NAME MY NEW BOOK AND THEN WRITE IT FOR ME

For years, my friends have been telling me to write a book. Usually they say something like that after I've told them about the latest wreck I've made of my love life or, more often, lack of a love life. If some guy isn't gumming things up, as it were, there's always my family, my career, my health, or my wardrobe. Nothing is exempt from my screw ups and therefore, my friends' entertainment.

Part of me wonders if my friends think I've been doing the things I do and living the life I've lived, just so I have something to talk about at the end of it all. I guess that's the upside. The downside is I don't know how much more time I have to put pen to paper. Or fingers to keyboard. I probably shouldn't wait too long to get started. I would hate to write a great opening paragraph and croak.
 
But that's the risk I'm taking now, the longer I wait to write whatever it is I'm going to write. It's not for lack of motivation. I am motivated to do this. Heaven knows if I live long enough people are going to expect me to retire. And having a book to peddle from my shopping cart will help defray the cost of cat food.

But I don't know what to write about. I ask my friends and they say things like "Write what you know." Easy for them to say.

What do I know? I know I can't write a novel. I haven't got the patience, perseverance or the organizational skills, not to mention the imagination to create an interesting plot. 

"Write a romance." There is no more ironic word in my life right now. I'll leave the heaving breastesses to women who believe that some guy looking like Fabio is actually going to sweep them up and take them away from all this. Wait till they find out he's gay.

Memoirs are a hot new genre lately. I actually thought about trying to write a memoir, but the good ones are really juicy and my white girl suburban existence is so not on anybody's radar. Tell us, Mrs. Linklater, how did you survive having a cleaning lady just one day a week?

Also one of my kids has already asked me not use her name, likeness, or anything she says to me in my journal. So I have been wondering how to mention her without mentioning her, given those parameters.

There's always How-To books. I wonder if there is a How to Write a How-To book? There must be. Everything's been written about ad nauseum. Except for books about relationships. You can't kill relationships. I know. I have tried. But there are 356,455 million books on relationships hoping to get on Oprah.  I don't need to be number 356,456.    

As for other How-To subjects, my style is less Mrs. Fix-It and more Mrs. Mess-it-Up-But-Good. How to offend anyone in a heartbeat would be perfect for my personality type. But ever since we've embraced diversity, being offensive is just so offensive these days. 

There's always a slot available on the how to look young and stay young forever shelf. Lately they've been telling us that forty is the new thirty, fifty is the new forty. And I can vouch for the fact that sixty-two is the new 57.  

I wonder if anyone would believe that living alone is the new married? 

I'm at a loss here. Perhaps some of you would have some ideas I could, uh, borrow, to get me on the path to writing this book I have to write before I die. That's the last thing I have left to do. I've done everything else. Okay, not that. But first, maybe the book should have a title. So help me with that. You can worry about the rest later. I mean, I can worry about the rest later.