Book Fail

We fail at a lot of things - tap dancing, keeping an eye on the kids, not embarrassing ourselves - and we try to be honest about it.  That's the key, right? To being OK with all things that could drive you crazy? To be honest about it, to try not to take it all so seriously and to laugh at yourself - that is the way of MommyLand and of the Jedi.  So for the next week, we're going to be honest about something that has been sort of a disappointment for us over the past year. 

First some backstory.  When we started this blog about 18 months ago, it was therapy for us.  Because we were both miserable and unhappy and exhausted and had lost the ability to laugh at the things that were driving us crazy.  And though we'd known each other for years - we weren't friends.

Then we had a run-in in a parking lot.  And had a conversation that truly changed our lives.

After we'd been blogging a couple of months, an amazing lady asked us if we'd ever thought about writing a book and we were like "OH EVEN YESSER".  And we gave each other high fives and danced around our in our respective kitchens on the phone with each other and got really excited.  And we tried to write a book about what we knew best. Our perspective on being seriously flawed parents. Our somewhat successful efforts to get our groove back.  Our luck in finding each other and something that we loved to do.

We were like this except on the phone.

So we wrote a chapter (and some other stuff) and we shared it with a bunch of people and they were all like "IT'S AWESOME! WE LOVE IT!" At least they said that to our faces.  Because the truth is that no one wanted to buy it. Eight months of trying, a couple of nibbles and no offer. 

A few months have passed since then.  And we think we can both say with total confidence that we have officially given up on writing a book.  Which is OK.  Because the truth is that writing a book wouldn't have been the thing that changed our lives.  The thing that changed our lives was making the choice to write anything.  We started this blog which, stupid as it is, represented an act of bravery for us.  OH YESSER. It's brave to be this stupid on the internets.

Yes, we're bummed that no one in the publishing industry wants to play in our sandbox. We tried. A couple of times.  We failed.  We might be a little bitter embarrassed about it.  I mean f*cking SNOOKI got a book deal.  But honestly? We were never about that in the first place.  We're not writers - WE'RE BLOGGERS! RAWR!

If a great idea or amazing opportunity came along, would we leap at it? Oh hells yeah.  Like a pack of crazed and hungry wolverines.  And as we leapt onto our unsuspecting book deal we would scream "WOLVERINE!" and snarl menacingly.  But that might scare them.  But it would also be awesome. 

By admitting all this, we're not making some grand statement that somehow we think we're worthy of writing a book or that we are deserving of the very high honor of having one published. We know we're not.  We know we're jackholes.  Or wolverines. Or a hybrid of both...holeverines!   

But it was sort of like being that dorky freshman at the dance, and hearing from your friends that a cute upperclassman was going to ask you dance and you were all "NO WAY. Me? ME?!  Eau. Mah. Gah." and then it turns out it was a joke and his girlfriend walks by and throws gum in your hair.

The real reason that motivated us to share this story with you guys wasn't so we could moan about how we got shafted. Because we didn't.  It was because the thought of no one ever reading the first chapter we spent so much time writing was driving us nuts. So we're posting it (split into four parts) over the next week.  It's not great and it's just one chapter and it's the story of how we became friends and started Rants From Mommyland.  And its a story you guys have never really heard from us before. 

But keep in mind, it's not that funny. Because (we're trying to be honest here) at that point, our lives weren't that funny. 

So in the future, if you are ever in a dark place and you wonder how you will get out of it - think of us.  And an unlikely friendship and a blog about wiping asses.  And how there is always hope even in the last place or person you might expect it.  Because we can honestly say we feel much better now.

But, really...it would be awesome if we could be holeverines.

xo, Kate & Lydia

(c)Herding Turtles, Inc. 2009 - 2011