BIGGEST FAILURE IS MY GREATEST SUCCESS

We interrupt this blog, which had been focusing on mental health and my own journey into mindfulness and inner peace, to report:

Hell has frozen over (literally, because it’s about -5 degrees here in Rhode Island) NOT ONLY is Donald Trump still president, BUT ALSO I just signed a contract with a publisher for one of my books!

2018, so far, has exceed any expectations, which isn’t hard, since I, long ago, gave up on believing in expectations, especially when it comes to writing and publishing.

My publishing story is long and sad and funny. If I ever get it together enough to write a memoir (terrified), I would call it Failing Forward. It’s not that original or clever but, then again, titles are NOT my forte—see all of my previously (self) published novels.  

I’ve detailed my story in various writing forms and across various blogs. A year ago, I tried to cram it all into what I referred to as a “blogmoir”. Click here to read.

I only reached chapter four, but with this recent turn of events, let’s skip all the way to chapter…let’s say, ten.

Failing Forward: Chapter 10

It’s the end of 2015, and I break up with my agent, but we are still “seeing each other”, so-to-speak, as we await to hear from some publishers we had submitted to prior to our break-up.

By early 2016, I receive the final rejection, and so begins a new journey in writing and publishing. One of total and utter, delicious FREEDOM!!!!!

For the first time in 10 years, I will be completely and totally free from obligation to someone else about MY writing. From 2005 to 2009, I was signed with my first agent (actually, she was my second, but like many “firsts” in life, that one didn’t actually count), which resulted in countless misses and a few near-hits. From 2009 to 2011, I was at the Solstice MFA program where I was (albeit happily) beholden to multiple mentors and deadlines. Then, from 2011 to 2015, I was signed with this most recent agent, a relationship that wasn’t right for me—though she was a funny and interesting woman—it wasn’t a match. I knew this from the start, but back then, I was desperate for a book deal…about as desperate as I was in high school for the attention of a certain soccer player…so desperate I allowed him to drunkenly slobber all over me at the homecoming dance my sophomore year, even though he already had a certain cheerleader girlfriend…desperate was a theme for me for a long time.

[By the way, that story was fictionalized and featured in volume three of Sucker Literary—shameless plugs will begin now!]

Anyway, after the break-up, I am lost but in a really good way. I go back into therapy (What else do you do when you have failed at something for almost 20 years, that is your passion for your entire life?) and together, my therapist and I come up with a plan: instead of the goal being success, it would now be FAILURE.

My shrink, a total CBT kind of guy, believes that I need to become desensitized to failure.

The objective of this plan is to seek out as many publications as possible, big and small, and submit…anything. Articles, manuscripts, whatever. Submit and get rejected. He even advised for me to send out some really bad writing to increase the chances of FAILURE.  

So, I go NUTS with my submissions…old blog posts, old short stories, new pieces, bad pieces and good pieces. The rejections come flying in pretty quickly. Sometimes I don’t even read past the first line of, “Thank you for your submission. Unfortunately…”  

After about the fifth rejection, the sinking sensation of failure in my stomach is gone. By the tenth, I don’t even care. At some point, I start to write new pieces about failure and mental health. I begin to realize that I actually don’t want to be the next Judy Blume (somebody once referred to me this way). I just want to be me, a woman who writes about whatever she wants.

By this point, my success or failure to become a published writer no longer defines me. I devote my time to my family and to finishing school for mental health counseling. Along the way, I also encounter some major health issues in both 2016 (a colon operation for a noncancerous yet sizeable tumor) and 2017 (a small bowel blockage). Each moment in the hospital reminds me of what I really value, and it isn’t a book deal with Random House.

In between hospital stays, summer of 2016 and then summer of 2017, something amazing and unexpected happens—success. One after another, over the span of about a year, I have some first-person essays published by internationally read mental health sites (The Mighty, MindBodyGreen, and OC87 Recovery Diaries.) I even get a nice check for one of those essays. Every one of those pieces had been previously rejected, multiple times by multiple places.

Yet, suddenly, it is my time.

And then, just this week, the most significant success of all—a book contract from Black Rose Writing. Mind you, this is a place that I previously received one of those rejections from, a rejection that, for all intents and purposes, I sought out!  

I want to take a moment to underscore this story with the fact that I had EVERY reason to believe that I would be successful as an author. Whether it was creating a literary magazine that landed me in Publishers Weekly or winning first place of a Writer’s Digest contest or simply that both agents I had sought me out, rather than me seeking their representation. So, my failure to launch as an author was all the more depressing because the expectations were so very high. Everyone—from mentors to fellow writer friends to agents—thought I would make it.

But I didn’t make it.

Yet, that failure has been my greatest success.

Check out this piece from NPR about a man who sought out rejection after a break up. 

Self-Trust, Self-Publish, Self-Promote

The Rug Pulled Out

I am getting better at riding out the shit that life throws me. Right now, in my personal life, the life I don’t write about in my blog (believe it or not I do keep some things to my self), I have had something happen to me that is best analogized with this: You are walking on, what appears to be, a lovely bike path, nice and flat, miles and miles of easy asphalt ahead of you.  You are just going and swinging alone, enjoying the feeling of moving forward, the lovely scenery with water to your left and a thicket of trees to your right.  Then, suddenly, upon the next step, you drop, fall, down, down, down, and land in  new place, bruised and lost. It’s sudden. There’s no warning. And now, you have to figure out what to do.

This “shit” that life has thrown me is not the worst thing to have happened to me ever-that would be death, divorce, or illness. It’s none of those. Maybe that’s why while this sometimes wakes me in the middle of the night, but my heart doesn’t pound and I don’t get a tightness in my chest. While I am consumed with it in my head during the day, it’s more just the buzz and noise behind everything else.

So, it’s not that bad. I guess.

But, the point is, the reason for me sharing this with you all is that this “shit” has given me some perspective on my writing, and more importantly, (what this blog entry will eventually be about) on the marketing of my new book, Fear of Falling.

Struggle?

Due to this shit in my life, marketing my book seems like a minor concern and yet, at the same time I say that, I feel guilty. I shouldn’t neglect this book.  Marketing is my duty in a way that when you create something, with it comes the responsibility of caring for its well being. I know the book isn’t my child, and I have blogged about realizing my old metaphor of birthing books and parenting them into the world doesn’t really work. A book is not a child. I get that. But still, I wrote the thing and published it. Shouldn’t I tend to it regularly? Or, is it like what happens with your pets once you have children? Where all your energy used to go to loving Fido, now poor guy is lucky if you clean his food bowl once in awhile. 

Guilt?

While I feel guilty about Fear of Falling not getting as much of my time as it should, I am well aware of how futile book marketing efforts can be. That I can do every single thing short of tying the book to my neck like a necklace and still not sell a lot of books. I have talked at length about the going-up-hill-with-a-bag-of-rocks-on-my-back experience of book marketing.  The reality is that you just don’t know what will work, and you do a lot of shooting arrows in the dark.  That was fine with the first and second book and that was fine before I had two children and that was fine when I wasn’t in school and that was fine when my business was slow. But now, I am pressed for time. Now, I have other things that are simply more important.

Frustration

Even when I was a marketing nut, the result was almost the same as not doing a whole lot. With book one and two, I did every single thing possible and sold a total of a bit more than 1500 (and I still sell some here and there). That is fantastic for self-published with no help. But the amount of time and energy it took was enormous, and I don’t regret it, but my life is very different now and I can’t live that way. I have to make money to support my children, and so my time has to go to children, work, and husband. Plus, I am in school, and school comes before marketing my book. I have to accept my limitations, and I have to let go of these voices that say “You should have waited to publish this one” or “You should have tried harder for a new agent or tried at least once with submitting to a regular publishing house.”

Should’ve, could’ve, would’ve.

And...more frustration

It’s frustrating to love your book and believe in it but feel as though the time it takes for promotion is futile. Shot in the dark, and if you keep shooting and missing, you get pissed because your time could be spent doing something else. Recently I sent out a gazillion press releases, spent $800 on it and got only one response. Seriously? WTF?

And...more struggle

The struggle is with the guilt I feel for not devoting the amount of time I did with book one and two. The struggle I feel is the sadness of how so few will get to read this current book.  How, in many ways, this is the most important one. The struggle is to say, “I did this for simply the sake of my art and not to sell or promote.”  Which is the truth.  I went into this one saying, “I am publishing book three because I have to.  Because if only two people read it and are moved and touched– it’s worth it.”  I don’t regret self publishing it. I just wish that the few things I do for marketing would snowball effect out and bring in more readers.

Self-Trust When You Self-Publish

When it comes down to it all, I have to trust my self and my process with this book, and I have to remind myself why I did it and reconcile myself with the reality that some of the marketing I have done, which cost lots of money and time, isn’t working, and so that’s it. That’s it, as in, time to stop wasting money and time and just do what’s easy and accessible and free. 

Forgive and let go...

I am done efforting with marketing and from here on, I will market only in ways that are easy. And if I don’t sell any more books, I accept that.

The struggle between work, school, marketing, children, husband, house. I really understand I no longer can do it all and do it all to the best effort. One of those things will suffer. It can’t be the children or husband or work or school. Those are, in ways, effortless.  It’s the marketing of this book. Sorry, book. I love you, but I can’t do much more than I am doing.

----------

Told you all, way back before I released this book, that  I would be really honest about the third time around in self-publishing.  So, here’s the update on the book’s progress.

Middletown High School in Middletown, RI ordered 12 copies to give out as awards to teachers for a unit they did on bullying.  MHS is my alum and place I taught a few years back. I wish they would invite me to come and do a workshop. Cross your fingers. I have put it out there so...

I had a signing at Barrington Books and sold 20 copies between the three books.

Reviewing/blog goddess and student/friend of mine Joanne Carnevale posted the first official review.

A fellow named Marc Marc Archambault, author and blogger, will review the book on his blog My Indy Book Review.

Devyn Burton from 5 Awesome YA Fans has the book and will review some time next year on his blog http://fdreview.blogspot.com/. The Faerie Drink Review

I submitted to the IPPY awards.

I have acquired 73 fans on Facebook!

The Bristol Phoenix Wrote a lovely piece about the book and me. http://www.eastbayri.com/detail/131943.html

The Jewish Voice will be running a blurb and a head shot in their next issue.

Mt. Hope High school here in Bristol asked me to come and do a workshop.

The Barrington Library– so I hear– has a display of my books!

Clark’s Alum magazine featured a quick blurb about the book.

A reviewer from the Young Adult Book Club website is set to review the book shortly.

On the other hand...

The Newport Daily News has passed on writing an article about me.  Too bad. They did a nice job a few years back on my first book.

A few weeks back there was a request from the press release service I used. Haven’t heard back, though. I spent $800 on this wire/press release service. I only got one response. Lesson learned.

I haven’t set up any more signings yet.

Ran a contest only one person submitted to. : (

If you have any easy and quick marketing ideas, email me!  I will post any that I try out. 

Random Thoughts On The Journey of Self-Publishing

The Undiscovered Gem

Coral, a deep red or pink precious gemstone, can only be found by divers who are deployed into the faraway waters of Northeast Asia, Northeastern Australia, and areas in the middle east.  Lapis Lazuli, a deep blue gemstone, is retrieved by professional climbers who traverse the “inhospitable” mountains of Afghanistan. Tanzinite, a violet blue rare gemstone, is found by miners in the foothills of Mt. Kilimanjaro.  My question is, how did someone know to look in these places to find such rare beauty? Was it more of an accident?  Where they looking for something else and then just stumbled up gorgeous stones?

I wonder if my books will be like an undiscovered gemstone, hidden in the deep crevices of some mountain or buried deep in the middle of the ocean or, worse, found in some mine no one can get to? Perhaps, one day, probably when I am dead, someone will uncover my books, buried beneath the ruins of my home office. Someone will find them and hold them up for all to see, hailing, “I have found the precious books! They are rare, they are beautiful!”  Maybe deep sea divers and miners will be deployed to excavate the remains of my office so that all the remaining copies can be retrieved. And, finally, the world will know the adventures of plucky Maddie Hickman, her angst, her friends, and her foibles.

It's a nice fantasy.

But a better one is that someone stumbles upon them now, holds them up to the masses, and proclaims that they are the next big thing in YA literature. I would rather be alive for the Big Moment, you know?

Seriously, this is going to be hard.


Back at it with book three....

I have to pound pavement with a heavy sack.  I have to knock on dead bolted doors. I have to send emails and post information on websites that no one may even read. I have to get the word out because no one else will.

I hate how self conscious and dumb I feel going into the local indie bookstore, three four times because the owner says she wants to host a signing, says she will display the books I have given her.

Yes, given her...until she puts the order she says she will put in...She keeps saying that she wants to get the best discount and make sure they are returnable...I keep reassuring her that if she calls iUniverse, they will take care of her, even gave her the extension to dial once she calls.

She has my books bound together with a large rubber band on the shelf in her office and hasn’t been able to contact iUniverse...Something about “they didn’t pick up.” I don’t argue with her. I give up. I will go and retrieve my books by the end of this week if I don’t hear from her, and then, I will just let go of the idea of a signing there anytime soon.

I have pounded on that door enough.

I Know The Leaf

I struggle with the marketing and publicity of this book.

Ignorance was bliss the first time around with self-publishing. Knowledge kills ignorance and can also kill the spirit that comes from not knowing. The sprit of not knowing is curiosity.

Watching my 14 month old journey through our yard, pausing to inspect leaves and rocks.  She can do this for hours.  She can sit with one leaf and inspect it, rub her fingers over it, tear it up.  Learn about it viscerally. Lose herself completely in it, in order to know it. 

I know about that leaf already. I know that if it’s dry and dead, it makes a crinkle noise.  That if it is freshly fallen, it has an earthy smell and smooth feel. I know because I have experienced the leaf thousands of times. Each leaf is unique and each experience with it is too, but I am not going to spend hours inspecting and learning about it. My curiosity about the leaf is less than it was thirty years ago.  I will have a moment while sitting with my baby outside. I will reach over, out of curiosity about what she is seeing, smelling, and feeling.  But it will be a flash, and soon after I inspect it, I’ll be on to the next thing.

I Know Self-Publishing

I know self publishing. I don’t have the stay-for-hours curiosity I had five and a half years ago. I pounded pavement and knocked on doors happily, hungrily, blindly, ignoring the wrinkled noses and funny looks of people when I told them I published with iUniverse that, yes, I was self published, but I did have a publisher you could call and order the books from.  Hell, you can get them from Ingram too. I schlepped those books to every gig I had, every class I taught, every speech I gave, every workshop I ran. I brought them with me if we were visiting family in other states, and I would scour the areas for local indie bookstores, and I would bustle in and say “Carry my book, whatever percentage you want to consign with me is fine. Just carry them.” No ego. No fatigue. I just cared about getting my book to people, any way I could.

It’s hard now.

I know the pushing-the-rock-up-a-mountain-with-ankle-and-wrist-weight feeling of self publishing. I know exactly how hard it is and exactly what hurdles I will have to traverse. It makes the pounding pavement that I know I must do all the more difficult. To market and publicize, you must have energy, time, and money. I have very little of all three. How will anyone reach this book?   I used to have the spirit of this whole experience is amazing. It’s new and fresh, and even when I would attend a whole bunch of gigs and not sell a lot, the experience of those gigs was just fabulous. I didn’t care about numbers.  Things have changed now, and I have a lot more responsibilities. I have two children instead of one, and I have a business with clients I really know, care about, and frankly provide me with my income. I am in school working harder than I ever have on my craft. I have to focus my energy on those things, giving myself whatever crumbs are left over.  The fact is, I can’t do marketing the way I did before  any more. I just can’t, and I believe that I need to approach this in a completely different way.  I can’t do every single thing that floats by my in box. I can’t give away books to friends and family. I can’t beg bookstore owners to buy my books and host a book signing.  I just can’t.

I Know This Book Is That Good

See, I don’t want me to sell the book.  I want the book to sell itself, and I am just the author. I don’t want to be on the red carpet, but I want my book to be. I like being behind the scenes and that’s why I write. The way I sold a lot of books the first time around was by attending sooooo many gigs,  I stopped keeping track. I sold books only because of me and my unwavering tenacity.  Also, I can perform well and work a crowd.  When I taught middle school, I could get a study hall of 250 kids to shut up and sit down. In a crowd, I can lose myself in a role and entertain, and if you get a kick out of me, you will probably buy my book. When I showed up at a gig and felt on, I performed and sold books. When I felt off and sat quietly or just did my thing robotically, I sold little or none. It never occurred to me that pulling back would ever work, that the books would sell themselves. What, in life, works that way? Nothing.

And I certainly don’t expect the book will sell without my effort, but what I want is to expose this book to as many people as possible, without draining my time and energy,  in the fastest way.  I need to figure that part out.

I want to have a book signing 

Yet, books signings are not always fun.

And...the reason is marketing. Booksellers usually put the signing in the local paper’s calendar section. But I’m not sure  how many people read that section any more, since so many people get their news online. Some bookstore owners may display the books with a poster or some visual to attract readers. 
But, some don’t.  And, bookstore owners may or may not put it on their website because they may or may not have one that they update more than once in a while. I always do a crazy blitzkrieg online marketing through social networks and my own data base. But not everyone on my list wants to or can attend the signing. Some of these things are really no ones “fault” just facts of the situation.

If little marketing was done or if the marketing was just not effective, when you actually show up for the signing, people come in and look at you, sitting with your books at a table. You feel a little like an orphaned puppy in need of an owner, and people look at you like they should come over and pet you, but they hesitate because they don’t want to take you home.

Right now I am trying to book myself  a signing, but it’s proving to be so difficult.  There appears to be an interest, but a hesitation to commit. Consignment isn’t really an option.  It’s a big pain in the ass.  I did that a lot the first two times. I had to purchase my books, and then sell them, and I am not good at the bookkeeping of that and wound up giving too many away or at too low of a discount. Some bookstores lost my books and never bothered to tell me.  I had to call or come in many times.  If they lost it,  I didn’t want to put up a fight. It seemed so ridiculous.

The reason I don’t consign any more is because my books all have the highly coveted returnability.  Highly coveted to a Print-On-Demand published author. Now that I have this returnability, there’s no difference between me and a regularly published author, from the book purchasers point of view.  The whole thing with return-ability is that many of us Print-On-Demand published authors have our books available with the big wholesalers that bookstore owners purchase from at a discount, like Ingrahm, but our books, historically, have not been able to be returned.  iUniverse, for a relatively low fee, allows its authors books (only the ones that are deemed qualified which means the well edited ones)  to be returnable.  Due to some errors (which have all been corrected) on the part of iUniverse through the process of publishing my recent book, they offered this to me for all three books at no cost.  Now every bookstore can house my book or have me be at a signing without worrying about purchasing books from me on consignment. They can order the books, and whatever is left over, send back to the distributor. In other words, it makes having me do a signing much easier and less of a pain in the butt.
This bookstore owner seems skeptical of my returnability.  If I was an author with a mainstream publisher and a publicist booking the signing, none of this would matter. None of this extra wasted time would happen–for me or for the bookseller.  The bookstore owner certainly doesn’t want to be calling publishers, etc.  This is a fact of the self-published author, not me being bitter.  It’s a fact I accept. I don’t blame the bookstore owners for being so conservative. But it makes all of this more difficult. 

A Party

So, I have decided that instead of launching this book at a bookstore, if I can’t get anyone to host me by the end of this week, I will have my own book party. Location and time to be announced.  But, you are all invited. : )

And...I think that this journey with this book will begin to shape into something that reflects where I am in my life.  My time and energy constraints will simply force me to narrow the focus on the things that work, that work with little struggle.

For example, I recently got a reply from one of my favorite, award winning authors, Alex Sanchez, who agreed to allow me the pleasure of sending him a copy of my new book. I admire and respect his work so much and just to have him say yes, means more than anything.  To me, this is the type of reaching out efforts I want to do with my book.  I also just sent a mini media kit with some of my books to a charity event.  This was little effort but felt good and right. So, I will step forward, one foot at a time, focused, eyes open. One reader at a time.  No struggle.

Self Publishing: Round Three

Preface to the following blog entry:

I am using this entry for a blog contest on the website backwordbooks.com which is a self-published authors collective, the first of its kind, I believe.  In an effort to support their site and perhaps makes some nice connections, I add their link to this blog entry. Please check them out.

www.backwordbooks.com

The following entry was originally posted on September 7th, 2009.  

Commitment to Blog 

Previously, I blogged when the fancy struck me. However, I have decided to take my self as a writer and author SERIOUSLY...Well, in terms of the craft, at least.  The publishing world, that's another story. I think, in order to survive as an author, you need to NOT take it too seriously.

In light of trying to blog religiously, as I have realized with my MFA program, I think choosing a focus will help.  That way the task of the weekly blog will not overwhelm me. I want to focus on something that I need/want to work my shit out about. Since I have a new book and since being a self published author has brought up so much ANGST in me, I think focusing on the journey of my newest book, FEAR OF FALLING, will be both useful and therapeutic.

Hollywood Ain’t Calling

I have gone into this book without any rosy notion that it will change my life. I do not have fantasies of Hollywood calling. I also know how much time and money it really takes to do justice to a self-published book and that you can do everything “right” and still not sell as many as you thought you would. In fact, I have no expectation of numbers. I published this book for the several thousand readers who read the previous books and for me. This book and its foray out into the world is about my desire to connect with each individual who chooses to pick the book up and open it, and more importantly, continue to read it after the first page.

I know the realities of going at it alone. So, with this in mind, I need to market this book with my head and not my heart. I need to really get it in my head (and out of my heart, which can easily break over such things) that I may show up to a book signing and not sell a single book. I need to accept that I have to do all the legwork of getting reviewers to review the book. I have to not-cry-for-me Argentina that I will have to purchase probably 150 books on my own to use for marketing (online reviewers and contest give-aways) and consigning to bookstores. I have to not feel guilty when friends, students, and clients ask to purchase a book from me. Or, rather, I will not allow the guilt feelings to make me hand over the books for free. Additionally, because it’s just me marketing the book, I have to accept the limitations of my life.  I have children, my work, and school, right now.  Marketing is going to have to be accessible, and my goal cannot be on the number sold.  Rather the goal must be, getting the books to readers, one reader at a time.

I used to say that these books are like my children–I made them, I raised them, and now it’s my responsibility to make sure they go out into the world, properly. However, I have been a mother for almost six years, and now I have another child.  With the first two books, Chelsea, my oldest was very young and I had a lot less on my plate. My books are not my children. In a way, they are like my pets. I will feed, groom, and care for them always. But they probably don’t get cuddled and snuggled as much as they should.

More on the Reality of Self Publishing

If any of you keep up with this blog, you know that FEAR OF FALLING  went "live" to the web for purchase this week.  This means that you can purchase it from online bookstores, like Amazon. It means that if you go to your local bookstore, they can order it for you.  It also means that I can go to the local bookstores and implore them to order my book from the publisher or distributor.  It also means that my publisher will be sending me my free 40 copies. Some of those will get consigned to independent bookstores. Why am I sharing all this with you?  Because here’s the first of many hurdles I will have to traverse with this book. Hurdles I already know about because this is my third time around. That hurdle is…How do I get this book to my readers? You might say, “Well, through bookstores. Right?”

In theory, yes.  The book is available–I know I keep reminding you of this.  This is all part of my scary and efficient marketing plan. : ) So, yes the book is easily available at your online bookstores. So, what’s the problem?  Well, it’s not the purchasing of the book online. It’s the other, old fashion way of purchasing your books–which many people still do. Going to a “live” bookstore! And this is where I have a possible problem.

Typically, if you are a self-published author, you are totally on your own and that means NO ONE helps you with the way your book reaches the hands of the readers. Now-a-days being self published can mean that you are totally alone, but it can also mean that you purchase the service of publishing from a company, as I have from iUniverse. So, I am not totally on my own. The publisher and I are partners in the publication of the book.  My publisher, for a relatively small fee and after a lot of editorial evaluation (this means they don’t just agree to publish any thing), agrees to do some of the marketing and most of the distribution of the book.  This is a GREAT thing for the self-published author.

But, here comes the glitch. Without getting too technical, iUniverse is a print-on-demand self-publisher. With POD books, the publisher prints them one at a time, or as the demand is made. When a bookstore owner calls into the publisher or distributor and asks to order my book, they can easily do so, but they are not allowed to return the books, should they not sell.  This is not good motivation for a bookstore owner to agree to stock my book. Now, my publisher says for a pretty fair fee, they can make it such that my book is deemed returnable.  That’s great, but I have already spent quite a bit on this book, so right now I can't add that item to the growing list of things to buy for this book's possible success. Mainly because the way my previous book sold was through the web, through me, and through my consignment with local bookstores. So hurdle one is traversing the non-returnable issue with local bookstores.  How? To agree to sell the book on consignment. Great except…take note of hurdle number two in the next paragraph.

Hurdles and More Hurdles

Upon perusal of the author copy that arrived early last week, I noticed a minor error on the back cover.  Something that I have corrected in the numerous proofing rounds with the publisher. This isn’t the first publisher error I have encountered with iUniverse this time around. Errors that were immediately corrected, not to mention that they kindly gave me little additional marketing services at no cost.  However, it is still frustrating and time consuming to call them to correct the error.

They are going to take care of this error.  But this now delays me from being able to get those forty copies of the book­ to the local bookstores for consignment, so I can set up some of my first signings. I also wanted to run some contests to give away a few of the books, plus send some to reviewers, so I can post some reviews of the book online.

All of that now has to be put off until the error is corrected and books are sent to me.  So while the book is “live” on Amazon, I am stalled in really launching it.

The Rock Up The Mountain

I hope that I haven’t bored you all with this, but it’s the parts of being self published that frustrate me. I feel like if I had a regular book deal, this isn’t what I would be worried about. I would be able to spend this last hour as I have on this blog on my writing. When these things happen, things that remind me of being on my own in this huge task of marketing my book, I get a little depressed. It feels like I am pushing a huge rock up a very bumpy mountain.

And, yet, I am doing this again, for the third time! : )

But like parenting, the task of self publishing is hard, yet worth it more than I can express in words.

Tune in next week to see what happens next with FEAR OF FALLING!!!! 

I am neatly avoiding and trying desperately to NOT write what I should write.

There’s stuff on my mind but that stuff bores and frustrates me because it is hard to put into words. I know, I know my students would say, “Well, then that’s all the more reason why you should write it.” They give my shit right back to me and that’s why they are all geniuses.
I am neatly avoiding and trying desperately to NOT write what I should write. The stuff that is on my mind, but I fear writing about it because I want to drive the bus of my life and not struggle with the obsessive thoughts I have or repetitive themes that bother me.

Simple put, the things I cannot change. I really don’t want to write about THOSE THINGS I CANNOT CHANGE THOSE THINGS I MUST JUST ACCEPT. But yet it is those things that are a.) interesting because they contain drama and trauma b.) I need to continually purge those things. SO I don’t need to write about those things in order to FIGURE THEM OUT. I spent 10 years plus in therapy for that and don’t want to or need to. But, as I tell all my students, writing and journaling about the shit that weighs us down is necessary. It clears the air for more creative and interesting writing. It’s like sloughing off dead skin so you can see and feel the smooth pink stuff underneath.

Look how much time I have spent avoiding writing about what weighs my brain and spirit down.
Dad.

Mother guilt.

Publishing/self publishing

But what’s the feeling? Because it is never the content of our lives that weighs us down. It is the feelings that those feelings bring to us, and you will find that each of the THINGS that troubles you, if you line them up and looked at their invisible form, you will discover that what hovers above them is some pervasive feeling you have struggled with your whole life.

Dad (Thing 1):
The Dad Thing is less now. It’s more about sadness and mourning the loss of the either reality or fantasy about him. At this point, whether or not he was a good father before my parents divorce is irrelevant because I thought he was, and whether I made it up or not, I felt it, and so what I mourn is what I had or thought I had– again, irrelevant. The point was, at the time and for years, I felt I had it. Now, I know I don’t, and it is sad and I miss it. At the same time, you may say, well, get it back, and the truth is, it doesn’t exist any more even though he is alive and he exists, he is not who I thought he was (or who he really was back then, again irrelevant). So, I don’t struggle except when it’s a holiday or birthday and the struggle is, do I or don’t I? I usually do, but each year it gets to be less and less effort. This year, no card. Not even an e-card. Just an email and I forwarded a few pics of the kids. His response: Thanks but my birthday would have been better if I wasn’t so sick with a cold…No mention of how are the kids or Mike? No mention of the fact that it’s been months since we have seen each other. So, you can see this whole thing goes both ways. And, it’s sad because I would love to have a father who showed genuine interest in me and my life and my children. Who wanted to help me make my way through adulthood. But he doesn’t, and, you know, I am not angry just simply sad. And I accept that I am sad and will probably always be about him. How can I not? Everyone wants a dad who loves and cares about them and shows it.

Mother Guilt (THING 2)
I hate writing about this because this one. I do struggle with and it sucks. I work and it’s a fact and if I sit here and explain how and why I work, it just all sounds more like struggle. Struggle to justify my working and really why the f*** do I have to explain and justify it? Why do I feel like I have to? Mother guilt. It just is. I think it’s part of the package no matter who you are and how you mother. It hurts. It hurts when I am working with a client in my home office (by the way, see how I try and soften and justify my working situation. Well, I work from home and am always available, etc, and I only work about 20 hours a week and…) Anyway, when Chels comes home from school, and I am with someone, she knocks on the door. It’s part of the agreement we have about Mommy working. She is allowed to come in after she comes home and say hello, and it kills me because she is sooo good– has never thrown a fit. She comes in, kisses me and says hello to whomever I am with and then frolics back upstairs to Daddy or our babysitter. She is FINE as my husband says don’t worry and, yet, I do. Is she okay? Is she feeling slighted or sad? Does she need me? Blah, blah….Even as I write this, I think, God what the hell am I feeling so sad about? If she weren’t okay, I would drop any and every thing for her and she knows it, so stop. But do you hear the struggle? And that, my friends, is what ruins a perfectly good and happy life. Struggling with your feelings. The tug-of-war that goes on between rational and irrational between the shoulds and what is. It simply sucks. This is not about whether or not I should work. Or whether or not I should do the residency program that starts in January where I will be gone for 9 days, my husband at home. This is about my struggle between the messy reality of motherhood and the perfect images I have in my head. This is about the F****** annoying thing I feel. This knee-jerk need to justify myself, to justify my working, which all creates more struggle.

Self Publishing and Publishing (THING 3)
Oh, I hate this one and feel the urge to refer you to previous blogs that really outline my on going struggle with this whole bullshit world of publishing and I really should phrase this all properly. The truth is what I struggle with is that I have been rejected by the mainstream, traditional publishers and have been embraced by the other world called self-publishing, awards and audience and agents. And, yet, I can’t get there where the elite live, and it’s funny. I am not the elite so it makes sense that the elite world of traditional publishing shrugs me off. But I want to be the nonconformist who CAN conform and benefit from the elite snooty snoots who can bridge the gap between and WHY THE F**** ISN’T IT HAPPENING????????? I got the brains and the talent and the audience. What THE F****?

I don’t need to discuss this bullshit more. You get it.

So I did it. I wrote about the three things on my mind. No, I didn’t go through heavy analysis but that’s boring and circuitous and frustrating cause who gives a shit WHY at this point. It’s more about WHAT IS and, hell, WHAT’S NEXT???????

With Dad and Mother Guilt nothing is next. I will continue to put out minimal effort with him and accept the level of our relationship and not really judge it or exert energy over it and with MOTHER GUILT I will continue to work and let the kinks of motherhood work themselves out.
With publishing….Here’s the thing. I can do something not about it but I can do something to work through it because it is truly the one thing I DON’T ACCEPT. I Don’t ACCEPT that mainstream traditional publishers will not publish me. That I won’t have a fabulous deal and movie rights, etc. I don’t accept it. I just don’t.

So, I did it. I wrote about the things I didn't want to. I am at the end and awaiting for some brilliant conclusion or parting thought but nothing is there.

I'm done.

Mommyhood & Writing

Observations From My Mommy Diaries.

Read about my life as a working and writing mommy. It’s raw and unedited…but a little censored!

I am currently teaching a writing workshop and one of the constant homework assignments is 12 pages a week. So, I decided to keep a “mommy” diary during this time. I hope to post daily or weekly excerpts. I am not looking for advice with these posts, just looking to be heard and understood. I also am in the processing of editing and publishing another book. Having a newborn, an almost 5-year-old and a business makes for one TIRED Mommy. Maybe you can relate?


Oct 18

I love Viv. I love her needy, floppy, sturdy, learning, emerging baby body. The way she responds to skin and touch and food and warmth, so natural, so instinctual to lean into my hand when I cup her cheek as she sucks her bottle or lean into my arm as I cradle her head while she feeds. When I hold her upright against me, over my shoulder her head nestles into my neck, her mouth and hands searching for my skin, her little scratchy fingernails gently poking my flesh. I love when she is tired.

October 19

The house is relatively quiet, just the hum of the baby monitor– Viv is asleep for a nap. Chels and Mike are at Sunday school– Well, Chels is and Mike took off to bowl, he’s highly motivated to take her now because the bowling alley is nearby and he can squeeze in a game. Viv is a little off her normal schedule today which produces a small trickle of anxiety. If she is off in her feeds, she won’t have the magic tank up between 5-6 pm so she can get through the night until 5 tomorrow…I just started to write about that more and then felt stalled like why am I writing about that? Who gives a shit? It’s boring. Only I give shit because scheduling my baby is of utmost importance to a working mother, to any mother. I am not a schedule imposer but more of let’s-observe-her-and-see-what-she-does-and-needs and then let’s work around that, but it can’t be the haphazardness of the first 6 weeks to 2 months any more.

Anyway, this truly is only interesting to my fellow mommy friends, and me not even, actually. Just me and my hubby and my other friend with an infant.

The world of having an infant is pretty narrow and small. It’s a world of nesting and wanting to be home, wanting to just be all about baby. Even though I work (from home), the day revolves around baby. I feel drunk with my love for her. I tell myself that she can flail on my bed or in her bouncy while I do stuff, but when she is awake, the brief periods that she is, I want to look into her round gray blue eyes and watch how they really seem to brighten and glow and light up when I talk to her and smile. I want to watch her try and hoist her body over to the side as she learns to roll over. I want to play our little game of holding my fingers and she’s gotta grip as I help her pull herself up to sitting. She looks so proud and happy when we do it. I want to hold her over my shoulder and let her cheek lean into mine so I can feel the soft doughyness, the dumplingness of her pudgy skin. I feel complete when I hold her and when I feed her as she leans into my arm or clutches with her hand onto the fabric of my clothes or rests her hand on my chest as she suckles. I love to run the palm of my hand over her head and feel the puppy softness of her hair and the warmth of her head. When I hold her and play with her I feel her life, her aliveness or growth, and her emerging into full humanness. I feel the same as I did with Chelsea– the same drunk baby love. When I hold her, no one else is around. The house isn’t dirty and there’s no work to be done. It’s just her.


October 21
Hands working. Ehhhlaohhhlaaahmrmmmmhmmmmhmmmmmdribble. Legs kicking. Bahhhhh! Swipe at the rattles attached to the bouncy seat hood. Leg up and a whine that sounds like I want to play but getting tired. Now an eye rub with some talking. Better get her to bed¬–

Put her down. Conflicted mommy-guilt, but, you know, get out of the way and stop making it about you, Hannah, after all, it’s most important to think about the needs of baby and every baby needs to learn how to self soothe and sleep. Sleep alone with minimal binkings and a mother or father coming in every second to rebink and reset. There has to be the time when you say, “Okay, I am willing to step out of the way and deal with the crying.” Guess what? It didn’t last long. I put her down and rebinked her once, telling myself, “Okay after this rebink, you will wait it out, and let her cry in increments of 5 minutes…” Look there it is, she is quiet and dare I say asleep…

Guilt
Worrying about some work stuff (I censored this to protect my clients)…. Chelsea saying she doesn’t like that I work because she wants to be with me all the time oh shit there goes the baby with a whine but it’s not a shrieking terrible cry don’t focus on it Hannah tune it out but I can’t want to sit here and keep typing wait wait Hannah don’t go in there but it’s escalating I need to go in wait wait wait wait the 5 but what if the binks in her neck or the blanky is on her head it’s fine she is fine no no I need to check you can check but then leave leave okay checked and she is fine but fussy and bink is out and I am going to experiment if I tell myself its just an experiment shit she is really crying mad now sort of not terrible but she wants that bink wait wait the 5 you can do it need to practice now she sounds fine shit was she even ready for bed should I have waited whatever I didn’t and now here we are be consistent Hannah that’s what a good parent does shit shit up goddamnit this is soo hard and the other one is yelling at her Barbies and watching Ratatouille keep waiting Hannah it’s an experiment you can do it just wait wait to go in don’t be so three more minutes and I can go in I have to stick with this I just have to I will I want to stop writing and eat my apple now Chels is sort of drowning out the baby which both annoys and relieves me. Shit.

October 22
Committing to writing every day and getting those damned 12 pages–what I have assigned my students in my current class. I have been working on my edits for my new book. I am sick of the querying and rejection process. Trying to make people see how awesome my work is. I kind of feel like f- it. Whatever I do is going to have to be good enough. This editor I am working with thinks I should query MSV, but I think that if someone doesn’t want MSW, than I don’t want to work with him or her anyway, you know?

On another note, I have parted with my agent, and she sent me a lovely email back saying she would certainly be open to working together with me in the future. So I feel good. I wanted to be released so I could have total freedom to figure out what I do want to do with the whole publishing thing. It wasn’t happening with her, and I don’t fault her, frankly. It’s the business, and I need to figure out what I want. If the business doesn’t want me, I need to either find out how to change so it does, or I need to totally let go and go back to just doing my thing, writing and self publishing. I don’t want to waste energy any more on people who just say no, no, no.

I want a book deal. I want it, but not desperately any more. I finally feel calm and okay about it like whether it does or doesn’t, I will be fine. It won’t be this awful huge big deal if it does happen. It will all be okay. I am not desperate. I feel so much more confident and at peace with myself because I no longer compare or feel envious of other published authors– whatever. I am not the same as others and that’s great. Who the hell really is the same or perfect? F- it. I have bigger things. That’s the gift Viv has given me. I don’t have time for self-loathing and pity. I just want to keep trying and putting myself out there, and it’s not for anyone other than me, really.

I am only up to 4 pages. Should I also count all the rewrites and edits from the week?

October 23, 2008

I need to step aside, get out of the way with Viv. She is not sleeping through the night. From 12-4 last night she cried and we went in and rebinked her. I kept saying to Mike, she’s suffering. He was like, “No, she’s not. She needs to learn.” Then I would say, “But we waited until Chels was 7 months to do this. And he was like, “We aren’t waiting that long this time, we are tired and she needs to sleep and learn how to sleep.” He likened it to teaching a child to potty train early; it will take a little longer but we will get there sooner than if we waited. I feel crazy in the middle of the night, and it feels like things have gotten worse since Sunday night when we were doing fine before without feeding her in the middle of the night and only rebinking a few times, but on that night it was like everything changed and we had to give in and fed her. Mike thinks it’s connected to moving her out of the old bassinet, which was way too small for her, and into the new one. Alyssa says growth spurt. I say, “Shit, I don’t know what the f-?” But the bottom line is, I feel responsible. Maybe I am working too much and not observing her enough to learn how to read her properly? I mean right now, she seemed ready for a nap, but then I put her down, and she has cried for the last 15 minutes and is still crying. I just turned on the monitor. I just don’t get it. I feel like it’s me. It’s something I am not doing or not understanding. There she is. Crying. You have no idea the torture it is to hear your child cry. Well, maybe you do. Why is she so sad? Why doesn’t she want to sleep? We were doing so well, and, now, it’s just terrible and the other thing is that when she is out of bed, she is so happy and sweet and smiling. Now I wonder, is she mad? Is she okay? Now she is kind of singing in there. Maybe she’s not tired? I don’t get it. When I went in there before, she was doing her trying-to-sleep-thing by turning her head to the side snuggling the blanket, and I saw some spit up. So I wiped it and then gave her binky and then shot out of there. She is quiet now. It’s only taken over 20 minutes. I have to get out of the way and make this about her. She is working it out. The only way she knows how, which is to cry. I mean she can’t talk, and she can’t even move around that much. Give her a break and yourself. Okay?

I feel like I need a plan. Like I need to reread Dr. Ferber and Weissbluth, but you know, I smell a rat so-to-speak. Am I going back and reading and making a plan in the hopes or in the magical thinking that if I do all that, it will all be better? Because the truth is, this may get worse before better. No matter what plan you do.

My plan is to let her cry it out in increments of 5, 10, 15. That’s my plan

I put Viv down at 1:44 and let her cry for 5 min and then went in and reset and then left and let her fuss for 10…It’s 2:18 and she is quiet. So this stuff really works. I have to trust that I know what I am doing. I did it before, and I can do it again. Crying it out and scheduling feedings is a good thing and baby needs it. So f- myself and I better get a spine.

Later…

Absolutely nothing has worked today. Nothing that normally works has worked and neither has crying it out. I do realize a few things:

I need to get back into going with my gut, intuition, and in-the-moment stuff with her. Maybe we pushed a schedule too hard. Whatever. I am struggling. That’s the bottom line and I want to let go and make space for the pain of not being able to get her and get her soothed and on a schedule so Mike and I and Chels will be happier. I have to make space for the feeling of failure I have. Make space for my pain and frustration and aggravation and sleep deprivation. But, you know, it doesn’t mean anything other than what it is. It doesn’t mean my life is a mess and out of control. It means my newborn is not predictable (what a shock!) and that’s frustrating (what a shock, again!) and also I feel guilty about being frustrated and wanting this all to move faster. You know, I didn’t have these feelings with Chels.

Speaking of… I left the baby alone with Chels upstairs. I need to walk away. It’s terrible I don’t even do this every day… I just went upstairs and she was slumped, drunk, in front of the TV with Chels. Her first time in front of TV. Loving it. I scooped her up and did my favorite hold with her. Cheek to cheek and she puts a hand on either side of my neck and grabs like a cling-on. Now she is down in my study while I type this and I realize I am still in shock that I have another baby and maybe that’s another thing I am feeling. I feel like I am in the center of chaos, and maybe I need to go into it? Now she is snorting cooing. Oops. She just threw up. Marvelous.

Oct 24
Had an epiphany. Spoke to a client whose hubby is a pediatrician. Told her that Viv seems to need to eat again around 10 or 11pm. She said, “Oh, yeah, of course. That’s not the middle of the night.” Yeah! My mommy instincts are still good. So Mike and I agreed to feed her another feed before 12 without a problem. Middle of night feeds would be like between 12 and 4. That’s what we are going to avoid. Perfect! Decided to stick with 3 ounces if she absolutely needs another feed.

But she had another tough evening and I immediately blamed my self. I said, “I am not a good mommy.” Chels was like, “No, no! You are a good mommy. I am not a good big sis.” I jumped right on that and said, “Yes you are! You are great.” She really does imitate everything.

I don’t think I made it to 12 pages, but I did work on my book in addition to this. So, does that count? Of course it does. I’m the teacher!

Stay tuned for more from My Mommy Diaries