I recently published a little article in a local paper that syndicated it to three other related newspapers. Entitled “Worst summer vacations in history,” it offered several faux diary entries purporting to be from summer vacations gone bad, including one from Noah’s son, Shem; an Egyptian complaining that the Sun God Rah never appeared while his brother-in-law, Atentophot-Who-Can’t-Hold-a-Job was around”; and a few others. (I’ll get to them in a moment, after I take a moment and wonder if Noah named his son Shem with the hopes he might someday join the 3 Stooges.)

The idea for the article came when a high-powered editor I was working with complained about not being able to get back to me because Internet access at his vacation home was spotty. I’ve encountered the same thing while on vacation — the frustration of not being able to access email, websites, and documents stored in the clouds, even when you should be at the beach or the lake or the mountains or wherever you are. I thought that would make a fun article — to balance complaints from a biblical flood on the one hand and the lack of WiFi for more recent vacations.

Anyway, the article didn’t generate any comments on the website of the newspapers that published it but I did see a mention of it on a fan fiction site. The person who posted the article had very nice things to say about the article, and then, instead of linking to it (as I did, above), she copied some of the diary entries onto the forum. Now I totally appreciate her kind words, and am glad the article amused her. (My wife did not like it so much at first because I assume she was concerned she’d recognize one of our vacations in the list; thankfully she realized we’ve never been to Nottingham where we were victimized by Robin Hood so that made a difference.) But the poster did not include a link back to the newspapers’ sites; I’m not suggesting that entry on the fan fiction site is generating tons of clicks — but none of those readers are clicking on the page, which might further encourage the newspaper editor to continue to run my pieces. (Just so you know, the fan fiction site is not devoted to my work; the article was cited as opportunity for fans of that particular ’60s TV show to write their own faux diary entries of bad summer vacations experienced the show’s characters.)

I’m sure the posting goes beyond fair use because it quotes more than half the article but it’s not like I’m selling copies of it elsewhere. I try to be careful about fair use whenever I cite someone else’s work in one of my blogs, and I always provide a link to the original. I want to encourage people to follow my work — not scold anyone — so, in the future, how about tweeting about it to drive traffic to the source?

Successful writing actually involves a lot of rewriting. That's particularly true when it comes to writing jokes or humorous articles. 

Sometimes it feels stupid to spend (waste) so much time over fart jokes or the equivalent. But as the late Joan Rivers said, it's important to laugh because life, otherwise, can be so difficult.

I've been thinking about the amount of time it takes to write a 600-word humorous article because I've written three different related articles, with varying degrees of success -- by which I mean whether I like them or not.

But while I took a break from rewriting the three articles, I came across a video profile of Jerry Seinfeld produced by the New York Times entitled, "How to Write a Joke." As experienced, funny and observant as he is, Seinfeld took two years to craft some thoughts about pop tarts into a bit he was proud of -- two years! 

I actually found that encouraging. And I'm impressed that someone -- who doesn't have to work -- takes so much pride in the craft.

Here's the New York Times clip followed by an edited version of his thought process in developing that joke. Finally at 2:11 there's final version that Seinfeld delivered on the Tonight Show. Also, here's a link to a lengthy New York Times Magazine profile of Seinfeld, "Seinfeld Intends to Die Standing Up" that's worth reading.

If an editor is going to reject a submission, it's always better to say "no" quickly. In the humorous op-ed business, time is money. The longer an editor takes in reading a piece before rejecting it, the less likely the article will see light of day. 

I actually consider it a favor when editors send a a fast "no thanks" or "I'll pass." 

Would I rather they take the time to appreciate the set up and the jokes -- of course, though I'd actually prefer them to run the article and as soon as possible. But if they're going to reject it, I'd rather move on to the next publication that might be appropriate.

So while I was disappointed by a fast rejection by an editor who has published my work before, I'm looking at it positively. It wasn't right for her but she recognizes that I should have some luck elsewhere.

Because, after all, she didn't have to respond to my pitch. 

So onto the next outlet.

Meanwhile, I've got a couple of other articles out that are languishing in Editorial Purgatory. Which is really Editorial Hell as I wait and wait to hear back from an editor, unsure (in two cases) whether they even received the submission.

Well, onto the next piece.