How the Story Unfolds: Chapter One
Angry storm clouds, pregnant with rain, screamed with lightning as I gripped the seat handles and stared out the window of the plane, willing this trip to Montana to be over. The dark, tumultuous sky seemed to mirror our family’s last two and a half months. I gazed at my thirteen-year-old daughter, Katie, as she…
What I’m Not Leaving My Son
How do you capture family memories in scrapbooks when many of the years, although everything ended up fine, were so painful that you stopped making albums? While I thought I was “scrapbooking” for my kids so they’d have a beautiful record of their childhood, it was really about me. It was my chance to release…
The Chapter I Cut
I cut a chapter from my memoir, one of the hardest ones to write, and honestly, it hurt a little. Writing the whole memoir was therapeutic, but this chapter was harder than the rest because it involved a relationship that was very close and deeply important to me. It challenged my core beliefs and exposed…
The Role Had a Job Description. I Was Too Close to Read It.
The parts of the job that nobody puts in writing. When your oldest son proposes to his long-time girlfriend, you think you know what “mother of the groom” means. Find a phenomenal dress that coordinates with the mother of the bride, host the rehearsal dinner, and provide encouragement and support (dollars or otherwise) as the…
The Emotional Hangover Is Real
It’s been a week since my son Nick married his true love, and I’m still catching myself crying over things that have nothing to do with the wedding: an irritating driver, a task that’s harder than it needs to be, a random memory that surfaces while I’m folding laundry. I know it’s not really about…
All The Pieces Were There. She Just Couldn’t See The Frame.
Claire came to me with a fully written manuscript for her nonfiction parenting book. We’d been friends for years, talking about the book on our walks. When I told her I was pursuing my book coach certification, she said, “I need you. Can I hire you now?” She didn’t need convincing that her story mattered.…
I Had a Plan Before I Had a Single Box
Notes from the week as the Mother of the Groom This week, my spare bedroom is filled with boxes, and each one is labeled—appetizer table, buffet, dining table, and dessert display—for my son’s wedding rehearsal dinner. It’s organized, with a detailed event plan with pictures and corresponding numbers so the dinner setup is seamless. But…
You Don’t Think of Yourself as a Writer. You Just Keep Writing Things Down.
My son is about to get married, and in the middle of the countdown, I felt something I knew I’d want to remember later. So I opened a new file on my computer, titled it 260817_wedding feelings, and gave myself 15 minutes to write, which generally amounts to about 500 words. I didn’t obsess or…
She Says She Doesn’t Need a Coach Yet
For the woman asking, “When should I hire a book coach?” I see a lot of women sitting on the sidelines, waiting to get into the game. Most of the time, when they’re being honest, they’re afraid to reach out because they don’t have a draft yet, or they’re still thinking about what the book is…
How Do I Start Writing a Memoir When I Have Too Many Stories?
My daughter’s birthday was the subject of a post on my Reflections from a Recovering Perfectionist Substack, and I realized that it only told a very small part of the story. What started as a blog over 25 years ago left out a lot of context, the parts that are hard to sum up if you…
I Think Today Is My Daughter’s Birthday
I say it that way on purpose. Not “today is my daughter’s birthday.” I think it is. When we traveled to Russia to meet her, the paperwork gave us some numbers, but we didn’t know whether they’d been translated from the traditional European date format to the American one, and no one seemed to know…