Today’s post started sounding like another Poor Pitiful Pearl post (Mom always said that — I think after the doll, though William Steig created the character), so I deleted it and started over, very tongue in cheek.
- A real author doesn’t need a day job.
- A real author has sold a book.
- No, a real author has sold more than one book.
- A real author has someone else to clean her house so she has time to write. (And a real author’s desk is never messy.)
- A real author wears tweed with pearls or a pipe, depending on inclination.
- A real author doesn’t care what anyone else thinks.
- A real author doesn’t need editing.
- A real author’s genius is recognized by everybody.
- A real author sells everything she writes.
- A real author has editors knocking on her door to see if she’s written anything they can publish.
- A real author has a gold-plated keyboard, works one hour a day, and jets around the world every weekend.
- A real author has a matched pair of dodos trained to walk on leashes and pick up after themselves — and they dye their feathers to match her outfit every morning.
- A real author keeps emeralds in the crisper drawer with all the other greens.
- A real author has a chauffeur to take her to book signings, and a masseuse to make certain her hands don’t cramp up from writing by hand too much.
- A real author doesn’t have to tell anyone that they’ve just got another book or story out because everyone knows.
- A real author is the ideal weight, gets plenty of exercise, and always sleeps eight hours each night, unless she’s out dancing until dawn at an embassy ball.
- A real author never gets papercuts.
- A real author is instantly recognized at every library and bookstore, even the library at her children’s school.
- A real author creates in perfect isolation, never accused of taking an idea someone else has used, and all of her peers acknowledge her craft to be of the finest.
- A real author has to decide which Silver Ghost to take to opening night when they make movies from her books.
- A real author never dies because the universe can’t bear to lose her creative genius.
- A real author is enjoyed on planets we haven’t even heard of yet.
Above all, a real author makes up lies about herself as much as she does about the world around her.
