You might be an author if...

I've been a little under the weather today, which usually means I'm forced to stay home, stay in bed, and stay off the computer, simply because I don't feel like doing anything else. However, today -- even as crappy as I felt -- I had to fight with myself not to pull the laptop out, like, a billion times. I failed a couple of times, which got me to thinking, and what do I tend to do in these type of situations? Poke fun at myself, of course.

I compiled a mental list that I figured I would share with the rest of you. You know Jeff Foxworthy's catch phrase "You might be a redneck if..." followed by some funny reason you're probably a redneck? Well, I came up with my own "You might be an author if..." reasons.

You might be an author if...

• You find yourself checking (fill in the blank - Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble or all of the above) at least 10,000 times a day to see if anyone new has posted a review or rating of your latest book. Nevermind that you checked 30 seconds ago. 30 seconds is plenty of time for someone new to post a new review/rating!
• It doesn't matter where you go - the grocery store, an elementary school, CHURCH! -- you have to resist the urge to fall to your knees and beg everyone around you to please, for the love of all that is holy, please buy your book! Your cat/dog/child really needs to eat.
• You find yourself checking your e-mail inbox every 5 to 10 minutes to see if a Google alert about a new review for your book has popped in, or if a book reviewer has responded to your request to review your book, or if Steven Spielburg has contacted you about securing the film rights to your book (hey, it could happen!).
• You find yourself checking your actual mailbox multiple times a day (before your mailman ever comes) because you're waiting on a query response from that certain book editor/agent concerning that partial/full submission of your next manuscript. You keep thinking, "It's been 8 weeks already! Why the hell hasn't he/she responded yet?!?"
• You only get about two hours sleep before you have to be at your full-time job because, dammit, your characters were feeding you great information and you had no choice but to stay up all right drinking coffee to get it all into a Word document.
• The next day, you realize your characters fed you crappy information, and you delete the before-mentioned Word document and start all over again.
  
• You have to resist the urge to argue with bad reviews about your book on Amazon/Goodreads/Barnes & Noble. What do they mean, they hated your heroine? I mean, seriously?!
  

And the No. 1 reason you know you might be an author...

• You start wondering if you need therapy or medication because you've become so neurotic over your book's sales or reviews, and because you do everything listed above - and then some!

Who’s hungry for some book-related movies? Me me me me!

I don’t hide the fact that I am currently obsessed with two YA series that are also both (or will be) movie series too. Of course I’m talking about “The Hunger Games” and “Twilight.”

I know what you’re probably thinking. But Angie, you’re a romance writer, not a YA author! I know. I know. Believe me, I know. I used to only read strictly romance or mainstream novels until I went and saw the first “Twilight” movie with my niece and nephew (teens at the time). It was cheesy. It was overly dramatic. It was full of face shots that held waaay too long on the actors who wore waaay too much pasty makeup. I absolutely loved it! So I ran out, got the books and devoured them in record time. It took me longer to catch onto “The Hunger Games” because — let’s be honest — the premise sounds godawful, doesn’t it? Kids being forced to kill kids. Who wants to read that?!? Well, me, apparently, cause I finally read it on recommendation and LOVED it. Suzanne Collins did a fantastic job with that series. Don’t let the morbid premise deter you.

Why do I mention these things? Because my giddy little fangirl heart is all aflutter with excitement and can hardly stand to wait for next week to get here. First, Good Morning America will premiere the full-length trailer for “The Hunger Games” movie on Monday. Squee! Second, “Breaking Dawn Part 1” — my favorite book in the series, I might add — hits theaters midnight Thursday/Friday a.m. Squee! Squee!

I know I should probably be participating in NaNoWriMo along with so many of my fellow authors, but I’m too busy setting my VCR (yes, I still own a VCR — so what?) and spending all my free time channel surfing for interviews with the Twilight cast.

Priorities, people. What can I say?