Who Wants to Give Me a Book Deal?

It is already a sunny, warm 75 degrees here, near the stinky, humid Ohio River.  It's will only get warmer and more humid, I guarantee.  My cats have already found the shady, darker corners of my condo and lay on the cooler, bamboo floors instead of their usual fleece blankets...maybe now I'll get to use my electric blanket while Fiona finds respite elsewhere.  Not that I want to, though.  It is hot!

Yesterday I helped a friend paint her new flat; she is renovating it and we also managed to pull up some old flooring in preparation for her new carpet to be laid tomorrow.  I'll be going back today, to help again.  It's been a lot of fun to hang out with her, and know that I'm being useful and helpful.  It beats sitting around the house, watching the cats keep cool.  

Today I'll also be meeting a friend who I haven't see for a while, and we'll eat our brown bag lunches in the center of the business district where she works.  She's having her first baby in August, a little girl.  It's exciting to see people moving in the direction of their lives.

Which brings me to mine.  I've devised a plan...yes, another plan.  I know, I know, I have a new one every other day, but there's nothing wrong with having options, right?  I've been reading Elizabeth Gilbert's book, Eat. Pray. Love. and it has inspired me.  Ms. Gilbert wanted to find a way to be closer to God, so she took reprieve from her regular life to live in Italy for four months, then in an Ashram in India, and now I'm to the part where she stays with a Balinese medicine man.  She's a professional writer so it was no thing for her to secure a book deal before she left, in order to tell her tale. 

Perhaps I don't write for my living, and never have, but I'm a great writer and I'm sure that given the opportunity to tell my story, readers could embrace it as their own.  That is, if they are an almost 30 year old single woman who was forced to give up her good job, home and car and reinvent herself.  And, if she doesn't know if she wants kids, doesn't know what the next step should be, and wants now to be someone different than before.  Haven't we all gone through that amazing journey of self-discovery?  Well, I suppose for some people it's easier than that.

This weekend, I went to a tarot card reader.  There was a neighbourhood festival and she happened to be there.  For a mere $10, a ten minute reading told me that I am a light and advanced being.  The lighter one is, however, the more complex.  The reader held my hand and was agitated that she had such a short amount of time for such a complex being.  But, she told me that the cards told her that I should let go of the controlling past (i.e. the responsibility, etc.) and there would be great change in my life.  That I needed to invoke my creativity as it was wanting desperately to be released.  She said there was travel in my future.  And that I would not get married for a while, maybe another 6-7 years.  She also saw lots of kids in my future (yikes!).  Perhaps they were my own, but perhaps also I am a teacher or something along those lines.  I have always dreamt of running an orphanage.  All my own little babies and kids to love and cherish, without having had to birth them.  Sounds quite ideal to me.  

So I'm looking for a book deal.  An advance would be nice so that I can afford my time abroad.  I think now is the time for me to just take a great, big leap into the world.  It's a little scary to decide to just roam the world for a while, but immensely exhilarating at the same time.  I'm sure friends will come visit when and where they can and want.  Perhaps I can also find a writing gig that at least pays a little bit, to support my travel habit.  

But now is the time for me to do this.  I'll never again get this chance.  I wish I'd done this 10 months ago, at the beginning of all this, but undoubtedly I wouldn't have gained from it what I believe I'll gain from it now.

If you know of anyone (perhaps yourself?) who wants to give me a book deal, please let me know!  If I want to change the world, I have to go see it first.