In foregoing the entertaining tidbits of my crazy life, I thought that
you might be interested in how this literary adventure came to fruition. It
began at a dinner party. It was one of those events us mommies usually
appreciate because we have been trapped in the universe of little people so
long that the idea of conversation, cocktails, and the company of other
women/mommies makes us drool with anticipation. The all girl event had my fellow
moms and I giddy with feelings of camaraderie, freedom, and honesty as we
swapped stories of wifery and motherhood.
After the dinner had been served and the dessert had been devoured, a
lovely, well-seasoned, Mormon mother who had ten children came over to
introduce herself. As she shook my hand, she declared that she thought that I
should write a book. She explained that although she knew that I was trying to
be humorous, she actually thought my ideas about parenting were clever. She
said that I helped her realize that many of the things she thought about parenting, or felt guilty for were actually normal. Parenting is enormously rewarding but it is also exceedingly more difficult
than we could have imagined. Thus, because of a dinner party and a compliment,
a book was born.
Now, a little background information for you; I have never thought of
myself as a writer. Lacking interest in literary pursuits, I didn’t pay real close
attention to the rules of grammar and have thanked the computer gods regularly for
developing spell check. This writing thing is not as easy as one might think.
The book took me approximately two years to write, rewrite, and write again.
Finally, when I felt it was as good as I could possible get it, I hired a
friend of a family member to edit it. She probably is a very nice person. I
wouldn’t really know because after ten pages she politely quit. Once I
relocated my self-esteem, I decided that maybe I should interview and hire a
professional to edit my masterpiece.
Our first choice for editorial guru was J.K. Kelley, and it was
possibly the first right turn we made on the literary highway. We chose him
because he didn’t try to placate me with misplaced compliments about my writing
abilities. He was always very honest and forthright about his opinions and explanations
as to where I had veered off the written path. I am positive that dragging my dirty
literary butt out of the metaphoric laundry mat was challenging. I am deeply grateful
for his assiduousness (thank you thesaurus) because the final product
is something we are immensely proud of.
Following his tutorial advice, we learned that the next step was to
hire a proofreader, other than himself, to catch any further errors or
omissions in grammatical technicalities. We contacted our second editorial genius,
Jackie Getz, and begged her to revisit our literary endeavor with a critical
eye. This was our second right decision. Where J.K. Kelley is the lemony vodka
in the lemondrop cocktail, Jackie Getz is the sugar. I chose J.K. originally
because I am an impatient kinda girl who wants to cut out the bullshit and get
to the point. I tend to be a bit pragmatic in my approach. During the original
interview, Jackie said exactly the same things J.K. said, she just said them
softer. In fact, she has graciously agreed to edit all the blogs you read here
and all the content on the website as well.
Now we are ready to publish. It has been quite a journey filled with
frustration and excitement. I hope that you find the book informative, clever,
and funny. I hope it creates a dialog for you with your partner, your friends,
or even yourself about how you parent. The title is It’s Not Rocket Science, It’s Parenthood!
Warm regards and happy reading.
Yay!!! You did it! So happy for you. Awesome to say you are a published author. Congrats!
ReplyDeleteThank you LauraLee. We're very excited.
ReplyDelete