What I Learned in My First Month of Motherhood

I generally use this blog for posts about writing. Well, I put my writing on hold for a little while because I’ve had a welcome distraction—a baby! Writing with a newborn in the house has had its own challenges, but it’s not impossible. After a month-long hiatus from hacking away at character development and story-building, I’m finally back in the swing of things. Being responsible for a baby means I’m not writing as often as I used to, but I’m grateful that I’m at least writing. I’m about 13,000 words into my latest work-in-progress, and I couldn’t be more excited about the direction it’s taking.

During my month of not writing, I was trying to learn how to be a mother. What a change that’s been! While the first month of motherhood didn’t contribute greatly to writing novels, it did give me some perspective about raising a child. And what’s a writer to do but write about her experiences? So without further ado, here’s what I learned in my first month of being a mom:

• Keeping a baby entertained while he's awake is extremely difficult when he has the attention span of a goldfish and can only see 12 inches in front of his face.
• If I could kick as much as my newborn, I'd have the strongest stomach muscles in the world. (I've tried. It's impossible.)
• Sometimes babies only calm down if you confuse them. If that means throwing them into the air or crying back into their face, then so be it.
• A baby fist is almost impossible to unclench, especially at bath time and when he has a handful of your hair. This makes baby fists a storage space for lint balls.
• Burp cloths are the best gift known to man. Regardless of how much they protect my clothes, the amount of laundry that needs to be done increases dramatically after a baby is born.
• Baby acne is a totally real thing and makes an infant look like a mix between an awkward teenager and Frankenstein (but don’t tell him I said that!).
• Your partner will be utterly disappointed when he realizes he can't calm the baby as well as you simply because he doesn't have boobs.
• My baby's life goal is to eat, and he will headbang relentlessly against anything and everything until that happens.
• He will pee on you the second you uncover his penis, no matter what tricks you think you have up your sleeve.
• People LOVE to give blankets as baby gifts, but there are only so many blankets you can use.
• When people say they want to come over to help with the baby, it really means they want to cuddle with him and hand him back to you at the first sign of trouble.
• I am uncomfortable admitting how often my boobs are hanging out when I'm sitting around at home. That being said, power-feeding throughout the day is the key to getting a decent-night's sleep.
• An eating baby is one of the most innocent things you will ever see.
• And, most importantly: Generic baby wipes are a waste of money.

Free Diverse YA Books!

Diversity in YA, which celebrates diversity in YA books, is giving away 9 upcoming young adult books! These upcoming books look fantastic and I'm so excited about the direction that YA books continue to take. There are three different genres of books in the giveaway: thriller/science fiction, realistic fiction, and nonfiction.

You can check out Diversity YA's twitter page here and enter the giveaway here! The contest ends September 19th.

IN THE REARVIEW Came Out Today...and There's a Giveaway!

Today's the day! Maria Ann Green's new book, In the Rearview is finally for sale on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. I wish I could convey to you how excited I am about this. I had the pleasure of reading it in one of its earlier stages and I was blown away with Ms. Green's language and imagery. If you're interested in learning about the real-life struggles associated with cutting, then this book is for you!

What's especially cool about this release is that there's a GIVEAWAY PACKAGE! And it's not your typical run-of-the-mill giveaway. Maria Ann Green is giving you the opportunity to be named as a character in her next book if you buy In the Rearview by August 26th! Here are the details.

LILA'S CHOICE Relaunch!

Join me in my excitement about the relaunch of Laura Brown's book, Lila's Choice! There's a fancy new cover, which I love, and (just as exciting) the ebook will be on sale this week for 99¢! Head on over to Amazon or Barnes and Noble to get your copy! OR, if you're willing to take a chance, check out the rafflecopter on the Giveaway tab of Laura Brown's Facebook page for the chance to win a free copy and other cool prizes; the giveaway will run through August 18th.

And now, the beautiful cover:

Never let your friends get involved in your personal life.

Lila and Nate learn this the hard way. They are the star-crossed lovers of Glendale High. For three years the students have waited for the two to get together. They begged Nate to put his past relationship behind him, and cringed when Lila started dating Bryce. Just your typical teenage romance, except they’re the teachers.

Lila, a guidance counselor with a sweet demeanor, has an answer for every problem, every problem but her own. A visit from childhood friend Bryce thrusts her calm world into turmoil, as emotions buried deep inside are dragged to the surface. He soon realizes what only a friend can notice and a lover regret, that Lila, unbeknownst to herself, is in love with Nate.

Nate has seen better days. He is a history teacher stuck living in the past. Depression has kept his love for Lila unspoken, his ego frail after being cheated on.

Now Lila and Nate’s coworkers must unleash a scheme and uncover Lila’s true feelings. In a school this nosey what better way to get fast results than to involve the student population? The students are all too eager to get involved.

If everything goes as planned Lila will have to choose between two men. If her friends fail they might destroy these three and ruin their friendship. No wonder the scheme is called Project Torture.

Bio:

Laura Brown lives in Massachusetts with her quirky abnormal family. Laura and her three cats are “differently abled.” Laura is hard of hearing, her oldest cat is deaf and partially blind, and the other two cats have cerebellar hyplasia (they shake, and they don’t find it endearing). The “normal” members of her family include her husband, who has put up with her since high school, and her young son who enjoys “typing” on Mommy’s laptop and has agreed to take full blame for all spelling errors.

You can find Laura Brown on Twitter (@AuthorLBrown), Goodreads, Facebook, and her blog!

Cover Reveal for IN THE REARVIEW

Good morning all! Today I'm excited to post the cover for the upcoming novel In the Rearview by Maria Ann Green. I had the pleasure of reading this work at one of its earlier stages and I am unbelievably thrilled that it will be published by Astraea Press on August 19th.

So check out the info below and join me in my enthusiasm!

Title: In the Rearview

Author: Maria Ann Green

Genre: YA Contemporary 

Release date: August 19th

Meagan's problems aren't like every other adolescent's no matter how much she wishes they could be. Hers are worse. They've pulled her down into the depths of a depression that is anything but normal. She begins her pattern of self-harm as her depression threatens to drown her. She starts with one cut that leads to the next, and the next. After starting, it's apparent that there's no stopping, and Meagan spirals into a dark and cruel world she doesn't understand. Meagan cuts to feel better, but that comfort doesn't last long enough, and soon life is worse than it ever was before.

While learning to quit cutting Meagan faces life-altering obstacles and grows up in the process. IN THE REARVIEW is a story of pain, loss, confusion, and hope told through Meagan’s poems, journal entries, and a splash of narrative.

*Maria Green currently lives in Minnesota, despite its bitter winters, with her husband. She graduated with a degree in Psychology and a minor in English. When she isn’t writing, Maria loves to read with a cup of strong coffee or a glass of sweet wine, craft, and spend time with her family. This is her first published novel. Check out her website (www.mariaanngreen.com and blog (www.mariaanngreen.com/blog)! And here's a photo of the lovely Miss Green herself:

 

And DON'T FORGET: A Giveaway Package for In the Rearview will be announced on August 15th with instructions on how to be entered (and what you could win)!

I've Emerged!

Five months ago I hid myself in the dark writing cave that authors often find themselves in. I had an idea for a new manuscript and I ran with it, determined to keep going until I was finished and could emerge from the cave.

And I did it. I now have a shiny new manuscript waiting to be picked apart by my beta readers and critique partners. It's an NA LGBT contemporary set in Appalachia, and I'm confident that it's my best manuscript yet!

As always, my husband is my first reader. After writing and editing I passed it off to him and awaited the onslaught of super picky yet constructive commentary. His feedback has been invaluable so far, but he still has a ways to go on the critiquing journey. I'm grateful that even though he's found many flaws, he has also remarked that his job is difficult because of my improved writing. I hope future critiquers see it that way as well!

It was a relief to finish my first and second drafts, but the work hasn't stopped. I'm incorporating edits, working on my query letter (yikes!), reading other peoples' manuscripts, and (God help me) working through the ideas of a NEW manuscript (anyone up for a historical fiction?).

There's still some time before I'll be ready to start querying this manuscript. The prospect of starting the query process all over again is both exhilarating and frightening. I'm simultaneously eager to get my new work out there and terrified that the daunting task will be waste of time.

Wish me luck!

**Over the next couple of weeks I'll post some exciting news about my friends' book releases! Giveaways to come!

Lessons from Feedback

Like other authors who are relatively new to this game, I've spent a lot of time trying to get feedback on my manuscript. In addition to passing my manuscript to my oh-so-diligent beta readers (who I'm very grateful for!), I've entered Twitter contests and blog critique workshops to get a feel for how others react to my work. As expected, I've had mixed reviews. Some people love it, some people hate it, and some people have been in that middle ground of "it's okay I guess."

I've learned some very important lessons from the feedback I've received. Here's a breakdown of those lessons. Note that anything in quotation marks is not actually a direct quote.


Your manuscript needs to fall on fresh eyes.

As the writer, you're too deeply involved in your manuscript. You need someone to step back and see the big picture for you. Find out how other people react to your story to learn whether your intentions come out in your writing. What works in your head will not necessarily work for other people.

Along the same lines, other people can point out when certain parts of the text jump out at them negatively. There's a spot in the beginning of my manuscript that I added recently but didn't feel quite right about. I couldn't figure out WHY it didn't feel right, so I let it stay. When a stranger read that passage on a blog, he or she picked out one sentence and said "This doesn't fit your character's voice. It's the most mature sentence Morgan has said so far." Ah-ha! That was the simple solution to the unrefined question that had been bothering me. When something doesn't feel right but you're not sure why, you might need someone's fresh eyes to give you gut reactions.

Sometimes you have to read between the lines.

I occasionally receive suggestions that make absolutely no sense at first. For instance, I was really excited to hear one of my beta readers' reactions about how the "hero" of my story swoops in to save the main character when it's least expected. His reaction was not what I had anticipated: "I don't understand why he's supposed to be a hero. He's actually just a d*ck that did something nice at the end."

When I asked my beta reader to be more specific, I discovered that he had accidentally mixed up two of the characters in his head! One character was a true d*ck with no redeemable qualities; the other was a confused, pained man in search of love who made mistakes but had the best intentions.

My gut reaction was to say, "You should have read the story more closely! It's not my fault you can't keep names straight!"

But here's the awful truth that I needed to recognize (and here's where the "reading between the lines" part comes in): There's a REASON the reader mixed up those characters. I didn't need to fix my reader's intelligence--I needed to fix my characters. I needed to make the characters more distinguishable not just in actions (which the already were) but in personalities. Though the readers were very different in my head, they did not come across that way on paper (or, er, type).

Sometimes the feedback you receive isn't straightforward; you might need to take feedback not at face value but as a start for figuring out deeper problems.

No one knows your manuscript like you do.

Someone who read my first 250 words said something like this: "You should remove this self-deprecating sentence because you don't want agents thinking your book is self-deprecating."

Well no. That line is about Morgan's lack of self-confidence. It's NOT a line that justifies weaknesses in the manuscript. But the person who read the excerpt didn't know the manuscript well enough to understand the full scope of the main character's personality.

When people critique your work, you must always remember that they don't know your story as well as you do. You've engineered this story and you understand it; as such, there are certain forms of feedback that you need to take with a grain of salt. Don't follow everyone's suggestions just for the sake of following them--it might end up causing more harm than good.

Not everyone has to like it.

Since you'd find my book on the YA LGBTQ shelf, it's a given that not everyone is going to like it. But even people who are into this genre don't have to like it either. There is no book in existence that everyone likes. I've learned that I only need to impress SOME people. If someone out there falls in love with my work, then it's possible an agent will too. I'm not here to please everyone; I'm here to get my message across.

There comes a point when you have to be done.

There's only so much feedback you can take. Really. You cannot obsess over what everyone thinks forever. There is a stage where feedback is needed and there's a stage where you need to let go and hope it sells. That's not to say that you shouldn't give your manuscript to someone who asks to read it. But I AM saying that there are only so many times when you need to actively seek criticism. If you let the feedback go on for longer than necessary, you'll find yourself running in circles trying to please everyone. Let go when you're ready.