This is what I came up with when doing a writing exercise I found online where they ask you to start with “I remember…” This is how bad things have gotten here, folks. I am consulting Google to find things to write about.
I remember when I would write something just for the hell of it for my blog. It was like who cares, you know because there was no pressure. It was going to be like a 2-6 paragraph endeavor, max, so what was the big whoop. I would get an idea and then wham, I would write about it.

And then people were like “Pam, you need to write a book!” Not tons of people or anything, but Dan and my mom. And Julie Westre, my friend from grad school. And my sister, too, she was a supporter of the idea. So I had a fan club of four people, three of whom I have/will share the same last name. So I was like cool, yeah, a book, what a great idea, a BOOK! This is my greatest idea yet. And I formed a writing group with my friend Mariah and a couple other girls and it was all yeah totally, a book, perfect, blah blah blah.

I have had three weeks since our group’s last meeting to get started and I have done NOTHING. I haven’t even BLOGGED. This is ridiculous. It truly is. For a while I thought the fact that I have written nothing (not even a letter to my pen pal. Jen, I am sorry I totally have “write Jen” on my to do list but I have been very busy not writing my book) and the fact that I am supposed to produce a start to this book were totally unrelated but I realize now they have everything to do with one another. The mere idea of writing a book (I know, I agreed to consider it only chapter by chapter but really a chapter is part of a BOOK. I know that. I am not dumb, so I can’t fool myself by thinking “Chapter has nothing to do with Book.” Because it has EVERYTHING to do with book! Duh!!)… scares the bejeezus out of me. I literally don’t know where to begin or what it would be about.

I thought I had this great idea, that I would write a book about all the stupid dates and relationships I have had but then I was like, Oh no that will never work. If anything sexual came up that would be strange for my parents to read. But then who would want to read my book if there was no sex in it? And how could I tell the truth about any of the people I have been with, because if they ever read the book (lucky for me at least two of them don’t actually read books, but still what if they changed? I have heard people can change), then it would hurt their feelings. And if I didn’t tell the truth it would not be interesting or funny so then what is the point of that.

So then the obvious next thing would be some other kind of memoir. But then I was like seriously? Me? Write a memoir? But nothing has ever really happened to be that would be memoir-worthy. I went to the Borders last night in search of Anita Diamant’s “The New Jewish Wedding” but I got sidetracked and perused some memoirs. I got all excited when I started to read the back of one. The woman grew up in a nuclear family (Yes! That is just like me!) and pretty much had a charmed life (Double yes! That is like me too!) and a loving husband (I’m gonna have that in a little over a year!) and then her life gets flipped upside down when she is diagnosed with breast cancer. What!? That is not like me! That is not like me at all! Don’t get me wrong, I have the utmost respect for this author. I mean, mad props if you can get through cancer and publish a book about it. That is awesome. But I wanted to find a memoir about someone like ME. Well not just like me, of course, because no one will publish your book if there is already one exactly like it. But I wanted one like me enough that I could use it as inspiration. A concrete example of a published author who actually didn’t have a whole lot to share but whose work people were clamoring to read anyway. If you know one please list it in the comments. I need to get going on this book thing so I can quit having to go to work, which I’m sure everyone here understands.