Years before it became politically incorrect to read Joel Chandler Harris’s Uncle Remus, my mother would gather the three of us kids together and regale us with the timeless misadventures of Brer Rabbit, and all of his friends and enemies. She’d read out loud, in her best self-styled, deep-south, African American accent and all. It is impossible to pick a favorite Uncle Remus story, but one that is a particular treasure for writers is that of Brer Rabbit’s Laughing Place.
What exactly is a laughing place, and why should writers have one? A lot of people might say a laughing place is more of a state of mind than a physical location, and I’d have to agree with them. But just for the sake of understanding, think of a laughing place as an actual place. It could be your favorite bar back in college, or a dock on a lake, or a stretch of beach, or maybe even the dinner table at an old friend’s house.
What distinguishes a laughing place from all other places is the laughs you’re sure to enjoy when you’re there. That’s all it is. There’s just no way to be in that spot and not laugh. The people who are there, the way they know you and you know them, is the perfect set-up for good times. Remember the theme song for Cheers? Sometimes you want to go where everybody knows your name, and they’re always glad you came. That’s the idea for a laughing place.
Why do writers need laughing places? We need a landing pad somewhere in between the literary world that occupies our mind and spirit, that zone we go into when we are living in the reality of the book we are writing, and that life which we call real. Real life is commuting to work, meeting deadlines, picking up the kids from school, going to the doctor, sweating out an interview. Somewhere between those two spheres we need to have a place that guarantees smiles and laughs just by being there.
Lucky ones can hop in the car and be at their place in a jiffy. Others can’t, because their place is too far away, or sadly, it might not exist anymore, or the people who made it a laughing place may have moved on and aren’t coming back. Still, if you can picture it, you can get there. Take a few deep breaths, close your eyes and try. If you have a picture of the place, make it your screen saver, or at least keep it handy.
We all know that when the rejection comes, it hurts. So does the silence following a well-researched, professionally articulated query. My writing professor, John Irving says that writers have to love the process. That means all aspects of it, even those that lead to frustration and anger.
Rather than opening the window and shouting W-T-F!!! at the top of your lungs, simply go to your laughing place. I’m a lucky guy because I have a lot of laughing places. The one pictured is Pusser’s Pirate Bar on top of the hill at Marina Cay, Tortola, in the British Virgin Islands. The place exists for otherwise respectable adults (some with kids) to put on pirate hats, drink rum shooters and pain killers, and jump around like a bunch of maniacs to the music and craziness of entertainer Michael Beans. It’s the perfect place to just be off the hook and go nuts. These days Michael is entertaining at Leverick Bay on Virgin Gorda. That laughing place may have relocated, but in my mind the happy crowd is still raising a ruckus just the way I remember.
Other sure-fire laughing places down that way are Bomba’s Shack on Tortola, the Soggy Dollar Bar, Ivan’s, and Foxy’s on Jost van Dyke, and Joe’s Rum Hut, the Beach Bar and Skinny Legs on St. John in the USVI.
I have another laughing place that materializes once a year. When my friends close down the Harbour Cottage Inn in Southwest Harbor, Maine at the end of the season, they spend a solid week decorating the place for Halloween.The party is a full-tilt costume affair. No one would dare showing up with a dollar store mask, and who would want to? You don’t often get the chance to be a kid again with costumes, make-up and a goodly amount of mischief. It packs enough laughs to bring this underemployed writer all the way up from Virginia every year.
Do you have a laughing place? Tell me about it.
Till later,
Ken
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