August 28 CLASS 2: Writing Perspective.

Great second class everyone. Thank you for your creative courage, your fearlessness and passion. I’m grateful for your commitment to your talent your story and to each other in the class. Have fun with this writing exercise, remember to journal each day and to use your journals to dig deeper  into a Q and A and then the emotion and the truth in the Q and A and the joke that comes from that.

REMEMBER: I will take my Humor Workshops on the road, to retreats, conventions and work settings. If you’d like to bring my workshop or Key note to an event or to perform my Stand Up at your function, e mail me at: paulsveen@shaw.ca

CLASS EXERCISE: We each have a story to exchange with a class mate. Take the story you were given and write FIVE jokes (TAG) about the story. Write an opening joke a closing joke and three more for the middle. For class have the 4 to 5 minute  story you were emailed rehearsed with the 5 jokes ready to perform for class.

Here’s the story Laura sent me. I’ll work on some jokes in this blog so you can follow along. Remember to keep your energy positive and reject all doubt. It does you no good. We’re all about aligning our energy with what we want our humor to attract.

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I was on a motorcycle trip with my boyfriend and three other people. We stopped in Fernie for the night and were walking to a restaurant for dinner when we saw a group of people looking down on a river from an overpass. We stopped and looked too, and saw the exciting finish of a raft race. All the participants, (about six people in about 20 or so rafts) were in costume and we joined in with the onlookers and cheered as each raft crossed the finish line. We then continued on to the restaurant and took a table on the patio. After a few minutes, we were the only ones left outside, right smack dab in the middle of the patio.  Shortly thereafter, the entire patio, (and it was a BIG patio) started filling up with post-race paddlers, enthusiastically discussing the big event. We were completely taken over, and caught up in the middle of the wrap-up complete with speeches, trophies and door prizes. We found ourselves holding our breath waiting for the MC to announce one of us as the winner of a Town of Fernie travel mug.  One of our group even got up and started taking pictures of the winning team shaking hands with the MC as he handed them their trophy. It was ridiculous and a riot, all at the same time. We asked the waitress to take a picture of us and got photo-bombed by the table behind us. They were a great bunch of people and kinda accepted us as honorary racers. The end!

I was on a motorcycle trip with my boyfriend and 3 other people. (if there was 3 other people were they on 1 other bike, 2 or a bike with one of those side cars, you know where the passenger’s wearing goggles from WW 1 and is wearing a silk scarf? What are the deeper meanings in the first sentence? 12 hours on motor bike, the best way to see the Rockies? I’m wondering about the lone rider, is there a reference here to a 3rd wheel? I’m not sure this works because the energy in this story is so happy. Question, what else is a motor bike trip like?

FIRST JOKE: A motorcycle trip is a lot like an acid trip, both are 12 hours, both feel like your flying and both leave you  covered in insects. (I found this joke by thinking about being on a bike all day, what would that feel like?)  SECOND JOKE : When we came down from the trip the first place we stopped was Fernie ( Did you how I foreshadowed the second joke with TRIP? This is like an all day drive, eight hours. Why not rent a Cadillac ? Because you’re not a bad boy if you have AC. Joke number 2: We stopped in Fernie. We were going to go to Cranbrook but realized we had too much self-esteem. THIRD JOKE We were walking to to a restaurant when we saw a group on a bridge. Being from the prairie, we’d seen this before and acted and shouted, JUMP!  (I wrote these three jokes in ten minutes. I’m starting here to get a feel for this story. I’ll keep asking Questions and Answering them. Then I’ll find the point and the deeper points as well as the emotions and write a better constructed joke. Remember, the jokes we write will be INCLUDED with the story./ This then will become our SET.                                                                                                                                     REMEMBER: our class Performance is Monday October 16 at Yuk Yuks. The show begins at 7:30 and the tickets are 10$ at the door.

REMEMBER: I can be seen on You Tube and can be booked to perform my Stand Up at your event. I have copies of my novel in class and you can see my tour dates and videos on this web site. Please spread the word about my class. Thank you everyone, I’m really proud of you and will always answer your questions.