Letter To Myself, Two Weeks Ago

Dear Self,

Congratulations on your book release in a few days! I know you're getting pretty excited, full of dreams and plans of world domination. And also full of white turkey chili if this letter is reaching you on Sunday night, February 6. I won't say whether or not you achieved your desired goals or time travel, which is how I'm writing this letter to you -- or if you just happened to run into one of the Doctors and borrow the TARDIS for a minute -- but I did want to give you a few pieces of advice that will make you, or me, a lot happier in two weeks.

1) Wash your hands. A lot.

2) Don't sign up for that Novelrank.com site. I know it seems like a good idea, to watch your meteoric rise to fame, but don't do it. Seriously. You're better off not knowing.

3) Also, don't click obsessively between Novelrank.com and Amazon just to see if it's telling the truth. It is. Told you you were better off not knowing.

4) Have you been washing your hands regularly? You might also want to wash the kids' hands. So what if they're old enough to do it themselves? They're doing a crap job. Do it anyway. Especially as soon as they get home from school.

5) That online chat you're worried about on the second Monday, where you're going to read the first chapter of your new novel One Thousand Kisses (http://store.samhainpublishing.com/thousand-kisses-p-6253.html) live on the internet? Drink the beer AFTER the reading. I'm just saying.

6) When your sister calls you the first two times on the 9th, answer the phone. It's very important. The third time she's pranking you, so you can let it go to the answering machine. Otherwise you're going to lose your train of thought and forget the very best line in the Great American Novel you're writing. I'm pretty sure of this, but I can't prove it. Yet. My hopes rest on you.

7) On the second Thursday, you may dream that you're trying to nap at your daughter's school and Sylvester Stallone shows up and tries to get in bed with you. To nap, goofball, not for anything else! And he's wearing his sunglasses. This is not a good sign. Wake Yourself Up Immediately, before the next part of the dream.

8) When you wake up, go wash your hands.

9) Then go to the grocery store before lunchtime -- the timing is VITAL -- and stock up on: disinfectant, electrolyte drinks, chicken soup, saltines, a new pillow, Tylenol, and a large print romance novel. Maybe you won't need these things; maybe you will. Depends on whether or not you took my advice to wash your hands.

9.5) Skip dinner.

10) If, at 4 am on Saturday morning you think you're hallucinating that the Tylenol you want to take looks like tiny little gnomes from your book, coming to eat you, you're not. It really looks like that. Oh, and the scales do indeed say you've lost 5 pounds in the past 36 hours. But the other thing, with the Care Bears? Total hallucination. Don't sweat it.

Have a great release week, and wash your hands! You're gonna need to.

Jody Wallace


Available now from Samhain - One Thousand Kisses!
One woman, one man, one world to save...and one scheming kitty with an agenda.
http://www.jodywallace.com/  * http://www.meankitty.com/