If you want to write a book, first you buy a pretty journal.

Then you open the pretty journal and you naively hope that inspiration hits about the main character but it doesn’t so you sit there on your butt and slug down coffee and eat chocolate even though it is morning and chocolate is not recommended as a healthy breakfast alternative.

You stare at the blank page and nothing comes at all, not one hint of an idea of who this book will be about, so you think it would be best to wander around your house aimlessly and meow at the cat and she meows back and you do it again and you know you are in a serious conversation with your cat and you don’t think this is odd at all and then you pretend to clean but you don’t really clean because cleaning is so very, very boring.

You know that you could be abducted by handsome green aliens tomorrow to Jupiter and if you had spent today cleaning that would really tick you off.

Eventually, after days of staring at those blank pages in the pretty journal, curse them, you hate them, those white, pale, insipid pages, you think of a character but she is stupid. She is wimpy or whiny or weak. She is dull or complainy.

She does not have real problems only thinks that she has real problems so you go back to eating chocolate on your butt and muttering to yourself and meowing and not cleaning because of the upcoming handsome alien abduction.

You know your character needs a job so you ask Daughter Number Two, Adventurous Singing Daughter, what kind of job your character should have and she looks at you impatiently, sighs and rolls her eyes, as she is reading a really good book, not yours and she says, “Mom, just make her unemployed,” and she goes back to reading her really good book, not yours.

And you ask Daughter Number One, Rebel Dancing Daughter what kind of job your character should have and she doesn’t know but she is so excited because she wants to travel to some dangerous country in Africa or the middle east and you can feel your hair turning white the more that little mouth goes on and on about “exploring the world,” and then she says what would you say if I told you I was dating a vampire?

And you don’t know what to say because but you realize that your mother lied to you by omission by not being honest about how mind boggling it is to raise teenagers, especially ones with wild streaks, like your children, and you just want to start drinking but you remind yourself that you don’t drink but then you say to yourself, “Maybe I should start up.”

And you ask Darling Laughing Son what job your character should have and he says, “I dunno. But I’m hungry again,” and you say, “You have already been fed and watered with four meals today and it’s only two o’clock in the afternoon,” and he says, “I’m starving to death, momma. I’m starving. Can you make me something?” and you do make him something because you cannot have Darling Laughing Son starving to death on your watch.

And you ask Innocent Husband to whom you have been married to for twenty three years what kind of job your character should have and he says,“You look good tonight, baby. Let’s just go to bed.”

And one night you finally get an idea for a character and then you have to give her a family and friends and maybe someone irritating and mean in her life, too, unless she is a loner, sort of like you, you really need to get out more when you are writing your books, you weird hermit, and definitely this character must have problems and conflicts and a past but you can’t think of anything you haven’t already written about so you start thinking about writing a romance book with steamy scenes instead and you find your husband, to whom you have been married to for twenty three years and you say, “You look good tonight, baby. Let’s just go to bed.”

But in the morning no ideas arrive and you think you should go back to being a fourth grade teacher again, the kids were nice and the other teachers were cool cats, but you would have to get up by 6:30 in the morning to get there on time and Lord A Mercy, so help me God, you know that that would be impossible for you to get your big butt out of bed at that time.

You bang your head on a table, as if that will knock some smarts into your little brain, or at least a small plot, and it doesn’t because banging your head on the table has not worked in the past, you have done it enough so you should know this by now, you weird hermit fool.

But finally you have a plot and you wait for the first sentence of the book to come through the sky like lightning so you can start writing but it doesn’t and obsessively buying more flowers and plants for your garden does not help because flowers and plants do not talk or think, at least that is what most scientists say.

Finally the first sentence comes because you have begged your little brain to think of something, anything, only one damn sentence, holy moly that is all I am asking for, and you start writing 2000 words a day and when the first draft is done you read it and say out loud to yourself, “You suck,” because, frankly, you do. You do suck.

And the edits begin, endless edits, eight or nine before it even goes to the agent and editor, and by the time it’s done your eyes are fuzzy and you can’t breathe quite right and you are still eating chocolate for breakfast, which is again, not a recommended breakfast alternative, and you need to go outside and talk to people, as you have not been abducted by handsome green aliens, you weird meowing hermit and you need to see if your friends are still friends with you, you do.

And that is how a book is written.

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