Turns out Disneyland is the real world....

I am back from Los Angeles. It's taken me a few days to get my blogging mojo back. I had a fantastic time with Momma Zen author Karen Maezen Miller, both at our Sierra Madre Books event, and just hanging out with our families.

You see, it turns out that even Disneyland, even life in Los Angeles the day Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett died, is more real life than sitting behind a computer all day, looking for material to blog about. For a week, I really was where I was, in the world, not in cyberspace. Here Karen and I were waiting in line for Pirates of the Caribbean (with our families, who are out of the frame). No mouse ears for us, just MojoMom.com caps!


This week away makes me realize that I need to carve out separate time for writing projects, and blogging. I still want to blog---I cherish this opportunity to reach out to readers on an instant basis. But I may begin to rely more on short-form communication like Twitter and Facebook to share links that I do not have time to write extensive posts on.

Too much web-surfing is really affecting my brain. I need to take my own advice about "Reclaiming my mind space" and really look at my mental environment. For example, I came across these idiotic new Microsoft ads. The first one is just gross and stupid. I am not going to post it here. You can see it on the link if you wish but I warn you, it involved internet porn and projectile vomiting. The second ad pretty much sums up how my brain feels after a day of surfing. This is what I am trying to avoid:



So here's my commitment to you: For quick communications and interesting links, I will share info through Twitter and Facebook. And when I have something more substantial intelligent to say, I will blog about it! If I am not blogging, I may just be offline, writing my next book!

Los Angeles area, June 23, Mojo Mom & Momma Zen's Summer Reading Salon

Mojo Mom and Momma Zen, together for the first time!
Hi Los Angeles-area fans, I hope you can join me for a Moms' Night Out on Tuesday June 23. I am teaming up with my friend Karen Maezen Miller, author of Momma Zen, for a Mother's Reading Salon at Sierra Madre Books, from 7 to 9 pm in Sierra Madre.

Karen and I have become great friends through our writing but we've never met in person! I told Karen I'd come all the way out to California if we could create an event together. We feel that putting together good books, Moms, and a summer night out is a can't miss combination. I imagine we'll have a dialogue among the group about motherhood, writing, creativity, and finding Zen in the midst of family life. And I have tons of book recommendations to share, after all the research I did while writing Mojo Mom.

It would be great if you could join us, invite friends, and help us spread the word. Here's the invitation as a Facebook event.

About ten years ago I attended a Japanese tea ceremony and was told that "each time is the only time." The leader pointed out that each ceremony is truly unique, because it would be the only time that this exact group of people ever gathered in this way. That's how I feel about this event, especially since it is the first event that Karen and I will ever do together!

Reminder that I've already succeeded

I've made many wise friends through my work as an author. During the ramp-up to book release week, I asked my friend Jamie Woolf for the wisdom she's gleaned from the experience of her Mom-in-Chief book release this past February.

Jamie reminded me that it's important to decide what I specifically hope to get out of a book release. What are my goals, in addition to selling a lot of books? I think it's important for every writer to come up with at least 10 definitions of success that have nothing to do with getting on Oprah (as much as we'd all love that, too!).

This morning I saw that another of my friends, Momma Zen's Karen Maezen Miller, wrote a blog post that moved me to tears and made me realize I have already succeeded, just by having the experiences that came with the writing process and getting to publication. Right now my brain is as frazzled as my vocal cords are frayed, so I will let Karen's eloquence speak for itself by linking to her Cheerio Road blog post, The Mother at the End of My Block.

Karen, thank you. And I can't wait to see you in California in June...

...dear blog readers, you are invited to join us at 7 pm on June 23 for a Mom's Summer Reading Salon at Sierra Madre Books. Our first ever Momma Zen & Mojo Mom event!

Linda Hirshman on one shoulder, Momma Zen on the other

I am immersed in the writing process but frustrated that I don't always have time to sit down at the keyboard. As always, LIFE takes a lot of time. The background work that doesn't even make it onto my calendar or to-do list wants to expand to take over my work days. I have been enjoying time with my family this summer, but occasionally my frustrated mind plays a few tricks on me in the process of trying to get my work done.

My mind has been thoroughly colonized by the Mojo Mom revision process. I find that to hold such a big project in my attention at once, it really has to seep into my brain. The other night I dreamed that my literary agent was trying to recruit me to work for them and I was trying to figure out how to tell my husband that I could realistically commute between Chapel Hill and New York on a daily basis. Most days I wake up thinking about my writing one way or another.

Over the Fourth of July Weekend I had a truly surreal experience. My daughter and I went shopping at our local big box retailer shopping center. It was a descent into retail hell but so we dove in to a few specific things, tying up several loose ends in one trip. Our last stop was at the craft store A. C. Moore. I avoid it as much as possible, because crafty clutter is the last thing we need in our house. They might as well call the store CRAP I DON'T NEED. But we went in because I wanted to get some Crayola Model Magic. This stuff is a tactile delight--it's like a spongy cross between Play-Dough and clay. We're going to a family reunion and I needed something that could entertain an 8-year-old and a 3-year-old together, and take the edge off the tension of a family gathering. It's my favorite stress-buster toy in disguise.

So we found what we needed and got in line to pay. There were about five people ahead of us, and a grand total of one register open in the store. We stood there for a while and were not making any progress. The check-out woman called for help over the loudspeaker about four times, "Linda to the front register....Linda to the front register...." The line grew to over a dozen people and there were in fact two A. C. Moore employees in line behind us, but no one to come up and help check us out. It was truly the nadir of retail hell (with dramatic storm clouds gathering outside ready to break loose into a thunderstorm, by the way). I noticed that the other people in line were all women. Mostly elderly women. Women who looked like they were used to waiting...in doctor's offices...at the bus stop...waiting for something to happen. And they were here at A. C. Moore, waiting to buy something they could work on to pass the time while they were waiting somewhere else.

I heard a voice inside my head. It was my inner Linda Hirshman speaking (and believe me, I didn't realize I had an inner Linda Hirshman), like an angry little orthodox feminist cartoon devil sitting on my shoulder. She said, "If making crappy crafts is so great, how come there aren't any MEN in here?" I told her to shut up, reminding her that I didn't even want to be here and had stopped in for one specific thing. This was a little detour--it wasn't supposed to take all day long.

Luckily my inner Momma Zen spoke up, like an angel sitting on the other shoulder. She reminded me to breathe and said, "Relax. Just be here. You're having a fun day with your daughter. Yes, retail hell is exhausting, but who cares if you have to wait five extra minutes? It's no big deal. Don't let it get to you."

I did my best to shake off my sense of hurry and consumer huff about the fact that the store was so poorly run. It wasn't the fault of the woman behind the cash register. A second cash register finally opened....just in time to be no help at all to us, but that's just the way it goes.

So we got out of there with our Model Magic, but there is probably not enough squishy compound in the world to calm my racing mind right now. I just need to harness the energy of this mental cyclone to fuel the book revisions, find time to sit down and write it all out, and then look forward to a calm weekend later in the fall when I can relax...and give both Linda Hirshman and Momma Zen some time off.

Mojo Mom Podcast: Momma Zen

We'll be producing new, original Mojo Mom Podcasts throughout the summer.

You can listen to the podcast without an iPod, but from time to time my co-host Sheryl and I get in such a good mood about the podcast that we decide to give away a 4GB iPod Nano to one of our loyal fans. Listen in to this week's show to find out how to enter our July 1 drawing.

Mojo Mom and Momma Zen

Amy has big news--a new edition of Mojo Mom coming out spring 2009 from Gotham Books. Amy and Sheryl celebrate this development and then announce a new iPod giveaway.

Then from the material to the spiritual....Amy talks to Momma Zen author Karen Maezen Miller about writing, creativity and motherhood. Karen shows us all that it's possible to become a writer even if we never find "more time."

For more of Karen's wisdom, check out her series of "Zen Writers' Workshop" entries listed in the sidebar on her Cheerio Road blog.