Maybe it’s because it’s Easter and people are eating *way* too much chocolate but I have found this week, in particular, to be quite entertaining. And by entertaining I mean that I’ve spent most of it ferreting emails or calls from people who went off their meds and decided to reach out to me.

Here is just a sampling of the week:

I was talking to someone about their new book when he said: “How long until I’m James Patterson?” My first inclination was to ask him: “Surgically?” Maybe he thought that my magical powers include being able to clone people. I get that it worked for Dolly the sheep but I’m not sure that the science has evolved to the point that we can clone humans to be fabulously wealthy and wildly successful authors. If that were the case, I can assure you the line for that would be very, very long.

So despite the fact that I was making wickedly sarcastic comments in my head, I knew he meant, of course, being as successful as Patterson because you know, again, my magical powers know no limits.

But sadly, I guess it’s time to admit that they kind of do have limits. I can’t market someone who sees nothing but Patterson’s success and thinks “that’s what I want and anything else will be a brutal disappointment.” It’s great to have goals but delusions should be met with medication.

Later that day someone sent me their elevator pitch for their book. The elevator pitch was three pages long. The definition of an elevator pitch is that you want it to be short enough to grab someone’s attention during an elevator ride and unless your lift is going to Mars, your pitch is too long. Also, it started out with “This should be an HBO movie.” And I should be married to Jon Hamm, neither of which is likely to happen.

Then at some point this week another author I was on the phone with said: “This industry is odd, none of you people work in actual offices, you work out of your homes. Guess no one is making any money.” Um. Sorry, wait. So you interpret the fact that we work out of our homes as being poor? No, that would be when you work out of your car and have since lost your home. This is entirely different. No longer having to cram myself into nylons and power suits is a hallmark of my success in my opinion. Also, you know I’m fairly certain Dell and Apple started out that way, too. Then he said, “I hate self-publishing, I wish you were Simon and Schuster.” I wasn’t actually sure how to take that. First off, if you hate self-publishing so much and think it’s your only hope, this whole thing probably won’t end well and second, if I was going to be magically turned into a business it would probably be Nordstrom or Sephora or something really cool where I could shop and play dress up all day.

My last email for the week was arguably the best, only because it was something to write home about immediately. And by “home” I mean my best girlfriends. It was from a ghostwriter, who ended up being the author’s mother (weird), about a vagina book (weirder). I kid you not, it’s a vagina 101 book that helps you figure out what’s going on “down there”, especially when you catch yourself saying things like, “My Thang Be Raggedy!” I hate when that happens. But at least it includes the bonus “Boo-Yah for Your Hoo-Hah” chapter to get you back on track. Sigh. I couldn’t possibly market this book with this insane language and concept, last I checked women take their vaginas pretty seriously, and Google still reigns king when digging up info on topics that are usually kept private. Plus it’s FREE. And in case I have to say it, here’s my latest PSA, if there’s anything suspicious happening with your vagina, don’t self-assess, make an appointment.

So cheers to another week of the hilarity that is my life, hopefully by next Monday people will come down from their sugar highs, sigh a collective, “What was I thinking?” and send me Starbucks gift cards as apologies. Or Jon Hamm.

A girl can dream.