FAQ: One Funny Line Humor Writing Challenge

The humor writing challenge for people who don't have time

Welcome to the FAQ for One Funny Line, the humor writing challenge I made up. Wonder what it is and why it’s happening? You’ve come to the right place.

What is One Funny Line?

A humor writing challenge in which anyone participating will strive to write one funny line each day. The first annual challenge will run for two weeks from January 8-21, 2024.

If it goes well we will do it again. But first, let’s get on to the FAQ.

Why only one line?

I really love the community and motivation that writing challenges can have but I find many of them tough to keep up with and then end up feeling bad when I have to throw in the towel (an idea that inspired this humor piece).

So I’m trying to make a challenge most everyone can do. The practice of writing one funny line can potentially help jumpstart a longer piece or writing practice or it can just be a fun exercise.

Also, January is often kind of bleak for me and I think it’s a good time to practice humor.

How will it work exactly?

Each day from January 8th to the 21st you will commit to writing one funny line. It can be anything—a funny line for a longer piece, a joke for social media, a funny title for a piece.

Each day of the challenge a writing prompt from different humor writers will be provided that you can choose to use if you want. You can view the prompts online on my Substack or you can sign up to receive them via email/the Substack app.

My hope is the prompts will also give some mini-lessons in writing humor (and yes, I do think humor writing is something you can learn).

How do I sign up to receive emails for the challenge?

If you aren’t already a subscriber to my Substack, you’ll need to sign up. If you want to unsubscribe after the challenge is over I won’t be offended and honestly likely won’t notice as I do not typically look at unsubscribes.

Once you are signed up (or if you are an existing subscriber), you’ll need to adjust your notifications to opt in to get emails about the challenge by doing the following:

1. Clicking on the below button:

2. Scrolling down to the “Notifications” section of the page.

3. Finding the section that says “One Funny Line Humor Challenge” and clicking on the button next to it so it changes from greyed out to green. The Notifications options should look something like this:

What if I miss a few days?

No problem, just write a few extra jokes in one day to catch up. Same thing if you join the challenge late—you can catch up.

What if I just want to go wild and write 14 funny lines on the last day of the challenge?

No one will stop you.

What should I do with my one funny line after I write it?

Whatever you want, really. Post it on social media with the hashtag #OneFunnyLine, use it as a jumping-off point for a bigger piece, or just whisper it into the wind.

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Have other questions? Feel free to post them in the comments below.