Can't we do something about all these readers?

This week, while absent from The Blog, I interacted, often for hours at a stretch, with non-blog people. (Perfectly legal. Check your pre-nup.) These people knew, because my husband is over the moon about it, that I'd written a book. So I chatted with people over meals, and in elevators, and during briefings, about said book. I even sold four of them, and could have sold more, if I'd thought to alert the local bookstore to my close proximity. Next time, I'm doing that, even if it makes me feel like an egotistical idiot. (Maybe my husband will call the store for me. )

Anyhow, after filling them in on The Big Story of how I wrote Letters From Rapunzel, and how I won the contest, and how I waited, with the patience of a gargoyle, for it to be published, and then wrapped it all up with how little this has changed my life while simultaneously changing it forever, most people...no, all of them...asked me: so what's your next book?

Thank God I could tell them about the manuscript I'd just completed. I wasn't even phobic about interrupting my muse, because I'd gotten through a complete draft and was sure the story wasn't going to dry up and evaporate like good smell on a dog. This enabled me to survive a few more conversations in a few more elevators and bathrooms.

But then, and you know what's coming don't you? Someone asked: so, do you have an idea for the one after THAT?

It's a tough audience out there, my blog friends. They eat thousands of words a day and don't even take a dictionary break before holding out their book-hungry hands for more. (Just look at the questions J.K. Rowling is getting.)

I, for one, am willing to do my part. But you guys that keep saying you're gonna write a book "some day" and then keep producing excellent readers instead (teachers, I'm talking to you!) or filling hospital beds with patients who can't sit up but read like they're on crack (surgeons, I blame you!) or actually expose books on labeled shelves and then press them, FREE, into the hands of complete strangers (librarians, I'm on to you!) ....well, you'd better start pulling some of this load, because otherwise, we authors are gonna start recommending some darn good TV.