEEK, lives in Bellingham, Washington, in a century-old house full of color, books, pottery, art, music, and happy kid noises. She is a lifelong writer and artist.
Follow Kjersten Hayes:
Website: www.kjersten.com
Twitter/Instagram: @kjerstenhayes