589. Famous Author Writes To Me

So, not sure if I mentioned it or anything, but I wrote a book. The other day, I was thinking about all the people that had inspired me to write in the first place, and I kept circling back to this one really famous humor author. She has written about a dozen books, all on the NY Times best seller list. She uses ten dollar bills as coasters.

Anyhow, I was thinking (okay, I was drinking) and I thought, I should maybe email her! Yeah! Great idea! She has never met me, but I will offer to send her my book and maybe it will make her laugh!  And then we can be famous author friends!  And we can drink lattes together and laugh about how successful we are and how famous!  

Then Smart Part of my brain spoke up (this doesn’t happen often, so I did try to listen): “MOV, you have never even met Famous Author You Idolize, she might view it as cyber-stalking so I think it would be best to—”

This was right when that third (okay, fourth) glass of Chardonnay kicked in, so I clicked SEND.

I was really feeling woozy (what with it being Thanksgiving and all, did I mention I harassed Famous Author on Thanksgiving? No? I left that part out, oh well), so I went to bed and took a quick little cat-nap and promptly forgot all about Famous Author and my “Hi I want to be your new best friend you are so great I love you and do you wanna read my new book? I hope I am as funny as you, or maybe as funny as your shoe.” That is not exactly word-for-word verbatim precisely what I wrote, but you get the gist.

She. Wrote. Back. Immediately.

It was totally not the restraining-order-type of email I am used to. It was friendly. See for yourself:

Dear MOV—
Happy Thanksgiving to you, too! Congrats on the book, it feels wonderful to accomplish something of that magnitude, doesn't it! Thank you for being so kind, and I am delighted if I had anything at all to do with your inspiration. If you'd like to send me the book, I'd be happy to get it, but I should tell you one thing right away, and that is that I don't offer any sort of critiques or anything like that. There is only one person who has to be happy with the book, and that's you--your name is on it. I learned a long time ago that if you're going to get rejected or fall flat or out and out fail, it had better be your failure and no one else's. I've had editors change punchlines and no one catches the shit for a bad joke with my name on it but me. If you're really looking to workshop it, although I'm not really a big believer in that, either, there are plenty of online groups and probably a writer's group in your area. But the last thing I will do is give advice. Ever. Because I could be wrong. Humor is very subjective. And you shouldn't lose out on something because I'm a dipshit. But if you like, you can send me the file over email to this address. I'm swamped with my own deadlines right now, and will be for some time, but hopefully I will have some down time soon. So if you want to send your book to someone who won't give you any feedback because it's against her religion, I'm your girl.
Have a great holiday,
Signed, Very Famous Author that you could figure out who it is by looking on my Acknowledgement Page


Ohmygod-ohmygod-ohmygod. I ran to the kitchen to find a paper bag to breathe into before I passed out. Tall walked in.

“What are you doing, Mommy?” His little face looked aghast.

“I can’t breathe. A really famous author wrote me back!”

His eyes lit up like Christmas lights when you first plug them in to test to make sure none are broken.

“Mom! Was it Mark Twain?!”

Mark Twain! Why would he say that?

I shook my head at him and replied, “Yes.”

MOV