Publishing a book can take a long time. A very long time. So while we wait, here are some suggestions to while away the time, and make those minutes fly!
1.) Write the next book – Hey, I’m working on it!
2.) Draw every single scene in the first book. (I’m not sure I like drawing as much as that.)
3.) Steam clean my entire house. (Blech.)
4.) Steam clean my entire yard. (Acre and a half – that’s a lot of steam.)
5.) Build my library/workroom.
6.) Build A library… ANY library…
7.) Build a gigantic pencil as a monument to writers everywhere. I’ve got a big backyard – it’ll fit!
8.) Build a gigantic pencil sharpener for the gigantic pencil monument.
9.) Road test office chairs – see how many times I can spin around in them before they break or I throw up.
10.) Stand in the middle of the street and scream cuss words every ten minutes. Take a survey of how many people come running. Be very official and write it down on a clipboard and mutter things like "Very good, very good" or "No, no, no… this won't do at all". Time how long it takes for the sheriff to show up!
11.) Join a Search and Rescue Team and go on an expedition to find the lost city of Atlantis and rescue them, whether they want to be rescued or not!
12.) Convert my entire acre and a half to a pumpkin farm!
13.) Break dozens of mirrors and mosaic the entire outside of my house with them. OoooooOOOOOOOoooooooh! Shiny!
14.) Go to acting school and become a thespian!
15.) Bake a different batch of cookies every day.
16.) Practice the violin and become a virtuoso. Or is that virtuosa, since I’m a girl?
17.) Join a biker gang, and start bar fights.
18.) Teach the biker gang how to needlepoint!
19.) Take over the bar in town with our biker gang / needlepoint club, and stitch seat covers for all the bar stools.
20.) Open a B&B, get a five-star rating and then close it… just because.
21.) See how many stickers it would take to COVER townhall.
22.) Take up carving and painting ostrich eggs.
23.) See how long it would take to literally dig a hole to China.
24.) Learn the art of origami.
25.) Sculpt 20:1 scale statues of all my characters in the middle of town.
26.) Become an expert in protocol and take over Pluotistan.
27.) Join the circus and become an expert juggler.
28.) Collect nuts for winter.
29.) Find a prince, marry him, and then leave him because HE'S not good enough.
30.) Have the biker gang/ needlepoint club stitch slip covers for every piece of furniture I own.
31.) Endeavor to be the very best at my day job I can be. Nah! That's just crazy talk.
32.) Open a speakeasy in my basement.
33.) Learn to ride a unicycle.
34.) Make fudge!
35.) Make fudge in the speakeasy while riding a unicycle.
36.) Discover life on Mars.
37.) Team up with yard gnomes to become a public nuisance.
38.) Build a better mousetrap.
39.) Invent a hairstyle no one’s ever seen before.
40.) Make cheese.
41.) Grow an entire yard full of Titan Arum (Google it if you don’t know what it is) and sell tickets when they bloom. NOTE: Best not to do this in YOUR yard. Any yard across town will do.
42.) Do the Macarena!
43.) Become a warrior first class and ambush cars, challenging them to a duel to the death using only Cheetos® and Barbie® shoes as weapons!
44.) Write fan letters to Norse gods.
45.) Handwrite a copy of ‘War and Peace’ on Post-It® notes. C’mon now! No cheating! Use the little ones!
46.) Build a diorama.
47.) Organize my sock drawer.
48.) Organize my friend’s sock drawers.
49.) Organize my family’s sock drawers.
50.) Organize my neighbor’s sock drawers.
51.) Call my mom for bail money because it turns out that surprising your neighbors by organizing their sock drawers is considered ‘breaking and entering’. Who knew?
52.) Paint a replica of the Sistine Chapel on your ceiling.
53.) French braid my grass.
54.) Make certain insinuations.
55.) Make other insinuations.
56.) Learn to jitterbug.
57.) Throw a carnival in the back yard and make it free admission to get in but charge people enormous fees to get out.
58.) Make mud pies.
59.) Build a birdhouse metropolis in my vacant lot.
60.) Take up casual dentistry.
61.) Make noise.
62.) Ride a bike along the river and pretend to speak French to everyone encountered.
63.) Except if you encounter anyone who actually IS French, in which case, you probably shouldn’t do that. They’ll think you’re weird.
64.) Take a nice, long nap.
65.) Learn to blow bubbles in the shape of a Zeppelin.
66.) Teach Charlie to make Eggs Benedict.
67.) Teach Charlie not to gobble down the Eggs Benedict, but to serve them like a gentlemen.
68.) Gently admonish Charlie for not listening as you try to teach him how to… HEY! GIVE THAT BACK YOU LITTLE BRAT!
69.) Wrest the frying pan from Charlie before he burns himself!!!
70.) Design a line of Bertie Botts Every Flavor Ice Cream in the most disgusting flavors.
71.) Fend off lawsuit for copyright and registered trademark infringement.
72.) Design a line of Auntie Myrtle’s All Kinds O’ Gunk Disgusting Flavored Ice Cream.
73.) Figure out what to do with all that nasty ice cream because, as it turns out, no one is curious about Toecheesecake Ripple or Vomint Bon Bon flavored ice cream.
74.) Take up boogie boarding… in Iowa… where there is no water in which to boogie, to speak of…
75.) More writing than you can shake a stick at.
76.) Shake a stick at your writing.
77.) Wonder why the heck you’re shaking a stick at anything because that’s just dumb.
78.) Read up on the history of the marconigram.
79.) Do something with marshmallows.
80.) Build a stinky igloo with mothballs.
81.) Make waves.
82.) Kick butt and take names.
83.) Learn to tat.
84.) Memorize 1,001 uses for Crisco®.
85.) Feed the Hunger.
86.) Learn to tie a sailor’s knot.
87.) Make polyjuice potion.
88.) Reenact every episode of Doctor Who ever made with homemade sock puppets and Weebles dolls (Don't know that Weebles are? Weebles wobble but they don't fall down! Still don't know? Oh, for heaven's sake! Look it up on Wikipedia!).
89.) Learn to salsa.
90.) Learn to make salsa.
91.) Take a class in the History of Classical Dead Sea Karaoke.
92.) Call your mother.
93.) Build a website to honor and showcase widgets.
94.) Make excuses.
95.) Paint the town red.
96.) Hide the red paint cans and brushes in the Titan Arum patch when the cops come sniffin’ around because someone defaced the town with red paint and stickers.
97.) Smell the roses.
98.) Wake up and smell the coffee.
99.) Drink the coffee.
100.) Don’t drink the roses - those thorns really smart going down.
101.) Become a famous aardvark photography hunter.
1.) Write the next book – Hey, I’m working on it!
2.) Draw every single scene in the first book. (I’m not sure I like drawing as much as that.)
3.) Steam clean my entire house. (Blech.)
4.) Steam clean my entire yard. (Acre and a half – that’s a lot of steam.)
5.) Build my library/workroom.
6.) Build A library… ANY library…
7.) Build a gigantic pencil as a monument to writers everywhere. I’ve got a big backyard – it’ll fit!
8.) Build a gigantic pencil sharpener for the gigantic pencil monument.
9.) Road test office chairs – see how many times I can spin around in them before they break or I throw up.
10.) Stand in the middle of the street and scream cuss words every ten minutes. Take a survey of how many people come running. Be very official and write it down on a clipboard and mutter things like "Very good, very good" or "No, no, no… this won't do at all". Time how long it takes for the sheriff to show up!
11.) Join a Search and Rescue Team and go on an expedition to find the lost city of Atlantis and rescue them, whether they want to be rescued or not!
12.) Convert my entire acre and a half to a pumpkin farm!
13.) Break dozens of mirrors and mosaic the entire outside of my house with them. OoooooOOOOOOOoooooooh! Shiny!
14.) Go to acting school and become a thespian!
15.) Bake a different batch of cookies every day.
16.) Practice the violin and become a virtuoso. Or is that virtuosa, since I’m a girl?
17.) Join a biker gang, and start bar fights.
18.) Teach the biker gang how to needlepoint!
19.) Take over the bar in town with our biker gang / needlepoint club, and stitch seat covers for all the bar stools.
20.) Open a B&B, get a five-star rating and then close it… just because.
21.) See how many stickers it would take to COVER townhall.
22.) Take up carving and painting ostrich eggs.
23.) See how long it would take to literally dig a hole to China.
24.) Learn the art of origami.
25.) Sculpt 20:1 scale statues of all my characters in the middle of town.
26.) Become an expert in protocol and take over Pluotistan.
27.) Join the circus and become an expert juggler.
28.) Collect nuts for winter.
29.) Find a prince, marry him, and then leave him because HE'S not good enough.
30.) Have the biker gang/ needlepoint club stitch slip covers for every piece of furniture I own.
31.) Endeavor to be the very best at my day job I can be. Nah! That's just crazy talk.
32.) Open a speakeasy in my basement.
33.) Learn to ride a unicycle.
34.) Make fudge!
35.) Make fudge in the speakeasy while riding a unicycle.
36.) Discover life on Mars.
37.) Team up with yard gnomes to become a public nuisance.
38.) Build a better mousetrap.
39.) Invent a hairstyle no one’s ever seen before.
40.) Make cheese.
41.) Grow an entire yard full of Titan Arum (Google it if you don’t know what it is) and sell tickets when they bloom. NOTE: Best not to do this in YOUR yard. Any yard across town will do.
42.) Do the Macarena!
43.) Become a warrior first class and ambush cars, challenging them to a duel to the death using only Cheetos® and Barbie® shoes as weapons!
44.) Write fan letters to Norse gods.
45.) Handwrite a copy of ‘War and Peace’ on Post-It® notes. C’mon now! No cheating! Use the little ones!
46.) Build a diorama.
47.) Organize my sock drawer.
48.) Organize my friend’s sock drawers.
49.) Organize my family’s sock drawers.
50.) Organize my neighbor’s sock drawers.
51.) Call my mom for bail money because it turns out that surprising your neighbors by organizing their sock drawers is considered ‘breaking and entering’. Who knew?
52.) Paint a replica of the Sistine Chapel on your ceiling.
53.) French braid my grass.
54.) Make certain insinuations.
55.) Make other insinuations.
56.) Learn to jitterbug.
57.) Throw a carnival in the back yard and make it free admission to get in but charge people enormous fees to get out.
58.) Make mud pies.
59.) Build a birdhouse metropolis in my vacant lot.
60.) Take up casual dentistry.
61.) Make noise.
62.) Ride a bike along the river and pretend to speak French to everyone encountered.
63.) Except if you encounter anyone who actually IS French, in which case, you probably shouldn’t do that. They’ll think you’re weird.
64.) Take a nice, long nap.
65.) Learn to blow bubbles in the shape of a Zeppelin.
66.) Teach Charlie to make Eggs Benedict.
67.) Teach Charlie not to gobble down the Eggs Benedict, but to serve them like a gentlemen.
68.) Gently admonish Charlie for not listening as you try to teach him how to… HEY! GIVE THAT BACK YOU LITTLE BRAT!
69.) Wrest the frying pan from Charlie before he burns himself!!!
70.) Design a line of Bertie Botts Every Flavor Ice Cream in the most disgusting flavors.
71.) Fend off lawsuit for copyright and registered trademark infringement.
72.) Design a line of Auntie Myrtle’s All Kinds O’ Gunk Disgusting Flavored Ice Cream.
73.) Figure out what to do with all that nasty ice cream because, as it turns out, no one is curious about Toecheesecake Ripple or Vomint Bon Bon flavored ice cream.
74.) Take up boogie boarding… in Iowa… where there is no water in which to boogie, to speak of…
75.) More writing than you can shake a stick at.
76.) Shake a stick at your writing.
77.) Wonder why the heck you’re shaking a stick at anything because that’s just dumb.
78.) Read up on the history of the marconigram.
79.) Do something with marshmallows.
80.) Build a stinky igloo with mothballs.
81.) Make waves.
82.) Kick butt and take names.
83.) Learn to tat.
84.) Memorize 1,001 uses for Crisco®.
85.) Feed the Hunger.
86.) Learn to tie a sailor’s knot.
87.) Make polyjuice potion.
88.) Reenact every episode of Doctor Who ever made with homemade sock puppets and Weebles dolls (Don't know that Weebles are? Weebles wobble but they don't fall down! Still don't know? Oh, for heaven's sake! Look it up on Wikipedia!).
89.) Learn to salsa.
90.) Learn to make salsa.
91.) Take a class in the History of Classical Dead Sea Karaoke.
92.) Call your mother.
93.) Build a website to honor and showcase widgets.
94.) Make excuses.
95.) Paint the town red.
96.) Hide the red paint cans and brushes in the Titan Arum patch when the cops come sniffin’ around because someone defaced the town with red paint and stickers.
97.) Smell the roses.
98.) Wake up and smell the coffee.
99.) Drink the coffee.
100.) Don’t drink the roses - those thorns really smart going down.
101.) Become a famous aardvark photography hunter.
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