What a fun day! The crew from Expanded Books came to the house from L.A. to shoot a video trailer for my new book. I wrote a script for the two-plus minute video that I kept revising right down to the last minute. I have new appreciation for actors now, because memorizing every word of that script was hard, as short as it was. But before I delivered my lines, I got made up by a pro named Patrice Ryan, who’s painted the faces of many a movie and TV star.

I told her I wanted to look like me only a whole lot better, and she obliged by giving me eyes that popped but didn’t go all raccoon.

Once we got rolling I really enjoyed the process, probably because I was allowed to “cheat” by glancing at the script every now and then.

The main thing is that I was able to look right into the camera and talk to the 65 million caregivers in America. I wanted to tell them that I wrote “You’d Better Not Die” for them – by sharing my own caregiving story with my husband Michael, by introducing the other resilient caregivers I interviewed and by providing advice from experts. The last line of the script invites viewers of the video to write to me with their own experiences and join the conversation. I sure hope they will.

Oh – in case anyone’s wondering, we shot the video in my office, with me in front of a green screen, because we’ll be using animation. I’ll be “talking” to characters that Expanded Books will create, and I can’t wait to see what they come up with.