Funny Writing

I'm revising (maybe reviving) my novel Trail Mix. I figured when the movie Wild with Reese Witherspoon comes out, that might help sales of my own novel of trials hiking on a trail. Rather than the Pacific Crest Trail, which the woman in Wild hikes, my characters are hiking the Appalachian Trail.

Here's my blurb -- Some people will do anything to lose weight. With no previous camping experience, two suburban women come up with the perfect way to shed excess pounds – hike the Appalachian Trail. It's a 2100-mile odyssey, from Georgia to Maine, a grueling experience, even for seasoned hikers. But friends Andi and Jess figure life on the trail can't possibly be worse than dealing with disgruntled husbands, sullen teens and a general malaise that has crept up in their daily lives. Side-effects of the diet may include spending far too much time with a hiking buddy, leading to some startling revelations about each other.

 The whole idea of selling a book based on hiking the Appalachian Trail as a diet plan

sounds funny, don't you think?

Somewhere along the way, my book has gotten too serious. As I'm revising, I read funny things that happened, but I don't feel like I wrote them funny. I'm sitting here trying to figure out how to write funny.

I think I'm fairly funny in life -- at least witty. I'd say some of my blog posts are even humorous, yet I'm unsure how to invoke some more humor into my book. Maybe it's a matter of timing. 

I'm going to go back and try to punch up some of the funny parts.

The release date for the movie Wild is in December. I hope my novel is available much sooner than that. 

HCG Diet

A friend of mine has lost 30 pounds on the HCG Diet.
Meg is one of those friends I see during basketball season because she has a son the same age as Spencer. I hadn't seen Meg for a few months when we worked together at basketball concessions last weekend. She walked in and I said, "Wow. Have you lost weight?"
"I've lost 30 pounds. Thirty pounds to go," she said.
She is doing the HCG Diet, which involves taking HCG drops and limiting calories to 500 per day. Everyone at the school where she works was doing the diet, so she decided to try it.
"I'm not hungry at all," she said, "but I hate a lot of the food that you're allowed to eat, so a lot of times I'm not eating."
Anyone who knows me, understands that the thought of dieting sends me running for a mocha. Just the thought of deprivation makes me crave things. This HCG diet is also not for me because dieters are not supposed to exercise. Exercise is crucial to my mental stability, but I thought some readers might want to know that it has worked for my friend who tried it.
I don't have a lot of details about it, but Dr. Oz (whoever thought I would refer to Dr. Oz for medical info?) has an article about it and some shows about it.
Dr. Oz talks about HCG shots, but my friend Meg was taking HCG in either pill or drop form. The way she explained it, HCG is a hormone released during pregnancy that prevents the body from going into starvation mode. That way, people can eat very little and lose weight rather than their body preserving those calories.
Some people have tried the 500 calorie diet without the HCG, but their results were not as good.
As for Meg, when she loses 30 more pounds, she cannot wait to eat a Chipotle burrito.