How Not to Write a Book

Never ever ever tell anyone you are writing a book.  Chances are they are too.  Or they will ask what it is about, a natural question.  But if you are not entirely sure what it is about and are letting the characters direct you, it is a hard question to answer.

I am now going to tell you exactly how not to write a book.

1) Spend hours making the perfect playlist that you will listen to when you write

 2) Eat an entire pound bag of M&M's while making the above playlist so you feel too fat to write.  Because naturally you want to be thin for the book release and book tour.

3) Imagine the hotel room you will be staying in when you are on your book tour.

4) Feel sick from the imaginary sushi you had while in the hotel.

 5) Stress that no one shows up to your reading at Barnes and Noble.

6) Wonder if there will even be Barnes and Nobles left by the time your book is finished.

7) Dance to that one song on the playlist that you probably should not have put on the "Writing my book list."

8) redo playlist.

9) Realize that you would never have gotten sick from sushi because you hate sushi and would not have ordered it. But your imaginary publicist took you out to dinner, you nibbled and could not wait to grab a burger to eat in the hotel room while treating yourself to a pay per view movie on the hotel's TV.  A movie you meant to go see when it was in the theaters, but in actuality you were really too lazy to actually go.

10) Worry about run-on sentences.

11) Get the cat off the keyboard.  This takes at least ten tries and leaves you feeling guilty.

12) Pet the cat.

13) Convince yourself that if you just quit your job the book would get written.

14) Mentally compose a resignation letter.

15) Completely wrong song, back to the playlist for more editing.

16) Have an imaginary argument with family members over the book because they think you revealed too much even if you did change names, dates, genders, and all relatable facts.

17) Listen closely to the lyrics of the song currently playing and smile because you are so in love.

18) Ignore the reminder that pops up to call your mother because you just do not have the mental energy to talk to her and feel the pain of all that is missing due to her disease.

19) Think of the character in your book that has some of the qualities of your mother, and promise to finish the book in time for her to read it.

20)  Close out facebook and open up Word and look at the blank screen and realize you need a diet coke and cigarettes to get started.  Close the laptop.

Congratulations, contrary to what this list represents, realize you wrote it down, which means you wrote something, which means  you ARE a writer. 

Hallelujah!  (Rufus Wainwright version song #28 on playlist)