Use it or lose it
Wanda Argersinger offers some advice for writers so simple we often forget it:
Have you ever lost a great idea, the perfect ending to your story, the next turn in your mystery, or the title that will scream “read me”? Most writers have.
Ideas are fleeting and difficult to coax into existence. They appear at the most inopportune time, unless you are always ready to capture the thought.
It doesn’t matter what you use to record your ideas, as long as it is always handy, used consistently and doesn’t fail when it’s needed most. For me, a notebook tucked in my purse works best. I stick a pencil inside the notebook, and use the same book, day after day. My method allows me to find all my ideas, good or bad, in one place. Whether you choose to use electronic devices, note cards, a notebook, or paper, find something, keep it handy, use it and never lose a thought or idea again.
—Wanda Argersinger
is the very model of a modern, middle-aged man — except that he’s now won four awards for humorous writing from the National Society of Newspaper Columnists. He laughs at the absurdities of life in his humor column for his hometown paper, The Stamford Advocate. His column is syndicated by McClatchy-Tribune and has run in newspapers across the country and around the world. A collection of his columns appears in his book, Leave It to Boomer: A Look at Life, Love and Parenthood by the Very Model of the Modern Middle-Age Man.
Lisa Smith Molinari, an 18-year Navy spouse, mother of three and humor columnist, published an article, “I Want a Wife, Too” in the May issue of Military Spouse magazine. Check out her 
a “unique category with maybe two or three billion people.”
has released a book, A Real Mother: stumbling through motherhood. A columnist for the Bozeman Daily Chronicle, she quips her bio reads like a bad joke: “After working as a lifeguard, a Peace Corps volunteer, a middle school teacher, a switchboard operator and finally, an attorney (but don’t hold that against her), she is uniquely qualified to do absolutely nothing. That is why she writes.”
Lisa Tognola’s parody ad for a “Hunk of the Month” club (made of “medical grade plastic … as close as you’ll get to the real thing”) is included in the new Valentine’s Day anthology 