She writes one of those lifestyle columns you instinctively know you're going to hate. It's called "Real Life," but as any discerning newspaper reader knows, anytime a newspaper writer is set loose to write about "family issues," the column is going to be sappy, self-involved, and teeth-grittingly annoying. Emily Minor, however, rises above the my-life-is-so-damned-interesting phenomenon. Yes, her husband and her son are regular fixtures in the column she's been writing since 1995. But more often she leaves her family at home and writes about real people -- from parents watching their mentally handicapped adult child strive for independence, to a prominent doctor insisting that she didn't fully appreciate life until she got breast cancer, to a mother attending a Backstreet Boys concert to deal with her daughter's death. Minor isn't preachy, falsely modest, cloyingly familiar, or overly dramatic. "I'm such a beer-swilling slob," she writes. And you believe her and love her for it. In fact reading her column is a lot like having a beer with a friend who gives you something to think about but isn't offended if you disagree with her views. She's also not averse to stepping down from her lofty perch to write news stories. During the election melee that gripped Palm Beach County this past fall, she wrote profiles of elections supervisor Theresa LePore and county commissioner/canvassing board member Carol Roberts that depicted real women, not the monsters we saw in the national media. Moreover she's proof that in real life, stories don't always have storybook endings. Three years ago a New York literary agent contacted her about writing a book. The agent, Stephen Lord, discovered Jack Kerouac and, in so doing, gave the Beat generation its bible, On the Road. After getting an advance from Harcourt Brace, Minor took a six-month leave of absence to become an author. But when she was done, editors decided not to publish it. "My mom loves it," she says. That's real life.