904. MOV Writes a Book

I am one of those people who does not like to jinx things by talking about them before they happen.  My dad did not know I got a job with the airlines until I had accepted the offer and moved to another city (“Well, Daddy, I knew you would want to dissect every question they asked me in the interview”), my sister did not know I was getting married until I asked her to be my maid of honor (“Are you free next week, Oakley?  And I bought you this dress, here-- try it on”), and my mom didn’t know I was having my first baby until I was seven months pregnant and could no longer hide behind oversized denim shirts (“I didn’t say anything because what if I had a miscarriage?”). 

So it should come as no surprise that I didn’t tell you that I wrote a book.  Another one. 

You remember my first book last year, right?  Mom’s Had A Rough Day:  A Collection of Humorous Essays.  Well, that was such a great experience (5 star-rating on Amazon!), I decided to do it all over again. 

But I learned a lot that first go-around.  Mostly I learned that writing a book is hard.  And takes a long time.  And requires a lot of editing. 

I lay in bed awake at 3 AM trying to think of a way to make it easier.  I knew I could not skimp on the actual writing part, and probably not the editing part either.  How was I going to pull this off?  Who could I get to help me? 

“No, MOV, I will not help you with your next book, and my God, what time is it?  3:30 in the morning?  I was sound asleep.”  The Husband was not exactly volunteering his writing services. 

Finally, I had a brilliant idea of how to cut my workload by 50%—write only half the book.  I would approach another blogger to write the other half. 

Thinking big, I contacted my writing idol, Marianne Walsh, at my favorite blog,  We Band of Mothers.  “Marianne, would you like to write a book with me?” said my email. 

I got a one-word response a few minutes later:  “OK.” 

At first, I thought she meant she had moved to Oklahoma, but then I realized that she meant OK as in “okay.”  (Note to self:  I might have to do more editing than I thought.)    

Our book was set for a Christmas release, but as you know, my mom died in late October.  Death has a way of ruining everything, things like surprising your mom with your as-yet undiscussed second book as her Christmas present.  I was out of my orbit for a while, and some days, I am still reaching for the phone to call Mom to say hi when I realize I can’t.  Yeah, death is not great with traditional communications like phone and internet.        

Anyway, to get back to my story, I wrote a book with Marianne.  It is called Epic Mom:  Failing Every Day a Little Bit More Than You.  It is exactly like our blogs, only funnier, better organized, and 3-dimensional.

Ever felt like that?

Seriously, you should buy it.  If you are not familiar with Marianne’s writing, you will love it.  She is hilarious.  Our book is over 250 pages, and is full of little stories and anecdotes that do not have to be read in order, you can just read a story here or there depending on time. 

I must tell you about our awesome cover design.  Marianne emailed me and said, “Do you think Stephanie at Clay Baboons would want to do our cover?”  Now, I knew this was a stretch because Stephanie is like the Rembrandt of the clay world.  There is no way she would have time to deal with us and our silly ideas, and if she did, she would most certainly charge us thousands of dollars. 

“I’ll do it for free!” she said in her email.  We did end up paying her (somewhere in the middle of free and thousands), but we were honestly so thrilled that she agreed at all that we most likely would’ve gone in to debt just to make it happen. 

So there you have it. 

Surprise! 

MOV
P.S. If you do buy a book, please take a few minutes to post a positive review on Amazon after you have read it.  (If you don’t like the book, then let’s pretend it was someone else’s book—like Shakespeare's.)