There are two kinds of people in life: the kind who are happy to let you have the last word, and the ones like me. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mean that getting in the last word is necessarily a bad thing. But I’ll admit that when my friend Wanda sent me a thank you gift after we hosted her in our home for a week, my first thought was, “Oh, I need to send her a thank you note.” And then I had to remind myself that her gift was a thank you. If I sent a note, would she then have to send me an email, thanking me for my note? And then would I follow with another email, telling her it was my pleasure? Ummm…well, if I’m honest…then, yes. That’s how it would go. At least until Wanda got tired of the thank yous and moved on with her life.

And what do you do when two people who are in regular contact are both the Last Word Type? My agent and I can go on all day long trying to get in the last witty email, the last joke, the last and final closure to what should’ve been a quick exchange. Don’t get me wrong, I think we both have fun doing this, but how much work are we getting done? Luckily, my agent has perfected the last word. He sends an email with nothing but a smiley face. How can I answer that? With two smiley faces? Even I know when I’m facing a professional Last Word Type.

But here’s the deal…with a book due on March 1st, and my first novel being released May 13th, my daily email has already started to skyrocket (all in a good way). In addition to the writing deadline, there are all kinds of promotion things to do, guest blogs and interviews, hunting up indie bookstores, checking my hourly sales ranking on Amazon. What I’ve discovered is that I barely have time to answer the emails I need to answer, let alone thank you for thanking me for thanking you for thanking me. So, as of now, I am going to try to become one of those other people. The one who lets you have the last word!