Preparing for the Release of My Novel: The Life of a FICTIONAL Mom Blogger

As the Picket Fence Post family girds itself for the release this month of my novel about an oversharing blogger who gets into big trouble when her previously anonymous blogging identity is revealed and her family goes ballistic after discovering what she's been writing online, I feel compelled to state the obvious. For the record. (Imagine that I'm holding a bullhorn to my face as I say this):

My novel, Mortified: A Novel About Oversharing, is a work of fiction. Sure, it may feature a blogger who's a mom. I'm a blogger who's also a mom. The main character, Maggie Kelly, may live in suburb in the greater Boston area. I live in a suburb in the greater Boston area. But . . . I am not Maggie and Maggie -- who blogs in a raw, profanity-laden, no-holes-barred, slash-and-burn fashion -- is not me. Clearly. But I will cop to dropping curse words a little too often, as Maggie is wont to do.

The other main character, Maggie's husband Michael, is not The Spouse, although, like Michael, there was a time when my husband's job required him to attend evening meetings when our children were young. The schedule was a demanding one to maintain. Then again, having three children within three years of one another is difficult in and of itself. The columns in my first book, A Suburban Mom: Notes from the Asylum (available on Kindle!), along with my Boston Mommy Blog, are full of tales from those challenging, highly caffeinated years.

However, once Mortified is published on May 12 (Amazon link here), I'm guessing I'm going to be issuing this disclaimer quite a bit, particularly to certain people. (I'm talking to you Mom.)

How will the twin 14-year-olds and the 11-year-old react to all of this curiosity? Hopefully with the same nonchalance they treat most things involving their parents these days, unless it involves driving them someplace or handing out fistfuls of cash.

'Stop Blogging About Me Mom!' So It Has Been Uttered, So It Shall Be Done.

I've officially been given my pink slip. By my 10-year-old son.

I've been put out of work as the chronicler of his childhood. I've gotten the hook. His life story, or so I've been told, is his and his alone, so I need to just step away from the laptop. Immediately.

The kid's got a point. I can completely understand his feelings of vulnerability, his fretting that I'll, in my power-mad mom mode, mortify him on my blog or in a column. He doesn't like not knowing what little humorous chestnuts I might share with my readers. So this week he issued a blanket cease-and-desist order. I can only write about him from this point on, if he gives me explicit permission to do so.

What the kid doesn't know is that, for some time now, I've been trying in earnest to protect his privacy, as well as the privacy of his siblings. I no longer use their names in my parenting columns and blog posts. I don't post photos of them. I no longer write about subjects that I think will prove embarrassing to them (which means a ton -- and I mean A TON -- of funny and sometimes poignant pieces never get written). When in doubt, I keep it out.

I've been trying to delicately balance my family's privacy concerns with trying to write honestly and forthrightly about modern parenting in an era where there are over-involved helicopter parents and hockey dads who aim laser pointers at opposing players' eyes in an attempt to help their kids' teams win.

But now that The Youngest Boy has thrown down the gauntlet, I'll have to respect his request and only write about material he thinks is okay.

Maybe I SHOULD just suck it up and get a second dog to join my 2-year-old Wheaten Terrier/Havanese dog Max (against the vigorous opposition of The Spouse) so I'll have new, humorous fodder which I can mine for columns and blog posts. At least the dogs can't read.

Brief Blogging Break ‘Til Aug. 8

I’ll be enjoying a blogging hiatus until next Monday, trying to spend some quality time with the Picket Fence Post family (provided the boys don’t send me to the hospital with one of their pranks).

Not to worry, though. I’ll be covertly taking notes on all our adventures. (And when all this family togetherness gets to be too much family togetherness, I'll retreat to a "Mommy timeout" with a book in my hand.)

In the meantime, enjoy my latest piece over on Modern Mom about how I'm okay with the fact that I often say, "No" to my kids when they want to do things like watch The Hangover or play Call of Duty, making me supremely uncool and unhip. But it's okay. I can take it.

Picket Fence Post Blogger Now Back & Ready to Go (Without the Benefit of Adonis DNA)

I may not have one gear, Go!,  as father of the year Charlie Sheen does, but I’m ready to return to this blogging goodness here after my brief break. Having finished editing my top secret manuscript (if I have any news about it, of the good variety, believe me, I’ll share), I’m back to business.

So, what, other than Charlie Sheen’s antics, the liberation of Egypt, the riots in Libya and the ongoing horrors in Japan has been going on during the time I was gone? Well, I’ll keep my summary very basic and very local, focusing on the various oddities and events from the Picket Fence Post household:

As a trio of screenless iPod Shuffles did a few years ago, The Girl’s iPod Nano, which has a screen and is much more expensive than a Shuffle, went through the washer AND the dryer after I, a mother whom me children think is mad with power, insisted that she pick up all the clothing that was on her bedroom floor and put it either in the laundry or in a drawer (NOT under her bed). The Girl angrily put almost all the clothing in the laundry, no one checked the pockets and . . . voila . . . iPod through the new washer and dryer. Thus far *knock on wood* it is still working. We shall see.

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It may be March, but the temperatures are still in the 30s and 40s. Not shorts weather, unless you happen to be a 9-year-old boy who knows EVERYTHING and you, the aforementioned power-mad mother know absolutely nothing about what it’s like to be a kid. Nearly every day last week (and even this morning) I had to order The Youngest Boy to take off the shorts he was wearing (along with a T-shirt) and put on pants before going to school. And yet he still donned shorts when he came home from school telling me how very hot it was outside.

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. . . You want irony? That same kid mentioned in the previous anecdote, the one who thinks 35 degrees is balmy enough for sports shorts and a T-shirt, turned the thermostat up to 81 the other night while I was making dinner. I’d become worried that I was getting sick or that I was having hot flashes (!) or something as I made dinner one night last week. By the time I’d cleaned up all the dishes and retired to the family room to read a magazine, I was literally sweating.

“Is it hot in here, or is it me?” I asked The Eldest Boy, who reported that he felt hot too. It was he who checked the temperature and reported that his brother had jacked the furnace up to a tropical 81. Maybe if the kid wasn’t wearing shorts then he wouldn’t need the heat so high. I’m just sayin’ . . .

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Showering + Children = Complaining, oh the bitter complaining.

Dirty Finger Nails + Son = Complaining that Mom wants everything “perfect” when she tells him to wash his hands and clean under his fingernails.

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The Girl amazed me with her bravery when she and a pal performed a song from the Nickelodeon show Victorious at the recent middle school talent show. They did not look scared at all, as they took to the stage in front of a couple hundred people. In fact, they had giant smiles on their face as they bopped around stage dancing and singing. *so proud*
 
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Do not take your kids to see Gnomeo & Juliet. You will not be able to get your 84 minutes back. And by the time you get to the end, you’ll be quite angry about that, trust me.

Taking a Blogging Break

There are only so many hours in the day . . .

So goes the cliché, but it’s true, oh, so painfully true. As much as I’d like to think that I can get everything done on time – from meeting my column deadlines, blogging deadlines, attending to editing duties, remembering to pick up my kids/drive ‘em places, realizing that it’s time to make dinner or refill the fridge, continuing to do my volunteer work in a timely fashion – it’s been an exceedingly difficult task as of late.

And something’s gotta give ‘cause one person can only do so much at once.

For the next few weeks, I will TEMPORARILY stop blogging here and at my other blog. (I WILL, to quote Arnold, be back, so don’t give up on checking here.) Why the break? I need to finish editing a manuscript for a novel -- about blogging, ironically -- that I’ve been working on for two years but have not had the chance to complete. The plan is to finally get it edited and then, hopefully, find an agent then a publisher for it. (*fingers and toes crossed*)

But you can still get your fill of my writing in the meantime: I’m still going to be writing weekly columns on pop culture and politics for Mommy Tracked, so come on by to read my new pieces, posted on Tuesdays. I’ll be writing about TV at CliqueClack TV, where I’m covering some TV shows for them. And I’ll be tweeting on Twitter -- @MeredithOBrien. I just won’t be regularly blogging on my two blogs until the book is done.

I look forward to coming back to this space with renewed creative vigor and hopefully good news about my project to announce.

We'll Be Back After This Brief Break . . .

Not to be alarmed my Picket Fence Post peeps, but I'll be taking a break from blogging for the next week to recharge the writing/blogging brain.

When I return to this space I'll bring y'all fresh tales and anecdotes from the front lines of suburbia.