Discussion Forum

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Quote: Jesus Budda

That Bible is an awful boring book but it has its uses.

Did you know, Fergus, that they use the leather bound version of it for shaking and tapping the contents of the watered down stuff they put in homeopathy mixtures?
Well know you do.

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I knew that.


















No... I didn't really.


Like the space? It's been a while.

One of your best Fergus.

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Quote: victor nicholas

One of your best Fergus.

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A bit too holy for my liking

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Quote: Dr. Billingsgate

Does anyone know of a way to turn a buck by writing this kind of material? Not that anyone in their right mind would read this muck. But stupid people have money too. I'm trying to think, but nothing happens.

Regards,

Dr. Billingsgate

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Dr. B

Did anyone mention "The National Enquirer" or other US supermarket checkout tabloids? Some of their artcles border on our kind of spoof stories.

Then there are the tabloids in the UK!

That's an option, if you are prepared to sell your soul to the Devil.

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Quote: Philbert of Macadamia

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Quote: Dr. Billingsgate

Does anyone know of a way to turn a buck by writing this kind of material? Not that anyone in their right mind would read this muck. But stupid people have money too. I'm trying to think, but nothing happens.

Regards,

Dr. Billingsgate

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Dr. B

Did anyone mention "The National Enquirer" or other US supermarket checkout tabloids? Some of their artcles border on our kind of spoof stories.

Then there are the tabloids in the UK!

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Why thanks!

Actually, I'm the one with 12 doctors on a rota. It's my 12 personalities, you never know which one will turn up, or what they might do!

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Quote: Charpa93

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Quote: Erskin Quint

Hmmm.

Plagiarise sounds dramatic - but using your experience is a kind of plagiarisation. As is all writing - you're making use of other people in one way or another.

Of course, there's also the matter of writing in the right way for the right markets - which involves plagiarisation in the sense of making use of the right ideas in the right manner, of following the protocols.

In a way, the spoof is a microcosm of all this. You can get high in the chart by writing the right stuff about celebrities. You can remain in obscurity by being yourself and crafting brilliant magazine pieces. Can you write brilliantly AND get loads of hits? - that's a real challenge. If so, maybe you've got a chance to be a published/paid writer.

I reckon you've got to be yourself and put yourself into your writing first and foremost. Write in your own way. That might not make any money. To make money, you might have to write for a market first and foremost. That's a decent craft and a great achievement. It's also not real creative writing. Real creative writing is self-expression. If you can do both, you're a genius.

Van Gogh died penniless and by his own hand. Kafka hardly published anything before his death. Jordan makes loads of dosh from her books.

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Brilliant Erskin. Sure you're not the one with 12 doctorates?

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Quote: Erskin Quint

That's an option, if you are prepared to sell your soul to the Devil.

EQ, if he was to offer me a million I'd contemplate it

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Quote: Charpa93

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Quote: Erskin Quint

Hmmm.

Plagiarise sounds dramatic - but using your experience is a kind of plagiarisation. As is all writing - you're making use of other people in one way or another.

Of course, there's also the matter of writing in the right way for the right markets - which involves plagiarisation in the sense of making use of the right ideas in the right manner, of following the protocols.

In a way, the spoof is a microcosm of all this. You can get high in the chart by writing the right stuff about celebrities. You can remain in obscurity by being yourself and crafting brilliant magazine pieces. Can you write brilliantly AND get loads of hits? - that's a real challenge. If so, maybe you've got a chance to be a published/paid writer.

I reckon you've got to be yourself and put yourself into your writing first and foremost. Write in your own way. That might not make any money. To make money, you might have to write for a market first and foremost. That's a decent craft and a great achievement. It's also not real creative writing. Real creative writing is self-expression. If you can do both, you're a genius.

Van Gogh died penniless and by his own hand. Kafka hardly published anything before his death. Jordan makes loads of dosh from her books.

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Brilliant Erskin. Sure you're not the one with 12 doctorates?

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Erskin, you come across as an intelligent bloke who seems to have taken my question to heart. As you might suspect from someone with 12 doctorates, I have had little time to meek out a living. That though is not all bad. As Henry David Thoreau wrote, "It is not necessary that a man should earn his living by the sweat of his brow unless he sweats much easier than I do."

I am currently waiting for the unwashed masses to take over the world. Then, and then only, will a man of my acumen be allowed to rise to the top. For it has been foretold that in the end, one man with 12 degrees will rule the world.

The BBC writers room pays a couple of pounds for political one liners. It might even be as much as about £15 a joke. They often have a sketch show going where you can send stories by e-mail. I'll go find a link to the writers room.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/writersroom/writing/guidelines_sketch.shtml

This is a link to the sketch shows page but they have lots going on. They particularly like scripts for radio shows. If you click on the menu on the side bar that says opportunities it should tell you more about it.

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Quote: Katarina Frogpond2

http://www.bbc.co.uk/writersroom/writing/guidelines_sketch.shtml

This is a link to the sketch shows page but they have lots going on. They particularly like scripts for radio shows. If you click on the menu on the side bar that says opportunities it should tell you more about it.

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I've boycotted the Beeb especially since they stopped showing Bill & Ben

I used to have a nice sideline writing their dialogue.

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Quote: Jaggedone

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Quote: Katarina Frogpond2

http://www.bbc.co.uk/writersroom/writing/guidelines_sketch.shtml

This is a link to the sketch shows page but they have lots going on. They particularly like scripts for radio shows. If you click on the menu on the side bar that says opportunities it should tell you more about it.

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I've boycotted the Beeb especially since they stopped showing Bill & Ben

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Erskin, how can an atheist sell his/her soul to the devil?

By the way - people who write for The Spoof DO get paid.

I know coz I got a message saying,

"Lady G. Your cheque's in the mail" - so there!!! It's just taking a long time to get to me. I'm sure there is a postal strike somewhere or some thieving bugger at the post office has pinched it.

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Quote: Lady Godiva

Erskin, how can an atheist sell his/her soul to the devil?

By the way - people who write for The Spoof DO get paid.

I know coz I got a message saying,

"Lady G. Your cheque's in the mail" - so there!!! It's just taking a long time to get to me. I'm sure there is a postal strike somewhere or some thieving bugger at the post office has pinched it.

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Maybe because there is no Royal Mail just TNT

You could be right! I read that 'there's a lot of it about'.

Depends what you mean by 'soul' and what you mean by 'devil'.

All just words that try to parcel reality.

Reality? You know, that stuff that engenders us, maintains us, and into which we merge again when our little bubble is burst.

Stuff? Well, no, actually, I think it's probably closer to nothing, but there you are.

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Quote: Lady Godiva

Erskin, how can an atheist sell his/her soul to the devil?

By the way - people who write for The Spoof DO get paid.

I know coz I got a message saying,

"Lady G. Your cheque's in the mail" - so there!!! It's just taking a long time to get to me. I'm sure there is a postal strike somewhere or some thieving bugger at the post office has pinched it.

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So do you mean I don't really exist, I'm just in someone's dream?

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Quote: Lady Godiva

So do you mean I don't really exist, I'm just in someone's dream?

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Hopefully not mine, I've got enough loonies floating around

Not in someone's dream, no, apart from possibly your own.

Nothing really exists. I mean nothing really exists. It does. It has to. Without nothing, nothing else could happen.

I reckon it's nothing that gives birth to us, we're full of nothing, then there's just nothing again.

As for all the 'things', they're not 'things' at all.

You could say that what they call 'God' is nothing, 'cos all things are just aggregates of other things and they are all limited, totally dependent on other things, and doomed to a temporary, flawed existence. The only thing that is perfect, infinite, beginingless and endless, is nothing.

Is that good, or bad, or both, or neither? You decide.

Let's hear it for nothing.

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Quote: Lady Godiva

So do you mean I don't really exist, I'm just in someone's dream?

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Well, well, well, I see the philosophy thing is catching with on my fellow self-aware emergent phenomena. And I was mistakenly conscious of a current of cynicism when such deep thoughts emerged.

But of course we can't write spoofs and the stuff here without being philosophers, consciously or unconsciously. Satire is philosophy, so is humour, so is cynicism so is comment.

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you mean I'm just somebody's dream?

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BTW Lady G I think they say that ladies such as yourself are the stuff of dreams - 'Jung girls' in other words.

I like that Lynton.

I haven't a clue what you're on about, but I like it.

Regards

Skoob.

Thanks Lynton. I will take that as a compliment. I am wearing my Freudian slip though.

As far as NOTHING is concerned, well I often wonder - and OFTEN even say it out loud

IF NOTHING CLEANS BETTER THAN SUNLIGHT DETERGENT

THEN WHY NOT JUST USE NOTHING - MAKES SENSE TO ME

NOTHING IS BETTER THAN A COLD BEER
(Then stop paying for pints you dozy bugger. Sheesh! Some people have no sense whatsoever).

NOTHING ANNOYS ME MORE THAN STUPID PEOPLE