All right, time to stop pussyfooting around. I gotta get started with a new book. I already have three partially-written books to choose from!

It’s just that once you lose momentum on a project, it’s hard to get it back. Especially when it sucks, as all first drafts inevitably do. So I’ve got two partially written Nanowrimo drafts – this years and last’s – both of which I had to put down because of my little darling novel. Besides those two, there is my unfinished “first book,” but it’s really like Breakup Babe, the Early Years. I’m thinking we don’t really need a prequel to BB.

So, as you can see, I’m full of excuses. But it’s time to just take one of those ideas – or a brand new one – and just bash out a VERY BAD first draft. Because, the truth is, even though I fully expect to become a bestselling author toute de suite, and for Leonardo diCaprio to invite me to live on his own personal island with him to help him get over Gisele - even if I never have to toil in the innards of Geeksoft again – the sad fact is that if I’m not writing, I won’t be happy. Even with Leonardo and all our combined millions.

Now there are things to write other than books, it’s true. I’d also like to become a writer for glossy magazines, jetting off on assignment to Tahiti or the Yukon whenever I feel like it. I’m working on that. But I think I thrive on the sort of sustained creative effort it takes to write a book and I think that by the end of next month, I need to have a VERY BADLY WRITTEN FIRST DRAFT of something. Anything.

I also thrive on love, just like every other damn person on the planet, and – despite some run-of-the-mill “issues” – am actually pretty lovable! Yet love eludes me, time after time. These days I have a new song to sing in the band – a Maria McKee song (recently covered by the Dixie Chicks) – that I get to belt out very melodramatically. It starts out like this and continues in the same self-pitying vein:

There is no good reason I should have to feel so alone
I’m smothered by this emptiness, Lord I wish I was made of stone…

Blah blah blah

Another night surROUNDS me, And it POUNDS me like a wave
God HELP me, am I the only one who’s EVER felt this way!

At which point I fall down on stage and put a knife through my heart. Now I’m no Natalie Maines but she’s all happily married and stuff now. I think I bring a little more feeling to the song, if not quite the same vocal styling.

In still more non-love-news, what do you know but the object of all those slo-mo dreams unexpectedly extends an offer to spend more time with me. Gulp. Though I can still say there is only a 96.8% chance we will never have a lasting relationship, I now rate my chance of throwing myself at him in a fit of love-starved passion as about 39%.

But enough of me and my self-pity. It’s time to check in with Trixie and see what she’s got on deck for this holiday weekend, during which I, Breakup Babe, am ORPHANED and SAD.

BB: Trixie, what’s the latest in love?

Trixie: (Impatiently). What’s love got to do with it? You know I’ve given up on love for a while and am all about s*x.

BB: Really? I wish I could be that way! I mean, I used to sleep around a lot but now I don’t even sleep with someone until I know the relationship is going somewhere, which means, well –

Trixie: Yes, BB, we know what that means. Why don’t you give yourself a little break this holiday season? You know, take a “vacation from implication” and just f*ck some hot guy. (Takes a sip of her Cosmo and looks at BB with clear and sparkling eyes. She looks suspiciously fresh for getting only four hours of sleep last night.). I mean, no wonder you’re so uptight.

BB: Well…like who?

Trixie: Oh, you know, what about that hot stunt pilot you’re about to go on a date with? I mean, the stuff he does is so f*cking dangerous he’ll be dead soon anyway; you don’t really have time to wait around, if you know what I mean.

BB: (Shocked. Then thoughtful.). Hmm. Well – I don’t – I mean -

Trixie: (Drains her drink and stands up. All heads swivel at the sight of her long legs encased in the clingiest corduroy.). Listen chick, I gotta go get a bikini wax. Think about it anyway, OK? You’re looking a little – I dunno – tense.

BB: (Feeling a bit self-conscious in her baggy-at-the-butt jeans, wondering if she too, should get a biking wax.). OK, I’ll think about it. See ya. (Trixie breezes out of the bar without a care in the world, leaving BB behind, even more loaded down with worry than she was before).

But never fear, my darlings, with the help of alcohol, I shall survive this holiday season! May your own holidays be full of presents.

Toodles,
BB