13 Things That Could Happen If...

My Successful Self-Made Hero

I'm taking a writing course from Holly Lisle, and in it, she suggested we let our muses run wild with the worst that could happen to us -- if we finish writing our current books. I modified my arm-length list to fit today's format of thirteen things.

What could happen
if I finish my book:

1. It will be published and become a best selling book.
2. It will receive accolades in the press.
3. A producer will buy the rights and make a movie.
4. The contract will have a hidden clause that lets them make carte blanche changes.
5. I'll be invited to meet the actor who plays my hero, but they'll have rewritten the part to make him a white, ivy-league college graduate alcoholic and mine was a black, self-made man who succeeded the hard way and doesn't drink because his daddy was an abusive drunk.
6. Instead of a Science Fiction Action Adventure, it will be a parody about cops in space, with an alien partner who looks like two floating people made from cheap green balloons, and he speaks only in burps.
7. They'll change it from a heart-warming romance to a good-cop/bad-cop bromance, with the alien duo-guy being the good cop, but no one knows what he's saying and the subtitles all say "Burp!"
8. It'll be rated PG, but it will have jokes that are inappropriate for kids, while lacking anything adults enjoy.
9. They'll hire an unknown cast of actors who have no box office draw, and can't act, so it'll be booed and hissed and called a failure for lousy FX.
10. The producers will sue me for making a Facebook page that urges people to boycott the film because they ruined the story.
11. I will take out a countersuit to clear my name -- but I'll lose.
12. Theaters will demand their money back, and the producers will tell them to sue me, and they will, and I'll lose again.
13. I'll live in a cave and never come out in the light of day, and I'll never write another book.
    
    

Their "Alien Buddy"

And all of that happens because I finish writing this book.

But maybe not.

Damn. I feel much better now. In fact, that was kind of fun! So... what's keeping you from writing your book?