I'm going to write a book.

#truth

2007

I started to write a novel. It was pure chick lit, loosely based on the time I spent living in Boston (and by 'loosely based' I mean landmarks and activities, not actual people, save for the parts about the homeless guy who begged for money every day on the Boston Common – he was real).

Then, in what could only be called a true tragedy, my laptop died and I lost everything.

I.lost.everything.

Including, the 150 pages that I had written.

'But surely you had backed up your novel?' any normal person with common sense would ask, incredulously.

Well, I didn't.

I know.

Plus, it was on my work computer, so I didn't want to draw too much attention to the matter. As it was, the IT team was a little suspicious that I was that upset over a few lost headlines about sandwiches.

NOTE TO MY CURRENT EMPLOYER: I have received your multitude of email threats gentle reminders and have taken the mandated video training course (see how fun my job is!) about the "Code of Ethics, Computer Use for Personal Projects, and Harassment", passed the test, and fully comply. Thank you.

Present Day

So what was that proverbial straw, that "aha!" moment, that wake-up call where the clouds disappeared and there were rainbows and unicorns?

Reese Witherspoon.

Actually, it was Reese Witherspoon's character in the endearing rom-com Sweet Home Alabama (don't judge me).

After Wedding Crashers, Father of the Bride and Horrible Bosses, Sweet Home Alabama is one of my most-quotable movies.

The scene:

Reese Witherspoon's character, Melanie, is out at a honky tonk bar back in her hometown in Alabama, when she runs into her high school best friend LurLynn, who is hanging out at said bar, holding her baby.

Reese, startled, looks at her and says with horror, "You have a baby…at a bar."

It's a classic line, and one I repeat when I find myself and Mr. KK at a bar with OUR bar baby in tow. Which is often.

My eureka went down like this:

I was at the gym this morning (yay, me!), Kindle propped up, reading Una LaMarche's memoir, Unabrow: Misadventures of a Late Bloomer (which is hilarious, btw), when SHE quoted that very same line – MY line! – from Sweet Home Alabama.

What Una didn't know – and neither did anyone else, for that matter – was that I was going to quote that line as part of an upcoming post on this very blog.

So naturally my thought process went something like this:

          "Hey! I use that quote all the time!"

          "A very talented, published author used the same quote – 
          in a very similar way!"

          "I could be a published author!"


So at a stage in my life when I have the least amount of free time ever, and am pretty much destined to fail (I'm sure there are statistics somewhere that document how hard it is to get published), I'm going to commit to doing it. 

I will write a book.

THERE. 

I said it on the internet, so it must be true.

POST SCRIPT: At any point, audience, feel free to let me know if you know of any literary agents who might want to take a chance on a semi-humorous, pear-shaped girl who can cook but not bake, believes babies belong in bars, shames people who aren't good at multi-tasking, and who blames her shrinking pants on the dry clean delivery guy (who, it should be known, is her father). 

Thanks, in advance!