The real answer is, at work, as always. But the underlying answer is hatching a new chicken. It’s an old chicken, but still. For those not in the know, the offspring are known as chickens: Oldest, Middle, and Baby. While they were growing, I hatched another to keep me sane.
The year is 1995. I had given up my beloved sportswriting gig because I had too many children. Kind of like the old lady in the shoe, but to feed the mouths in our house, someone had to actually be home. I drew the shorter straw, given that my salary couldn’t feed a mouse.
The summer of 1995 found this mom flailing, missing work, and mired in soccer, swim lessons, sticky hands, and a traveling-for-work Norwegian. I hired a neighbor girl (Thank you, McKinsey. I follow you on Facebook. Your new baby is a doll.) to play with the Chickens so I could write. She came twice a week for a few hours.
Knowing I had only a few hours to crank out whatever was to save my soul helped me produce a book in a summer. Not without interruption. Baby Chicken, famous for her loathing of babysitters, had limited patience for poor McKinsey and instead spent a good portion of that summer perched on my desk with the promise of cookies if she could be still and quiet.
The home office featured double French doors, which I stared out of, hoping for inspiration.
Kelly, the cat that hated everyone but me, came up the deck, looked me in the eye, and dropped a squirmy animal of some sort. Days watching her adventures birthed White Boots, News Reporter. Reporting was the only job I knew to write about, and Kelly, with her perfect white boots, seemed to have a more exciting life than I. The little black-and white domestic shorthair reporter cat became the hero of the book.
The Norwegian would come home and read whatever passages had been created in his absence. A sprinkling of city politics moved the plot along. Covering the city council was where I landed, pregnant with Oldest Chicken. Some nonsense about the liability of an eight-month pregnant reporter on football sidelines.
A prestigious publisher requests the manuscript the following year, but ultimately thinks children will not believe a world where amorphous cats are in charge. It is 1996. Am I ahead of my time? Perhaps. The book sits. And sits. And sits.
Redecorating and come across the original. Good story. Good bones. Rework. And, hello, a year later, White Boots News Reporter is an actuality. Goal–sell the book. Work my way out of the nine-to-five, which has never suited my sensibilities, except for the heels and pencil skirts.
So, where have I been? Juggling of a different sort. Instead of chickens, it’s editing, publishing, picking brains, creating an LLC, paired with that pesky nine-to-five that makes a five-to-nine creative life possible. Am I tired? Hell yes. Am I weary? Hell yes. Am I scared of what’s next? Double hell yes. Is there a romance novel next? Hell yes. Is there a Devil Wears Prada on the horizon? Halfway done, girlfriends. Turns out you can get a lot done if you don’t go anywhere or see anyone.
Now, it’s your turn. Get it on Amazon. Order it from Barnes and Noble, Target, wherever. It comes out tomorrow. Wrap up in a cozy blankie and read it with your child, grandchild, husband, cat, dog, I don’t care. Just buy it. Then buy the next one and the next one. I don’t want to stay in the house forever.
