Writing is like trying to make sense of an inside joke you have with yourself but haha joke's on you 'cause the joke is more sad than funny. Are poetry readings like really weird AA meetings? How can you be upset that your short stories get rejected when you're constantly rejecting love? Would it have been easier for Luke Skywalker to become a certified Jedi had he first gotten an MFA degree? Acclaimed author/publisher Brian Alan Ellis tries answering the tough questions in Sad Laughter, possibly the all-time greatest non-essential writers manual ever written in the history of letters, where the sacred cow that is the literary community (from academia through independent publishing) gets roasted alive via hilariously nihilistic bon mots (think The Elements of Stylemeets Jack Handey's Deep Thoughts) about what it takes to survive as an artist in the social media age.