Make me laugh

There are two jokes that made me laugh this week. Here is the first:

A man visits his doctor. 'I think my hearing is getting worse,' he says. 'Okay,' says the doctor. 'Describe the symptoms.' 'Well,' says the man, 'Homer is a fat couch potato and Marge has really tall, blue hair.'

And the second one is this. The Dalai Lama stops at a hot-dog stall. 'Make me one with everything,' he says. He hands over his money then holds out his hand for the change. 'Change comes from within,' says the hot-dog seller.

Another thing that made me laugh this week was the picture Vera at Labartere had posted of herself washing her hair. I laughed because I knew that at the very moment the photo was taken she would have been laughing too at the sheer fun of the situation.

And on Radio 7 yesterday there were many things that made me laugh. I've stopped listening to Radio Kent during the week, mostly because they've got a new presenter on the breakfast programme. She is too aggressive to listen to first thing in the morning; too loud, too forceful and downright rude sometimes. She raddles my nerves so I switched to 7. And first thing on Friday the double comedy slot is 'Beachcomber' followed by 'Desmond Dingle's Compleat Life and Works of William Shakespeare.' These, along with Patricia Routledge and Prunella Scales in 'Ladies of Letters' had me giggling all day.

And then I realised why I'm finding 'Indigo Antfarm...' so challenging to write. It's because it has no overt comedy in it. Well, it has the occasional comedic image. For example, Violet (Indigo's older sister) wakes after a one-night stand to see a pair of glasses balanced on the neck of Bailey's bottle , giving the impression of the bottle having a face. Her pink pants are stuffed in the neck of the bottle, sprouting out the top like hair. But there is no comic banter. There is black humour, as when Indigo goes to see her dead mother Nina at the funeral parlour and they have a snappy, sarcastic conversation as their mutual hatred continues through the veil of that separates this world and the next. And Jake, Nina's grandson, says he thinks Nina would rather be scattered in the food hall at Harrods than buried on a bleak hill by the coast.

Looking back over previous writing, I think I've been trying too hard to be 'funny' entertaining all the time, because that is how I am in life. I seek to cheer people up, to make them laugh. Vera will understand this pressure, this duty to entertain because it is a subject we have discussed many times over the years. Is it because we want people to like us that we do this? Do we place so little value on ourselves, is our confidence so low we have to make jokes all the time and when we don't our friends and family think that something is 'wrong?'

It's odd. You are supposed to write about what you know. But there is no place for humorous, funny me in my latest project. And perhaps that is why it is so slow in its development. I am being more precise with this writing. I am having to think, rewrite, delete,think again. I am having to go with the flow when it is there and be patient when it isn't. This isn't a Jaffa cake project, something light and easy to chew where you need half a packet to feel like you've had a decent biscuit fix. This is more like a big, double-choc chip sticky chewy cookie (like the ones Nigella made on telly this week. Did you see? Omigod, I put on three pounds just looking at them and a whole roll of kitchen paper to absorb the pile of drool on the carpet). This book will take months and months to get right. It has to be worked with care and consideration and an omnipresent viewpoint.

What a year of writing I'm having. Ever changing and learning, improving and diversifying. It is the hardest work I've ever done. It is the best career I've ever had. It is the most absorbing way to live because you never clock off. How wrong to think I was writer before now. This year has been my springboard into writing.

And now I wish I could think of a joke with which to finish this post, but I can't because I'm thinking about my latest writing project. But if I do, I'll pop back and add it. Until then, try listening to Radio 7. Especially on a Friday morning.