People will tell you anything.

I have heard many people say that having a book is like having a baby.

I'm starting to think those people lying liars full of lies.


Exhibit 1:
When people have a baby, they generally gain weight.
I? Am losing weight.

Okay, it's probably due to the fact that I spend like 7-10 hours a week in the gym these days and count Weight Watcher Points until I'm almost mental. But the nausea and diarrhea brought on by stress is helping. I know it is.

Exhibit 2:
When you are pregnant, people don't look at you in disbelief when you tell them the news and say things like, "How did this happen for YOU?"

Okay, maybe people would if *I* got pregnant. But in general, they just know you did it with someone. When someone decides to publish your book, on the other hand, a lot of people act like it's amazing that someone as stupid and devoid of talent as you are can have something like this happen.

Exhibit 3:
There are no drugs.

When I gave birth I was pretty loopy. Having to do all of this while just being high on life or whatever is not the same.

Exhibit 4:
Most people get to be pregnant for nine months.

Okay, so I didn't. And maybe my book is like MY personal pregnancy. But I got the official letter and contract on 11/17/08 and the book is coming out on 2/3/09. I get to gestate for less than three months y'all.

Exhibit 5:
No one, other than your immediate family and friends, cares when you have a baby.

I'm sorry. I know that sounds mean. I'm sure your baby is lovely and I'm sure if I knew you I would love your baby. But if I don't know you? While I don't want anything bad to happen to you or your baby, I don't care about your baby either.

Many, many people care when you have a book. More on that in Exhibit 6.

Exhibit 6:
Unless you are Jon and Kate plus 8 or the Duggar family, having a baby is not a money-making opportunity.

Hence, the caring mentioned in Exhibit 5. My success is other people's success. Or some crap.

Exhibit 7:
No one gives you gifts when you have a book.

No showers in which you have to wear a bouquet of diapers or pacifiers. No sitting in an uncomfortable chair in the church basement when you are eight months pregnant and your husband left you and you can't stop crying.

Oh wait. Let me change that to:

No one gives you a shower when you have a book. Yay!

Exhibit 8:
Other than looking haggard all the time, there are no outward signs that you are having a book.

When you have a baby, at some point people are going to figure it out. I mean, there have been a few documented cases of people hiding their pregnancies, but frankly? Those always end really badly. For the most part, people can know and see that a baby is going to eventually come out of you.

I, on the other hand, walk around work and no one other than the people that sit immediately within my office, is aware that I'm having a book. The people sitting immediately beside me know because I lost my shit one day when the publisher called me and after I hung up I started shrieking and bawling things like, "Book Expo America!" and "Oprah girlfriend!" and "That guy who was on Sesame Street!"

But no one else knows.

And frankly? No one here gives two craps about me anyway, so it's probably fine they don't know.

Exhibit 9:
When you have a baby unless you are a crackwhore or in prision you get to take the baby home and raise it.

When you have a book you raise the idea up and then have to send it out into the cruel, cold world of queries and mean rejections and bad reviews on Amazon by men who totally can't take a joke when it reminds them to much of themselves. You have to watch your carefully cultivated dream get smashed a million times and listen to people who say things like, "No one cares about you and your life" or "This is crap".

And most people don't call your child crap. Not to your face anyway.

Exhibit 10:
No one can sell your baby on Amazon.com or eBay if they don't like it.

They just hate on you in private. They can't physically get rid of you and your baby.




So anyway. February 3rd, 2009. I'll have pre-order information for my baby soon.