Crazy Psycho Bitches Are the Best (and Funniest) Writers
BE THE DRAMA
Take this quiz:
Do you prefer the story of an experience to the experience itself?
Has anyone ever called you “too much”?
Have you been accused of being “dramatic” like it’s a bad thing?
How about “sensitive” or “oversensitive”?
Do you worry that you’re “annoying” because someone said so?
Do you get annoyed easily?
Do you get in fights a little too often? (Fights with yourself count.)
Do you like a lot of drama, all over everything?
Do you fall in love a lot and harder and weirder than others you know?
Are you searching for Plato’s “upper realm,” the place of pure ideas above heaven, in “hyper-heaven,” and do you seek out the potential in everything and see the life and the art in/into/unto things with a heart-opening hunger?
Is everything unbearable to you, just everything?
If you answered “yes” to all the above, then you’re none of the above—you’re an artist.
For writers, all the above is a compliment and a gift. (SO SUCK IT everybody I knew in middle school through college. And in my 20s. And some of my 30s.) (I turned 40 two weeks ago; please consider becoming a paid subscriber.)
To write, being “too much” is exactly enough.
Writers must go over every detail, must come at conversations and texts from every angle, must dramatize and romanticize and write too many unanswered emotional emails (the pre-game to pre-fame); we must leave no stone unturned; we must repeat ourselves and our stories and ourselves (lol); we must penetrate experience, raw-dog.
Emotion has a bad reputation. (Propaganda.) Before I was a writer and therapy patient, I was afraid/ashamed of “acting crazy.” (Which didn’t stop me, but still.) This is mind/behavior-control: “be nice” and stay serene. We can’t be funny or deep without our batshit emotions.
There was so much I could have done with what I felt, and Other People stopped me with a nickname or withering look or diagnosis.
You know the documentary film Bridesmaids? Why is it funny? Because the protagonist is a shitshow. And because a woman shits herself in a wedding gown. And also Melissa McCarthy.
When I think for 10 seconds of the funniest women in film and TV, I think of Veep’s Selina Meyer, New Girl’s Jessica Day, Diane Keaton in anything, Jane Krakowski in anything, Mindy Kaling in anything, Ali Wong in anything, Patti Harrison in anything, Lucy Ricardo, Leslie Knope, Fleabag, the Pen15 girls, the cast of Insecure, the cast of Girls, the cast of Golden Girls, the cast of The Golden Bachelor. I don’t have time to finish this long list. (Add your favorites in the comments.)
The point is: what do these people have in common? Big emotions, HUGE. They are what unfunny people would call “unhinged.”
The next time someone calls you annoying or weird or bonkers or or or or or or or or, the correct reply is, “Thank you.” You were just called an artist.
New seminars! New workshops!
NEW: BE HYSTERICAL: A Voice-Finding Seminar
In writing, "too much" is exactly enough. In this once-in-a-lifetime seminar, we’ll cover every element of style and how to use each one to sound like you on the page. We’ll also cover concrete ways to find your voice if you’ve lost it (and we’ve all lost it at some point). This seminar will make your voice so distinctive that any reader can pick it out of a police lineup.
October 13th (Sunday)
3-5pm
Online via Writing Workshops
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Short Humor & Satire Writing: A 2-Day Intensive Workshop
Are you looking for ways to make friends as an adult and also write humor and satire? In this 2-day workshop intensive, we’ll break down the short comedy piece to write, rewrite, and publish our own. After two days, everyone will write/be funnier and will know how to conceive of, draft, polish, and submit short original humor and satire, but if not, it's not my fault.
October 19th & 20th (Saturday & Sunday)
2-5pm
Online via 92NY
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NEW: Writing Traumedy: How to be Sad-Funny in Nonfiction: A Seminar
Tragedy plus time equals comedy, and in this three-hour seminar we'll do that math. We’ll read other sad-funny writers to steal their tricks; we’ll cover every known device to turn a sad diary entry into publishable funny writing; we’ll cry as a group (optional). Happy endings will not be accepted.
November 6th (Wednesday)
7-10pm
Online
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Tragedy Plus Time: a 4-Week Workshop
A longer workshop version of the above. In four life-changing weeks you’ll learn how to write and workshop traumedy and make readers laugh while PUNCHING THEM IN THE HEART. Prerequisite: being in therapy.
November 18th - December 9th (Mondays)
6:30-9pm
Online via 92NY
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My work wife
has two new classes that I cannot recommend enough:Write Like an Athlete in November and Comedy Writing for Non-Comedians in December.
ICYMI: I’m Elissa Bassist, and I teach short conceptual humor/satire writing, funny personal essays, tragicomic memoir, emotional emails, and that’s it. I edit the “Funny Women” column on The Rumpus, and I wrote the award-deserving book Hysterical. My next book is Inside Jokes: A Comedy and Creativity Guide for All Writers, co-written with Caitlin Kunkel and forthcoming in 2026.
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Oh my darling. Does this ever hit the spot today.
YES. Needed this post today! ❤️