have milk, will travel: a contributor’s note

I have yet to meet a woman who says, “Oh, yes, my experience breastfeeding was everything I hoped it would be and more.” Or, for that matter, a woman who says, “I am neutral on the topic.”

Relatively speaking, the time a mother spends nursing her child is short. But, relatively speaking, the time a mother spends nursing her child is intense.

In fact, my experience breastfeeding twins was the catalyst for my career as a writer. What started as a personal essay about the difficulties, disappointment, and disillusionment in breastfeeding, morphed into an entire manuscript about motherhood. The collection became my thesis, the essays began to get published, I decided I needed a blog, and now I’m onto my first novel.

So, I’m quite pleased to announce that this little essay, “The Price of a Boob’s Job,” is the concluding chapter in Rachel Epp Buller’s anthology, “Have Milk, Will Travel.”

The topic of breastfeeding seems to bring out a fight in many women, with strong opinions and emotional responses. Ms. Epp Buller decidedly gives us a break from the intensity with stories, essays, and poems on the lighter side. The book is funny. Because, anyone who’s sat eating dinner, naked from the waist up, in front of her father-in-law, or accidently sprayed milk all over the bathroom mirror, or realizes too late that she forgot to secure the tubing on her pump, knows that breastfeeding can be very funny.

I participated in the publication release events in the LA area last weekend and got a chance to meet Rachel and several other contributors for the first time since I submitted my essay three years ago. With events in Westlake Village, an affluent bedroom community outside of LA, and Hollywood, which is, well….Hollywood, I was struck by the completely different types of people attending the events. Female. Male. Black. White. Monolo Blahniks. Hot-Pink-Uggs. But we were all there, mostly cracking up, sometimes breathing deeply, sharing in the madness of a great equalizer: the lactating breast.

If you, or someone you know, is in the thick of it…grab a dark beer (just one! it’s good for let-down, dontchaknow?!?), sit down in a comfy chair, and get the book here.

publication week

It has been one week since my book was published, and people are beginning to ask how it’s doing. Or if it’s a bestseller yet. Mostly, I tell them I have no idea how it’s doing, other than the Amazon ranking, which seems to change drastically based on the hour of the day in which you check it. (In fact, it has ranged from #60,000 on the list to #17,000.) My publisher also has an Author Portal where they post sales-related information. The people at Howard told me that it wouldn’t do any good to check it the first week, but I did anyway. Yesterday, it read that 14 copies of the ebook were sold. 14. One. Four. So, NOT YET A BESTSELLER. Maybe wait a few weeks, but at least more than a one-digit amount of readers have really enjoyed the book thus far. Rome wasn’t built in a day, people. Or even a week.  Because there was an election last week and some people seem to have cared more about ol’ Barack O’Romney than they do about ME. WHAAA??? I KNOW.

I don’t exactly know my game plan for how to react to reviews or sales numbers or requests for autographed copies (I think all my aunts have asked for autographed copies. Yay for aunts!).

I spent the weeks prior to publication really kicking myself in the ass for not pretending that the stories in the book were fictional. I mean, I know that fiction writers must still feel vulnerable, but putting something out there and stamping your approval that, “Yup, this is pretty much true, and yup, I really believe all that about God and Christians and chin hair” has got to be worse. (And I’d like to take a moment to apologize to my aunts for anything they may find offensive. In the book or on this blog. Or just in life.)

I may decide to fast from all review-related material on the Internet that is not expressly from my friends who write stuff on my Facebook page. I fall very easily on the “thinned skinned” side of things, so I was all “What the hell?!?” when someone gave me 4 out of 5 stars on Amazon. I realize this is totally ridiculous and would like to now publically THANK the person who gave me 4 stars and APOLOGIZE for that initial reaction. This, especially in light of the idea that The Great Gatsby and Gilead sometimes get one-star reviews and (spoiler alert) those books are WAY better than mine.

So, I survived Pub Week, as all the publicisizters call it. I did more than survive it, even. Me and the fam took a trip down to Barnes & Noble (the Town Center location, for any locals who may want to pick the book up in person), and visited my little book on its real, live bookstore bookshelf. I resisted the urge to move the book to the Employee Pick shelf. I resisted the urge to put it in front of all the Joel Osteen books. I even resisted the urge to walk around the bookstore and tell all the people that I wrote it and show them my children, who may well never go to college if a few more copies don’t sell. And it was really a dream come true.

 

Miles and me, doing our excited faces.

 

Plus, just so you guys know, I’m sure that I’m the sort of person who just made stuff up, so don’t believe everything you read. Especially if it offends you.