By Jeff Guinn | Star Telegram

Patricia Heaton swears she's not obsessing about whether she'll win her third consecutive Emmy award Sunday for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series.

"See, it's when you win your third in a row that you hear everybody else in the audience groaning," Heaton says during a late afternoon phone interview with the Star-Telegram. "I remember hearing it when Helen Hunt won it for what, the third or fourth consecutive time? And I'm already worried about what I'd say in my acceptance speech if it's me again. I'd have to sound grateful, humble and, besides, it doesn't matter because Jennifer Aniston is going to win, anyway."

Heaton, the popular co-star of the equally popular TV series Everybody Loves Raymond, currently has more than the Emmys on her mind. This week, the 44-year-old actress's first book, Motherhood & Hollywood: How To Get a Job Like Mine, hits shelves. In the book, Heaton offers wry commentary on the odd life experienced by anyone trying to enjoy both a reasonably normal family life and all the heady, stressful excitement of show business.

"I specifically did not want to write about the show," Heaton says. "That's because Ray [Romano] really is not that funny. No, it was because I wanted to talk about the differences between perception and reality."

Heaton wrote the book by herself, at night, "from about 10 p.m. to midnight, after my four sons were in bed. And when I'd get stuck, when I'd need some suggestions, I'd go to my brother, who's a journalist, and he'd help. We have the same sense of humor."

It shows. In conversation or print, Heaton's hysterical. She writes openly about undergoing cosmetic surgery, reconciling herself to the tabloid press, trying to have sex with her husband without the kids wandering in, and, above all, the struggles it takes for most wannabe actors to survive until a show biz break finally arrives.

"I wrote several chapters titled 'Survival Jobs,' " Heaton says. "Serving room service breakfasts in a hotel, waitressing, copy editing, so many different things. And after I wrote those chapters and saw how long they were, I was amazed to realize I'd still left out some of the jobs I took just to keep on eating and paying the rent. For instance, the one-and-a-half days I put in as a phone solicitor. That's the worst job in the world, and I just blocked it out of my memory afterward. I really cannot believe what I went through to make it as an actress."

But Heaton finally did get her breaks, culminating with a co-starring role in Everybody Loves Raymond in 1996. The Emmys she won in 2000 and 2001 have helped cement her reputation as one of TV's top stars. But now she expects it to end.

"I think that now there will always be some work for me in TV, for which I'm grateful, but it starts getting difficult for women in their 40s," Heaton says. "You have limited shelf life. That's why I want to branch out. My husband and I have a production company. I'd like to write more. It's all about expanding my professional options."

A third consecutive Emmy wouldn't hurt, of course.

"Hey, I don't put myself in these things not to win," Heaton admits. "I'm extremely competitive. Once my husband and I were on Madison Avenue in New York City, and People magazine was shooting this photo spread of us. Everybody passing kept turning around to stare, wondering who these pictures were being taken of. My husband said, 'Doesn't it feel odd having everybody stare at us?' And I said, 'Actually, from the time I was little this is the way I always thought people should react to me.' "

'I'd like to thank . . .'

These are some of the things Patricia Heaton says about the Emmy Awards in Motherhood & Hollywood: How To Get a Job Like Mine (Villard, $22.95):

"I find myself constantly on edge as I sit in my seat, fighting a huge emotional battle -- trying not to care, trying to be OK with the fact that I care way too much. All this with a camera on me (ohmigod, did he catch me picking my nose?). Now, there's some acting.

"The struggles that go on in that auditorium for those two hours are so embarrassingly painful that I have nothing but pity for us all. No wonder it makes such good television. Why not bring back bear-baiting?

"In 2000, the impossible happened. I won the Emmy for Best Actress in a Comedy . . . It was, for me, beyond the beyond . . . only my children's births were more exciting (and I'm sticking that in here only because otherwise I'll look like a shallow jerk -- I don't even remember my kids being born)."