Oh honey you don't look like you weigh that much.

As you may remember, a few weeks ago, I discovered that I am my own brand. Now I’m learning that me, my brand, and I need to be building a “platform”. The platform (people who get your newsletters, go to your workshops, etc.) needs to be a big one to make me more attractive to agents and publishers. For me a platform needs to be a big one to support my family sized (thanks to mac cheese) booty.

Since I want it all – a BIG platform AND a smaller booty. I decided to take me and my booty over to Curves (before I go to Curves each day I’ll need to carb load on mac cheese.) I’m here to tell you that I met my new best friend today at Curves. It's the woman who enrolled me. We’ll just call her Mrs. Curves. She showed me the circuit and it looked doable. I decided to sign right on up. Now comes the fun part. Mrs. Curves now knows things about me that dear Earnest (and you) will NEVER know and I’m not a big secret keeper.

In a kind, soft, but regretful voice, Mrs. Curves asked “how much do you weigh?” I’d just gotten the bad news earlier on my own scale. So I took a deep breath, held my head high, and pretended to say the number with self-respect and dignity. Mrs. Curves' response showed surprise and she said in her kind, soft, regretful voice “oh honey you don’t look like you weigh that much.” She might have even meant it. If not, she gave on Oscar worthy performance to get the $34 monthly fee.

Next question – “how old are you?” This time I don’t have to pretend as much to be okay. I tell her I’m 50. Mrs. Curves’ response again shows surprise and her tone is still kind and soft “oh honey you don’t look like you are 50. You look …uh …er ...you look… good.” At this point I don’t know whether to hug Mrs. Curves and make her my honorary auntie or start crying. Does she mean women who are 50 and weigh as much as I do don’t normally look at good as I do – so I must be a wonderful specimen? Or does she mean women who are 50 and weigh as much as I do are repulsive beasts who scare small children? Maybe she thinks I look good because children are only mildly nauseated and anxious in my presence.

I’ve long believed that everything in life is a choice and that every choice has a consequence. Consequently, I’ve chosen to go with the “I must be a wonderful specimen” option. Since I look so darn good, I better keep doing what I’m doing and eat an extra serving of mac cheese tonight. After all it’s gotten me this far…

Name Brand or Generic

I've always been a generic kind of girl. I figure why spend money to buy a product name when the store brand's just as good. Except purses that is. Everyone knows how much I like the purses whose brand name rhymes with roach. I admit it. Even when I buy mac cheese in a box I get the store brand. There I said it out loud. A couple of my friends are cringing right now. They wouldn't be caught dead with store brand mac cheese (if not careful it might kill us though!) If the box isn't blue and the name doesn't rhyme with "raft" it isn't going in their basket.

So why in the world is this author talking about brands? Because I just found out I am one. OMG - simple little Earnestine May is her very own brand. No more cheap imitations of me. No hiding behind someone else's wisdom. I'm "going for it" by writing my own book.

When the book is on the shelf at Barnes and Noble, it needs to say "look at me, that's right take me off the shelf, thumb through my pages, hold me, feel me, look at my picture, TAKE ME HOME!!!!" Oh dear, and I said I wasn't going to write adult content in this blog. It sounds like some crazy profile in getlaidnow dot com.

But evidently, I'd better figure out how get comfortable selling myself. And while I'm at it, I'd better stop eating so much mac cheese. If my book went to press today, we'd have to lay it out in a landscape format so there would be enough room for my butt on the back cover. Okay - now I'm scaring myself. Better stop before I get depressed and fire up a generic bowl of comfort! You know - the stuff that rhymes with "snack please."

TTFN - More soon...