Grateful

Well, here we are. It’s nearly Mother’s Day. The kids were home for the months of March and April, which meant we were having as much time together as possible. May was fast approaching and I hadn’t done the marketing/promotions like I did last year. Luckily, I have friends who believe in the project and were willing to stick out their necks for me and so, thanks to their help,  I’ll be doing a real tour this week with three spots on the news and radio. I am overwhelmed with gratefulness, because to be a writer means you are often alone in your fantasies of gaining readership and making a difference in the world. Sometimes, the disappointment is so painful that it is paralyzing–but when the momentum picks up you stop feeling so alone and your frustrations are met with hope.

My girlfriend has taken to blogging and unabashedly admits to behaving like a junior-high student hovering over the computer, waiting for the comments to appear and watching as the numbers rise after posting a blog. There is something almost palpable about touching a community of people with your writing. It sort of gives you a reason to keep writing.

Playing the marketing game with Maternallyours has been a learning experience for me and querying agents has been a trying experience. I think it’s funny that while one manuscript is being shopped by an agent to the traditional publishers, the other self-published piece is slowly developing a grassroots life of its own. Both venues take an incredible amount of patience. I’m grateful for a little orange slice in the marathon of the writing business.

It feels like we’re so busy working to pay for college, or running our kids from lessons to school to sports activities that we have no time to do anything outside of our busy lives. My new motto for the Maternallyours project is: Connecting Mothers while Helping Others.  You can join me in my celebration of motherhood and we can create  this solidarity between us that honors our essence as sister-mothers and all the proceeds go to help these orphanages. Sort of a win win.

This year, the first charity is http://timounkiskeya.wordpress.com/

and the second charity is: http://www.gozoe.org/

I am inspired by the women who head up the activities at these orphanages because they are SCV residents, who have chosen to leave behind the ‘white picket fence’ and dedicate themselves to change.

These are the Haiti kids who benefit from MY and will hopefully get to go to the museum and learn their histories!