Servant Leadership

As a person, a professional, and a mom I try my best to live as a servant leader—doing for others, keeping others’ needs in the forefront. I have to admit, I feel a sense of satisfaction when I’m able to help someone, whether it’s something small like opening a door for a person whose hands are full or spending hours in one-on-one time helping a student improve a scholarship essay that could potentially help them pay for college (a big life changer).

I try to model “doing for others” with my girls, especially so as they were growing up. Now that they’re older and off on their own, my prayer is that they remember my example and continue to see that in me. I tell ya, it’s a beautiful thing when I see or hear about something they’ve done to make another person’s day or week or whatever, a little more positive.

And I really enjoy hearing about others who strive to bring good and do good in our world and communities.
Over the weekend, while watching the Sunday morning news, I learned about one such person: Ariel Nessel, founder and board member of the Pollination Project.

http://thepollinationproject.org/grants-awarded-all/

Since its inception in January 2013, the Pollination Project has given “$1,000 seed grants to individual change makers, every day of the year, emphasizing projects that expand compassion in the world.” According to their mission statement, they believe in the “power of ordinary people to do extraordinary things.”

Wow, what a motivational statement!

Now, I’m not a vegan, so I have to say that I’m not 100% on board with all the organization’s ideas, but I love how they value “compassion consciousness.” Thinking about how your decisions and your choices affect others and the world around you. How many times have I reminded myself of that or mentioned a similar idea to my girls?
We could all benefit—heck, the world, our countries, our cities, our neighborhoods can benefit—if we all tried to sharpen our compassion consciousness a little more. At least on some level, in some manner.

As a mom, I strive to be an example of this for my girls.

In my day job, I strive to do the same.

As a writer, my hope is that a reader’s day will be happier or a stress in her life forgotten for a little while because she’s chosen to spend some time with my characters.

Servant leadership: to me it’s an important value.

I’d love to hear some other values you live by and try to instill in your kids. And if there are any other non-profits you participate with in some manner. There are so many great ones out there, let’s spread their good word today—and every day! 

Guest Mom Tracy Brogan: Are We There Yet?

Love this woman. Love, love, love! She’s funny. She’s brilliant. She’s kind. And I’m so happy for her success. Returning PBK Guest Mom Tracy Brogan is a star, and like many stars, she’s not taking her success for granted.

I do wish for Tracy–and for you, dear readers–dreams to race toward and present-day joys. Thanks, Tracy, for reminding us that both are essential to happiness. And congratulations on your new release!!! 

Are we there yet? How often have you heard that whined/moaned/screeched/caterwauled from the backseat of your minivan? It’s so ubiquitous a question, I don’t even need to explain it. Kids are impatient. Whether it’s a 15-day day road trip to Yellowstone, or a 15-minute jaunt to the grocery store, they just want to get there.

These days so do most adults. Our instant gratification culture has programmed us to want to be there. Enjoying the journey is less important than arriving at your destination. For me, that is proving to be true in my writing career as well. I’m not taking time to smell the proverbial roses. I’m not stopping to savor each tiny victory. But perhaps the biggest impediment to me enjoying the process of getting there is that I keep moving the target.

Let’s back up a little bit and start at the beginning. For most of my life I’d been one of those people who said, “I’m going to write a book someday.” I had all the requisite fantasies of becoming an international, bestselling author who frequented Oprah’s talk show, but no plan, and little real hope of that ever happening. Especially considering I’d started dozens of manuscripts and had finished exactly… none. Something always interrupted my grand scheme. A crying baby, a new house, an episode of Friends, you know.

When my youngest daughter started school, I realized it was time to put up or shut up. I had to either finish writing a book, or stop talking about it because my friends had taken to glazing over whenever I brought up the subject. So, step one – draft and polish a completed manuscript. Selling it wasn’t even on my radar at the time. I plugged away while my kids were at school and after they went to bed. The house got cluttered, bills were set aside, but in May of that year, I got’er done! I was so proud of myself!

For about 37 seconds.

Almost immediately, that goal was rendered meaningless. What good was a book, even a finished book, if no one would ever read it? Suddenly, the quest became to sell the book. And that meant getting an agent. I gave myself six months. It took three times as long. During the process, I became quite adept at dealing with rejection. Sometimes I’d deliberately slam my fingers in a drawer just to practice experiencing that sharp agony, although most days there was enough rejection and self-doubt to keep that pain fresh! (I’m kidding about the drawer slamming, of course, but it might have hurt less than some of the query responses.)

I started attending conferences, and entering contests. Those seemed like minor accomplishments, too. I was networking, studying craft, learning that I had so much more to learn, And all the while I kept inching the bar higher. If I finaled in a contest I was pleased, but then I wanted to win. If I got a request for a partial, I wanted the request for the full to come soon after. I’d enjoy each moment for about a moment, and then it was behind me and I needed to leap the next hurdle.

As luck would have it, I managed to final in the holy grail of contests for unpublished writers, The RWA® Golden Heart. Not once, but twice. I was proud to sport that pink GH ribbon and I cherish every aspect of those finals. I am a Starcatcher and a Firebird. But by the second time around, I had an agent and my eye was on the prize of selling.

Once again, I’d moved my target. Rather than bask in the joy of the experience, I was looking to the next thing. In all that time, I never felt certain I was doing enough, or doing it right. I didn’t look back at the people just starting their journey and reminisce about how far I’d come. I only looked forward toward those ahead of me, and I wondered how to get to where THEY were.

It wasn’t jealousy making me ask that. Quite the opposite, in fact. It was respectful admiration for the effort they must have exerted to reach their place. It wasn’t envy. It was awe, and it still is. Surely those cool, fancy RITA girls know they have ARRIVED. Those authors with “best seller” added to their names must be confident in their abilities. They must have a system to their process. They must feel secure that they are loved by the masses and appreciated by their publishers. They must know the secret handshake.

Well, fast forward to today, just four years from when I started. I’m a RITA finalist for Best First Book, a double winner in the Golden Quill, and a finalist in the Book Sellers Best contest. My third book will be released tomorrow and I just signed my second three-book contract with my publisher. Although the NYT and USA Today won’t include my Montlake titles on their lists, both my books have sold enough copies to be considered best sellers. So I should be utterly confident in my abilities, right? I should be certain I know what I’m doing, yes?

Nope. I don’t feel it. Because there are more hurdles. There is the next book to write. Craft to hone. Marketing to master. Are we there yet? I’m starting to realize that as long as I keep moving the end-zone, I’m never going to stop to enjoy right where I am. And that’s a shame because I’m in a very good place. And this makes me wonder how many other writers create this same dilemma. Are you thinking about, and appreciating, all you have accomplished? Because you should! Or are you too busy looking at the road ahead and worrying how to get there? And then there. And then there.

I have a friend who compares this journey to sharks. If they stop swimming, they’ll sink to the bottom and die. I don’t want to sink, but I might need to pull over to the side of the ocean for a while and remember to enjoy this view.  Absolutely set goals, and absolutely continue to push forward toward new ones. But don’t forget to think about how far you’ve come.

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Past or present, Tracy Brogan loves romance.  She writes funny contemporary stories about ordinary people finding extraordinary love, and stirring historical romance full of political intrigue, damsels causing distress, and the occasional man in a kilt.

She is a best-selling author, a 2013 Romance Writers of America® RITA Best First Book Finalist for CRAZY LITTLE THING, and a two-time Golden Heart Finalist in both contemporary and historical romance.

Her next contemporary romance, HOLD ON MY HEART, releases June 25, 2013. If you’d like to see the trailer, here is the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUB7zan3dCc&feature=youtu.be

Tracy lives in Michigan with her husband, her children and their overly-indulged dogs. Please stop by her website at tracybrogan.com, or visit her on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/AuthorTracyBrogan

Guest Mom Natalie D. Richards on Motherhood and Writing

I’m so thrilled to introduce you to Golden Heart double-finalist Natalie Richards! She’s a true inspiration to moms of young children who think they have to wait to pursue their dreams–Natalie’s proof you don’t have to wait. You can start today….

I wrote the first book I ever sold without sitting down.

Okay, that’s a lie, but I did crank out more of its pages on my feet than I ever did on my rear end. I even wrote some of it in the midst of a grueling kidney stone attack. Sounds pretty intense, right? Like maybe my story was one of those life-changing journeys, one of those books that could not wait to be put to the page.

If only I could claim such greatness. Truth be told, I wrote standing up because I typically had a two-year-old crawling onto my lap and over the keys if I sat down. And I didn’t write with kidney stones because I’m the John Wayne of the writing world. I whined and griped through every minute of that ordeal, but I had a Golden Heart® contest deadline looming, and I refused to miss it.

My methods were weird, because my life demanded weird methods.

See, like a lot of people probably reading this blog, I picked the worst imaginable time to get serious about my writing. With two toddlers at home, and my thirtieth birthday looming, I thought it was high time to recommit to my dream. I focused on my craft, joined a local writer’s group and approximately fifteen minutes later, found myself pregnant with baby number three.

Writing was…hard.

Children come in many varieties. Some are shy, gentle creatures who take pleasure in long hours coloring quietly or reading in solitude. I don’t have any of those children, but I’m sure they exist.

My kids are rocket-talking, wall-bouncing bringers of stickiness and noise. They are amazing and inspiring and so exhausting that it sometimes takes everything I have to wrangle these little energy cannons through a day.

It would have been easier to put writing on hold. I mean, realistically, how was I going to manage the house, three children and a part-time job, and pump out a novel or two?

Well, I wasn’t about to let silly little things like logic and reality stop me.

So, I wrote. Wrote standing up, wrote in the car, wrote at hockey rinks and in the bathroom while my kids splashed in the tub. I wrote at the kitchen counter while dinner cooked and in the corner of the play room alongside Lego masterpieces and puppet shows . On a particularly rough night with a stomach bug running through the house, I wrote on the laundry room floor, waiting for sheets to dry.

I didn’t start with the intention of this writing Bedlam I exist in now. My original plan included a tidy house, organic, homemade dinners, and a strict writing schedule that I’d carry out at the small desk in my bedroom. My plan went off without a hitch for at least seven hours. That’s about the time I found myself with a clingy baby on nap-strike, a sink overflowing with dishes, and a pile of laundry I needed climbing gear to scale. As for my desk? It was still there. Somewhere under that sea of unpaid bills, half-finished kid-art projects and odd socks. Reality had done slapped my dream upside its head.

THE DREAM

THE REALITY


See, when motherhood hits, she takes no prisoners. You can either give up or dig in your heels and fight.

The truth is, it might be easier to wait until your kids are older to venture into the writing world. But if you’re reading this blog, you’re not willing to wait.

Good for you.

Keep your eye on the prize. Be flexible. Be opportunistic. And most importantly, be relentless. No one can really take your writing away from you, but no one will do it for you, either. So, let go of your expectations and tighten your fist on your goals. Carve out every slice of time you can and before you know it, it will become second nature.

Maybe you, too, will write a book standing up. Or maybe you’ll be better at this gig than me, and you’ll find a way to do it sitting down. Regardless of how you do it, get those words on the page. Much like motherhood, as brutally difficult as it can be, you’ll never, ever regret it.

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At seven, Natalie D. Richards wrote about Barbara Frances Bizzlefishes (who wouldn’t dare do the dishes.) Now she writes about awesome girls, broody boys, and all things dark and creepy. Natalie lives in Ohio (Go Bucks!) with her husband, kids, and a giant dust-mop who swears he’s the family dog. Her first book with Sourcebooks Fire, Six Months Later, is a young adult psychological thriller scheduled for release in October 2013. Contact her at natdrichards@gmail.com or follow her @NatDRichards.

Guest Mom: Eloisa James

–Congratulations to Sharlene W., who won a copy of Eloisa’s book, WHEN BEAUTY TAMED THE BEAST. Thank you to all our commenters, and we hope we’ll see you back at Peanut Butter on the Keyboard!–

We’re so happy to have guest mom and New York Times bestselling author Eloisa James here today! Thanks, Eloisa, for sharing some thoughts on motherhood with the PBOK family! 

The End of School Debris

One of the complexities of being a writing mother, for me, lies in a passionate wish to catch my children’s lives, for good or bad.  For example, when Anna was diagnosed with Lyme’s Disease for the third time, I wrote Duchess by Night, which includes a child infected by rat bite fever.  (I also moved out of New Jersey, but that’s another story.)

Similarly—and more obviously—I wrote the memoir Paris in Love because I wanted to capture the year my family and I lived in France, rather than allow it to slide away in the easy, dreamy way by which happy years disappear.  I wanted to remember for myself, but I also wanted Anna and Luca to remember details they might otherwise have forgotten.

Which this leads to one of the trickiest motherhood questions of all: what do you do with the boatloads of debris that accrue during childhood?  Are they precious memories, to be frozen in amber, or candidates for the recycling bin?  Yesterday Anna brought home multiple versions of a print made from a school bus gouged out of linoleum.  It’s a nice school bus.  Really.  Great headlights.

Still, with a 13-year-old’s wisdom, she detected lack of enthusiasm in my face and cried: You never like anything I create!  You think I’m a terrible artist!  Leaving artistic judgments aside (Picasso would have trouble with a linoleum school bus too), what about all the art I’ve got framed and pinned all over this house?  The lopsided purple candle-holder/monkey, who is carefully propped up in my bookshelf? The factory made out of cardboard and cotton balls that my husband refuses to throw away?  The glittery, purple paper maché turtle in the dining room?

Anna’s turtle

It’s hard to give up those memories, both for her sake and mine.  But we live in an apartment in New York City!  We can’t keep everything.  Anyone have any great advice about what to keep or not to keep?  Not as important as to be or not to be, but still weighty!

Peanutbutteronthekeyboard.  Summer 2012

Thanks again for being a guest mom, Eloisa, and for giving away a copy of your Rita-nominated Regency romance novel, When Beauty Tamed the Beast, to one lucky commenter!