What do writers major in?

In honor of graduation month, I'm re-running one of my fave posts: IF YOU WANT TO BE A WRITER, WHAT SHOULD YOU MAJOR IN? Major in statistics. You’ll learn the odds of getting traditionally published are roughly three zillion to one. Major in economics. You’ll understand why the publishing companies may never put you on a book tour or run an ad for your book in The New Yorker. Major in law. You can fight Google and everyone else who wants to offer your book as a free download. Major in journalism. Your future will appear so tenuous your parents will beg you to be a novelist instead. Major in history. You’ll unearth enough material that you won’t need to invest in research and travel, which you’ll never make back on your advance. Major in drama. Being rejected during auditions will make being rejected on paper seem like child’s play. Major in forensics. When you inevitably end up writing for a hack TV crime show, you won’t have to work too hard. Major in English. That’s what all the English majors would tell you to do. Major in computer science. You can invent something with a better name than “vook.” And you can charge all your other writer friends to do their e-Book formatting. Major in Spanish. It will help your parents understand your Hemingway-esque desire to run with the bulls. Major in psychology. Trust me --it’s easier to work through daddy issues on the couch than on the page. Major in Phys Ed. Most first-time authors are attractive and fit. (Oh, don’t tell me you don’t look at those author photos!) Major in music. Since you may be singing the blues for awhile, you may as well be in tune. FACT: Writers major in all kinds of things, and have a variety of jobs and life skills that fuel their writing. So go ahead and take that gig as a mall Santa. It will pay off a second time, when you can write about it.

How about you.

How about you? Have you experienced this? Please share. I HATE how all blog posts, no matter how long they are, always end with these sentences. It annoys me almost as much as the emails from POTUS that have "hey" in the subject line. It's a thing. It's what you do. I HATE IT. It's like a phone call with a narcissistic friend, who blathers on about themselves for an hour and then, when you'd chew off your own arm to get off the phone, remembers to ask: So how are you? This is my cat. How about you? Do you have a cat?

Stages.

Guess I’ve been working too hard, because I had an advertising dream last night. We were waiting for the clients to fly in from Gibson Guitar. (Since I once worked on Martin Guitar, this fact alone was hilarious to me.) We had a lot of work we weren’t sure about. My art director said suddenly, “what if it’s a rocker who just wants to do an acoustic song? It could start out ‘44 cities.’ “ I took out a pen and scribbled this on the back of a photo: 44 cities. Millions of tickets. And the ache to find one genuine moment of connection. When it’s just you, A guitar, And a lump in your throat, Make it a Gibson. Gibson Guitars. Our world is your stage. I woke up just as the client walked in the room. My stage, for 20 years.

Book Shame.

1. I hate Shakespeare. Even if my kid's performing in it. 2. When people say "Dickensian" I don't really get what they mean. 3. I read two pages of Middlemarch and said, 'meh.' 4. Yes, I threw The English Patient across a hotel room, upending a $10 bottle of Voss water. 5. When grad students read my first novel for their class, they asked me questions I didn't understand. 6. I never cracked open a spine by James Joyce. I don't deserve to be an author! 7. The Great Gatsby may be my favorite novel because it has small words. It's possible. 8. Footnotes make me want to kill someone. 9. It took me six months to read Bring Up The Bodies because I didn't get who was talking. Huh? What? 10.Told my husband that reading Harry Potter to the kids would cement their relationship. When in fact, I just didn't wanna do it myself.

So much.

There is so much I don't know. Here is how un-literate I am (as if the use of that word didn't tell you): Until a few months ago, I thought The Paris Review was a daily French newspaper. Yes, I did. Then I stumbled upon a link to an interview with an author, and I thought, wow, they have an English section? And they cover books? Then, perusing the site I Figured. It. Out.

New Audiobook Anthology! Yay!

Are you an audiobook lover? (Many book clubbers are, I know.) Proud that our Liars Club Anthology, Liar Liar, is now in audiobook form, with my story, Shuffle, featured along with 14 others. Mystery, paranormal, and, just well, some skewed views of normal await you. More short stories and maybe a novella coming soon while "the next novel" is being sorted by the people who run the world!

No, thank you.

The thank you notes from book clubs are wonderful, of course, but nowhere near as fun as the thank you notes from high school students. Yesterday a packet of thank yous from Kerri Schuster's writing class at Sacred Heart High School arrived -- filled with beautiful handwriting, carefully constructed ideas, and lovely admonitions such as "Stay Excellent." Words to write by.