Writing a Terrible Wrong

Attention! Miss Crankypants has been given the wrong life! When she awoke this morning, there it was–a completely unrecognizable writer’s life had taken over her body. Why is this a problem? She thought you’d never ask.
See, when she retired last evening, she’d just sat through a two-hour class on breastfeeding. OK–you in the back row–enough with the snickering. Miss CP’s daughter is a few weeks shy of giving birth and needed the support. Never mind that every husband in the room looked as if they’d rather be hit multiple times with an iron skillet than talk about, uh, breasts. The instructor kept holding up a fake b****t which was so far off the real thing that Miss Cranky couldn’t stop giggling. Please. 
It didn’t even sag!
But back to the Great Writer’s Life Switcheroo. While slumbering, she dreamed a dream. In it, she was standing with Oprah, an adoring crowd at her feet. The crowd was filled with editors from the Big 6, movie producers and yes, a few readers. All wanting a piece of the action. Showering her with money. Clipping out copies of the NYT bestseller list with Miss CP’s book at number one. For the past 47 years!
You can’t blame her–every serious writer spends more time daydreaming about hitting the big time than actual writing. Why? Because writing well is at least as hard as breastfeeding! As Miss CP found out last night, many male writers of the world will never learn the proper way to massage an engorged bosom, avoid gassy foods or freeze expressed milk. No. They’d rather get on their knees and beg you to pummel them with the frying pan.
Meanwhile, Miss Cranky greets the day by discovering that there are bodysnatchers out there! Someone has stolen her Bestselling Writer with Lots of Awards body and replaced it with a run-of-the-mill ignoble MIDLIST WRITER body. Totally unknown. Doomed to slave over thousand page manuscripts about dwarves with Welsh-sounding unpronounceable names, forever stranded in the backwaters of the literary world.
Miss Crankypants is issuing a Purple Alert: If you see her Famous Author self walking around someplace, demand that it be returned to its writeful owner. Either that or clock it good with an iron skillet.

About Linda S. Clare

I'm an author, speaker, writing coach and mentor. I teach both fiction and nonfiction writing at Lane Community College and in the doctoral program as expert writing advisor for George Fox University. I love helping writers improve their craft and I'm both an avid reader and writer of stories about those with wounded hearts.

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