When I was a sophomore in college, my best friend Amy and I ate a lot of Chinese food. Amy would take the fortunes from her fortune cookie and tape them to the back of a spiral notepad. By the end of the semester, the reverse cover of her notebook would be plastered with little white slips in neat rows from top to bottom.

I was fascinated by the practice, and started doing the same. (Disclaimer: as much as I enjoyed Chinese food (and still do), my notebooks never achieved the same coverage Amy’s did.)

To this day, I retain my fortunes (often lamenting that fortune cookies have stopped dispensing predictions and starting meting out platitudes). But every once in while, one comes along that is particularly fitting to my writing life.

My favorite, taped to my computer monitor:

All your hard work will soon be paid off. 🙂

Yes, it even contains the smiley, albeit in black and white. Now, as far as I’m concerned, this prediction hasn’t come true yet – no novel published so far, right?  “Soon” is definitely a time span defined by the writer-gods. Or, on the other hand, fortunes could be a lot of bunk…which is what I’m hoping because…

Woe unto me, here is my latest:

Folks, for a writer, it doesn’t get any worse than this.

Or does it? I’d love to hear from anyone else who’s been cookie-cursed! Please share in the comments.