How does it feel to be a USA Today Bestseller?

Arguably, the question I've heard the most in the past month was, "How does it feel to be a USA Today bestseller?" For once, something beat the expected, "How did you do that to your hair?" which I've heard for the past forever years.

I feel like I never answer the question well, so I'm going to try here. It feels wildly unreal. I know, I can see the list just like anyone else. I can see the newspaper articles. I can see them and they are wonderful, but I still feel exactly the same as I did before.

Well, that's not true. There are a handful of people who believed in me all along. There are an even smaller handful of people who believed in me when there was no reason to do so.

For starters, years ago I finished my first full-length novel, which I wrote backwards, believe it or not. Back then, Shell and Heather and Chrissy read it. Chrissy put her money on the line and became my first and only agent so far. She mailed off copies of that book and we waited to see what would happen...


Nothing. Nothing happened. But they still believed in me. Understand, at that point in my life, I'd done everything "wrong." I was a single mother to three kids to two different fathers...one of whom was my ex husband. I worked delivering pizzas. There was absolutely no reason to believe I'd ever be anything more than a poor mother of three kids in the middle of nowhere Ohio.

But they believed. Shell and her family went so far as to watch the kids while I wrote. Countless times they invited us to dinner and we went...because I was lost in chapters and they gave me the time to write. Speaking of the kids, do you have any idea how many times they helped me along the way? Because I don't. I just know that any time I said this was ridiculous and I should give up, they'd offer a hug and say, "I believe in you. Go write some more."

Mind you, back in those early days... There was literally NO REASON to believe anyone beyond a handful of friends would ever read all the stories I was writing. My first royalty checks were for two and three dollars. Disappointing? Well, yeah, especially since you were talking about a month or more of my work and hours of nights giving up sleep to make less than the cost of a cup of coffee.


Yet they believed in me.

Another adopted family cosigned for a car. They believed in me and trusted me. My daycare provider? Yeah, she dealt with my little monsters with smiles and grace and taught them to swim while mama worked doubles to pay the bills and then wrote instead of sleeping.

So many people helped me to get that book on that list. It wasn't just me. Yeah, sure, I wrote it. I pulled the characters out of the ether and breathed life into them...but I couldn't have done it unless a whole mess of people believed that I could do it.

The one big thing, for me, to come out of hitting that list is that I feel like I finally earned their trust and belief. For every publisher who signed one of my books into contract, for every editor who moved a comma, for every beta reader who sent back a smiley face and, "it's good!"...

For my babies who loved me and my dreams.
For my family who pulled out the pom poms and cheered me on...

For the ones who know they were there and who thought me, of all people--a single mama of three kids to two different daddies living in the middle of no where Ohio--could do this thing?

I feel like this is your win, too.

Thank you for believing in me. Thank you, readers, for reading me. Thank you, universe, for letting me prove to my lovely children that you really can do anything if you put your mind to it and work really hard.

How does it feel to be a USA Today bestselling author? It feels like I didn't let everyone down. And that? That is a damn good feeling.

Setting #Goals -- a post by mama virg

I used to post all of it on the blog, but in recent years I've gone far more private with a lot of my goals.

When I started, I did it for accountability--if I'd published online that I was going to do something, I was more likely to hold myself to the goals I'd set.

But then I became more involved in social media. Some folks were fantastic, really supportive and encouraging. They'd say they believed in me, rah-rah, that sort of thing.

Some folks? They attack you for being transparent. Whether they call the posts bragging or if they flat out say you can't do it, they're there to encourage that little voice in the back of your mind which told you that you couldn't do The Thing.

I say The Thing because it doesn't matter what goal you've set, they're out there to either accidentally or purposefully undermine what you're doing. Are you all about losing some weight this year?

"God, don't tell me about your salad or the fact you've managed a mile in under ten minutes!"

Sure, you may have just accomplished something really, really major (perhaps you were addicted to soda or couldn't walk the block without wheezing a few months prior to posting your update), they are there to tell you to stuff it.

This goes with writing, too, although it has always been mind boggling to me when other writers attack their own kind with cannibalistic glee. We're all out there, sitting alone with blank screens and minds full of doubts, trying hard to do something we've dreamed of. Why, when you know how hard it is to juggle life and storytelling, would you tear anyone else down? Can that actually make anyone, whether you're the poster or the one reading it, feel better about themselves?

Eh, well, it happens and it happens to everyone is my point there. It isn't always trolls, either. More often than not, the naysayers in the world are people we actually know--our family, our friends, our spouses. If they can't see where you're aiming or understand how you're planning to get there from here, they're as likely to accidentally shred dreams with their comments as strangers.

Even if they follow the statement with a jovial, "Oh, you know I'm only kidding!"

So, that said, I've been quieter about my personal goals. I've told some of them to my best friends. Some I've shared with my crit partners. But like a dragon guarding a treasure, I never gave anyone access to the whole dream. Almost like I thought if I only shared fragments with this person and other fragments with another...

No one could tell me I couldn't do it.
My point? Setting personal goals is important. Whether you share that goal with the world (joining something like NaNoWriMo where everyone can see that you're trying to write 50k in a month or joining a weight loss support group, for instance) or if you keep the nuggets spread out like me, the goal itself can drive you to more.

I told my kid the other day that he shouldn't worry what people think of him. Most people are far too concerned with the little voice in their own head--

The one saying, "Gah, I got coffee on my shirt. Now all anyone can see is the coffee stain...is there something in my teeth? God, I can't believe I just said that. I'm an idiot."

--to even bother worrying about all the things you're busy crucifying yourself for.

Because we all do that. We all fight the little voice in our heads. We wage a daily and constant war against the internal narrator, bury our insecurities with fake smiles, pretend we're okay when we're totally not...

I've said it before and I'll likely say it another thousand times--

If we spent our days working to bring up those around us, giving them hope, encouragement, and bringing light to the world in general, we probably still won't change the world. We likely won't even change our hometown.

But we can change the people around us, one smile at a time. If we make the people around us happier, we've changed OUR world, which is more than a lot of people ever manage.

Set goals. Nail them. Do a little butt wiggle and dance around your house with the joy of accomplishing The Thing, whatever your thing is.

Change your world instead of trying to change minds. You'll never change what the world thinks of you, but you can change how you look at it.

Sometimes all it takes to start is knowing one person believes in you.

xoxo
mama virg

A Day In The Life

So, I've been doing a lot of promo lately and figured it was about time to do a real life blog.

It's named a day in the life in honor of Eleanor Roosevelt--who I now know a whole lot about due to studying her and her husband for finals--since she wrote a series of articles about a day in the life of a first lady.

I'm not a first lady.  I'm a glamorous romance writer.  My life is the stuff of Romancing the Stone.

Or not.

After cramming for finals and getting hardly any sleep this week, I crashed early last night.  I then got up at the buttcrack of dawn.  Checking emails, I saw first round edits for Proper Care and Feeding of a Sex God, now renamed Taming a Sex God.  Coffee in hand, I whipped through them and fired them back to my editor.  I realized I was late.

I jumped in and out of the shower in record time and stuffed my kiddo in the car.  Realizing I forgot to get cash out of the bank for the Santa Shoppe he was headed to (and I was volunteering at) we popped in and out of an atm and went to school.

Signing him in late, because I'm a rockstar of a mama, I headed off with a friend to do some quality volunteer time.  It was actually pretty cool since I got to play store (aka work the register) and chit chat with my buddy.  Then I had lunch with my kiddo and helped tiny humans. 

Although fun, this was tiring, and more socializing than I usually do in a month, so I headed home, checked on my oldest and then passed out for an hour (Note: I mentioned this is finals week for college, right?)

I woke to an offer of cookies in exchange for my mad artistic skills so I got cookies.  I then checked my cell phone because the boys were riding bikes on the dirt road behind our house, mucking around in the woods and around the creek.  They texted me pictures of a frozen deer corpse they found in the creek.

KID YOU NOT...they texted me pictures of a body in frozen water.  Apparently this was a fascinating find for the boys.  Gruesome but fascinating.

Gaaaak.  They had hot cocoa and cookies and I packed up my stuff to go to the high school for a meeting with the music boosters.

I got all fired up because they don't have a music program in our elementary school right now (budget cuts) so I threw out ideas, thoughts, and am planning on now playing advocate for replacing our depleted performing arts program.  Yes, I'm now the secretary of the music program.  *bows*

Now I'm back home, with another round of edits in my inbox, plans to research music grants and the positive and negative impacts of no music program, cramming for an art final tomorrow and...oh yeah, I have work to do.

So, yes, this is a day in the life of a glamorous writer.  You're all jealous right now, aren't you?

Happy Writing!

You're all so angry...Gaaaah!!

I noticed it started around the election. 

Not blaming the election or anything but that really seems to have amped up the internet angry-meter.

Democrats attacked republicans.  Both sides advised us that if their candidate didn't win, the end of the world was nigh.  Brothers attacked sisters.  Mothers told off their daughters.  Husbands and wives set up trenches in their livingrooms and there was even mention of the zombie apocalypse.
(Bravo, Joss.)


But it didn't stop when the election was over. The ads stopped, which--don't get me wrong--was nice but the hate campaigns took new roads.

Now people are attacking each other's religions regularly.  Christians--the most loving and forgiving lot before the hate campaigns started--are damning folks right and left.  I even saw a post about Santa being a road to hell...apparently, Jesus cakes should be baked instead.  I mean, it's his birthday and all that...even if it's not actually his birthday, just the day we celebrate it...

Meh, I digress.

Now you're attacking fat kids.  Cats.  Unicorns and sequins.  Attacks are coming out of nowhere.









Really, I've never, in all my years hanging my hat in the internet, seen this much hating going on.

No, guys, tell us how you REALLY feel.

So, this is my intervention.  Knock that shit off.  We're all grown ups here.  That means we're setting an example for the kids.  If you're going batshit crazy in a facebook rant about why pasta salad is going to destroy the global economy and give rise to the squirrel apocalypse, you're kids can see this shit.  If they can't read now, they'll figure it out and the internet is forever.

I know, I know. We tell our kids that to keep them from posting pictures of their boobiebuds on the net but it's true for us, too.  If you post it, it's going to stay up FOREVER...

And do you really feel better after posting this stuff, anyway?  Since it's next to impossible to change someone else's mind, if it's made up, what purpose does this venting serve other than that...
VENTING.

If you really must vent, call a friend.  Get that angry out in a safe way.  You don't want people to respond to these posts--if they disagree, you're only going to get angrier.  So why post them?

I liked it much better when everyone was addicted to LOLZ cats, personally.  Less angry attacking more laughing at silly things felines did.

What ever happened to loving each other.  Gah...it's the season for giving, light, hope and love.

Quit hurting each other. 

*steps off soapbox and goes for coffee*