I wanted

• to write a book that would tear your insides apart with laughter, not heartbreak.
• to write tiny bites of my life with enough humor to leave my readers with howling belly aches over exaggerated blimps and bleeps.
• to write the best selling memoir full of wit and wisdom, one that would live on the nightstand of every parent on this earth who might need a quick dose of humor following a particularly harrowing day.
• to write with a keen sense of humor to keep my readers turning the pages (or swiping their Kindles) to the very last word.
• to write the takeaways that would lead to joyful resolution for all who read my words.

Meanwhile I have

• written the necessary 90,000 words of a pitiful and shitty first draft (ala Anne Lamott), just to get over it.
• highlighted the questionabull, deleted the distractabull, rewritten the sustainabull, and added the conceivabull.
• hit the muddy middle and squirreled away at least sixty hours of mindless FaceBook gaming in the last thirty days.

The time has come

• to send away the critics and bring in the clowns.
• to let go of the past.
• to write that final chapter.

If nothing else comes of this

• I can say I wrote a book
• My inner self will be sufficiently mended.
• I can be a better person.
• I still have a sense of humor.

BUT maybe one day I’ll sit at the Algonquin table in Dorothy Parker’s mink coat signing copies of my phenomenal book.