Samantha Wilde's Blog, page 2

Wake Up, Celebrity! You Are Trending.

During my photo shoot I looked like this:






Mostly, I look like this:




Actually, this is a staged photo. I gathered up every source of chocolate in the house. But even if it wasn't a real moment in time, it captures a real feeling.

So you can imagine my surprise when I found myself mentioned on Celebrity Balla next to the words, "celebrity" and "trending." Looking at this, made my day.


10 Updates   Celebrity Balla Trending News I’ll Take What She Has Source: 5 Minutes for Books, Mar 7 2013, 1:24pm CST The grass is always greener on the other side, so the saying goes. For the boarding school staff characters in Samantha Wilde’s new novel, , this is sometimes more than just a passing thought, especially as they see others getting just what the ...
Continue reading on: 5 Minutes for Books
Topics: Parenthood, ParenthoodRead more at http://www.celebrityballa.com/2013/03/i-ll-has-take-what-she#AzFQi415V8KzVZOw.99
My book is celebrity trending news! I heart this idea.
The link comes from a wonderful review of the novel by Dawn Mooney of 5 Minutes for Books who writes: "Wilde clearly has given a lot of thought to the whole stay-at-home vs. work-outside-the-home roles moms can take, and I like how she even has her characters show conflicting thoughts on what works best for individuals. I’ll Take What She Has entertains and perhaps even helps provide some perspective– that grass might not always be as green as we imagine!" And thanks also to the wonderful women of Novel Escapes. They reviewed I'll Take What She Has and gave it 4.5 stars: "I loved Samantha Wilde’s first novel This Little Mommy Stayed Home so I was eager to get stuck into her new novel and I wasn’t disappointed. I’ll Take What She Has felt original, fresh and honest in both the characters and the plot so I was completely hooked."

So am I a celebrity making trending news or WHAT?

Six Chanes to Win the Book, I'm on the Radio, and I'm Admitting All Kinds of Things

What am I so excited about in this picture? Is it how I'm strengthening my belly muscles in that pose? No, it's my Media Madness Saturday. I am EVERYWHERE today. Oprah called and I said, "Lady, I can't do another thing." Six chances to win my novel! I'm on the radio! And I'm making all sorts of confessions. Check it out:

Find out who I envy when I wish I could kill one of my characters (but I can't) at Jungle Red Writers. Today I give away a book to the best envy story.

 I'm having my coming out at the Debutante Ball. I will publicly announce what animal I want to be.

Over at Free Book Friday they are giving away FIVE autographed copies of my book. And I say outrageous things like: "Show me a woman who hasn't envied and I'll show you a mannequin!"

And do not miss my interview with the wonderful Julie Joyce of Book Talk Radio. I love that woman! I could have talked to her all day. Find out why she wanted to talk to me about poop, my mother, Michelle Duggar and my own awakening. Listen in live at noon today at WMRN where it will also air again later in the day. If you miss it, you can listen anytime to the archived version at Book Talk Radio.

Sex-Therapy, Missing Grandmothers, Infertility, Proper Foot Wear, and Your Inner Child

I wrote a book. Some people would classify it as "chick lit." I love chick lit. I like hens, too. But what's the problem with that title? People think a book classified as "chick lit" isn't about anything of substance. Or maybe they think it's about chickens lit on fire. Either way, not helpful.

I'll Take What She Has covers many topics in it's enthralling plot, among them, missing grandmothers, infertility, sex-therapy, and proper foot wear. If that isn't the stuff of The National Book Award, I don't know what is.

But one heart in the book, one thread of substance, concerns a mother, Annie, struggling with how to parent her energetic, strong willed daughter Hannah. My friends, there is nothing romantic about parenting a candidate for the World Wrestling Entertainment Network. Any parent of a powerful tycoon-tot knows that trying to mother a difficult child has many adjectives tied to it--chick and lit do not apply.


I like to tell a story in a funny way. Otherwise, we might as well all cry. And I don't like crying. In the words of an old friend of mine, "it makes me feel sad." I want to infuse the world with joyfulness and so I wrote a funny book about the agonizing struggle of coming to terms with the dreadful, appalling, and alarming fact (if you are not a parent yet, don't read these words): YOU CANNOT CONTROL YOUR CHILDREN.

The only thing a person can do, in the end, is find a way to make sure that your child, and your child's maniacal moods, don't control you.

Annie is sparked into delving deeper into the issues of her mothering by a book on her shelf: Parenting From the Inside Out. I actually own this book. I even read the first page. The book explores the idea that our own childhood effects our parenting. No lightening bulbs there, naturally, still how many of us simultaneously parent our children and re-parent ourselves? As in, get out your inner child and give her some lovin'!

I love the plot thread of Annie and Hannah. Annie complains a lot. She's funny and sassy and angry. Yet in her relationship with her daughter, in her dedication to figure out how to best mother her unique little girl, her best self gets revealed. Driven by her desire to mother better she examines her own life (who has done this? This is not easy!), her own childhood, her own motivations, and ultimately reckons with her imperfect parents and discovers a way to make peace with them (and those parts inside herself that are not perfect).

"Motherhood is so failure oriented," Annie says in one conversation with her good friend, Suze. That's two mother hens talking, but not about anything lite. Motherhood's messes are a real thing that matter very much, at least to two important people: the mother and the child.

Pulitzer Prize in Mommy Lit? Give it to me, people. I nursed a baby while I wrote the first three chapters of that book! And that's only the beginning.

Book Give-Away: I'll Take What She Has book trailer

Tell me what you think!
Less than two weeks until the I'll Take What She Has hits the shelves.

If you share the trailer on FB, Tweeter or with your email circles, leave a comment to let me know and you'll be entered to win one of 3 copies of the book. Winner announced on my author Facebook site next week.

And OUCH!

In another reality, I am the writer who looks at a bad review of her book, rolls her eyes, says, "that reviewer has no taste," and goes on with her life.

In this one, OUCH!

No matter how many times I see a negative online review of one of my books, I get that sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. It has never been easy for me to feel un-liked but to do so publically? Ah! Picture me screaming all the way to the Pennsylvania Amish. No secret that I love those people and they are a community for whom fame and celebrity do not exist--on purpose taken out of the social environment.

The interesting thing about putting yourself out there in any form, which I do with my writing and in ministry and in teaching (as opposed to mothering where at least my failures are private), is how the contours of emotion change with the wider audience. If I have a bad day with my children and don't feel I'm the super-mom I long to be, I take a bath, read a book, say a prayer, and try again the next day with renewed intentions. If I get a bad review for a book I've already written by a random reader?

It is important to me, since I wrote a novel about envy and am talking a lot about envy now online, to share this dismal, unhappy piece of writing and publication because I do actually believe--as I hope my newest novel ultimately conveys--that green grass proves itself a myth. Those with one hundred likes on facebook want two hundred. Those with one thousand want two thousand those with fifty thousand want a hundred thousand. When I struggle with that sense of dejection and rejection, I get to bring my spiritual practice into my writing life, haul up the work of letting go into the work of self-promo.

At the end of the day, I actually like the book I wrote. Is it the best book I could ever write? I don't think so, but it is funny and it is true, and for many years I created and recreated (for 4 editors!) a story that means something to most people. Here it is:

You will not get everything you want. You will not get what she has. You will get this imperfect life and if you pay attention you may find a way to love it. And that will be enough.

My Mother-Religion

The spiritual teacher Byron Katie says that if she had a religion when she was raising her four children it would have been: clean up your socks. Because, of course, that's all she said, all the time (or so it seemed) and because of how much it mattered to her.

I have a mother-religion, too. I know you're all guessing, eat more chocolate, but alas, that's simply my personal coping mechanism, and I hardly ever share my best chocolate with my children, anyway.

No, my religion when it comes to children is this: GO outside.

My angel. This morning. I could probably count on two hand the days, since I first gave birth to my first son six-and-a-half years ago, we stayed inside. I have a clear memory of taking my two oldest children, before my third was born, out to the woods behind our house. The thick snow encrusted in ice barely gave below our feet. They must have been two and four years old. I bundled them, took a camera, and let them play in the frozen magic of the trees. I let them use the camera and discover the separate shades of white the sun reveals in the snow. How cold was that day? Bitter cold. We had a good time.

I am the mother who says to a cold child wanting to go in, "Move around. Five more minutes." I hadn't realized the strength of my religion until my husband pointed it out a few months ago. Our lazy Saturday morning drawing in toward lunch time began to give me hives (as tends to happen any day we haven't been out by noon). We needed the fresh air. Children belong outside! They're like dogs! They need to be out, running, every day. My husband said to me: "You're really intense about going outside."

Ah. So I am.

In her book, Raising Happiness, Christine Carter writes: "All told, over the last two decades chidlren hae lost eight hours per week of free, unstructured, and spontaneous play." When I am outside with my children, something I do every day with few exceptions (I even have sick children play outside. When my sick children play outside they "magically" act all better. Hmmm...), I play with them. I don't think about or do the laundry or the cooking or try to tidy the toys while they un-tidy them faster. I watch them climb trees or practice skipping or play soccer or find a slug or a rock or a stick or a cloud or a bird.

Perhaps, it is ME who needs this time. Outside, I recover my senses. Even in the cold, even in the rain, even in the sweltering heat, I am more human outside, more free, and most importantly more like a child. So much of my own childhood memories come from being in nature (and this despite the fact that I watched a great deal of TV as a child)...that could be it. Or it could be more profound and more universal, the elemental power of the natural world, the scope of the yard so much greater than the interior of the house. I consider the outside our real play room. When I can't stand the kids for squabbling, when the energy is thick with hostility, when there are hints of boredom, I say: "Let's go."

Yesterday, as the first flakes flew onto our yard, we headed out for a bike/scooter ride/lion hunt. I listened to the sounds of my boots on the newly fallen snow. My daughter wanted to go in before the boys, and I pressed to keep her out. Well, it is my religion. And, in the scheme of things, I consider it a very good one. When we came back inside, we were not the same people. Cheeks pink, hair damp with melting snowflakes, the house itself felt new and welcoming, and I, for one, felt more truly alive.  

What's your mother-religion? I'd love to know!

This Hand Rocks the Cultural Cradle

Andrea O'Reilly and her daughters
Erin and Casey Oreilly-Conlin at the first slut walk in toronto, april 2011.Do you recognize this feminist mother?

A few years ago, while working on a book about motherhood, I discovered Andrea O'Reilly and the Motherhood Initiative for Research and Community Involvement. It actually blew my mind. Did YOU know that there is an organization out there studying mothering? The breadth, scope, creativity, originality, compassion and innovation of O'Reilly's work and vision amazes and inspire me. In addition to being an Associate Professor in the School of Women's Studies at York University, she founded the Motherhood Initiative, is herself the editor or co-editor of 14 books, the author of Rocking the Cradle, not to mention the mother of three. I encourage you to spend some time looking at the Initiative's site. Their sister organization Demeter Press is continuously putting out fascinating material, and I truly can't do justice to O'Reilly's achievements here.

All of O'Reilly's work and effort focuses on empowering mothers. This problem I keep coming up against, that the words feminist and mother can't go together, she has worked to fix in scholarly, public, community and academic ways. She even created a course on Motherhood.

Since I became a mother it has been one of my favorite gripes that the role of mother, the work of mothers, the name of mothers, the worries and concerns of mothers, the effort of mothers, the contribution of mothers and the vocation/calling/gift of mothering are all dismissed. It's not simply that they aren't taken seriously, they aren't taken into account at all. Many of the mothers I know personally feel that the LEAST important thing they do is mother. This is a cultural mistake and it makes my heart glad to know that O'Reilly and others are working to correct this perception with the empowering stance of feminism--which, just to remind you, simply means a belief in the equality of the sexes.

In my novels, I have tried to affirm and celebrate motherhood as well as to offer a investigation of the profound, personal, and familial issues that arise with mothering--but in the context of plot and humor and wit and sass. Mothering is deep but it is also very funny--and writing about the truth of a woman's or a mother's experience with levity and laughs in a way that legitimizes the work of the mother is what I have hoped to achieve.

I still want to see what your feminist mothering looks like. Send me a picture for a chance to win both of my novels. And tell me what happens when you start to talk to friends about this issue. Is feminism the "F" word among good mothers?

My Next Big Thing

Welcome to the Next Big Thing blog hope where today I am your humble hop host.

This blog hop is a giant game of virtual tag to help readers discover new authors and books to love. For this hop, I was asked to answer 10 question about my next big project. I do have a brand new novel near completion but with 27 days to go until the publication of I'll Take What She Has, there is only one thing on my mind!
Have you ever felt envious and wished you had what *she* does?
Brenda Janowitz tagged me. Check her out because she's awesome. I've tagged three other writers for next week. You can follow their links at the bottom.

Here's my Next Big Thing A.K.A. THE ONLY THING I CAN THINK ABOUT!

1.What's it called?
I'll Take What She Has

2. Where did the idea for I'LL TAKE WHAT SHE HAS come from.
My mother.
I wish this were a joke. But it's not. In the middle of the contract negotiation with Bantam Books (way back in 2007, I think), BB showed interest in a two-book deal. I didn't have a second idea let alone a book. I called my mother. She said write about newlyweds and envy. I said, "I'll call it I'll Take What She Has." I came up with the Cynthia Cypress character (although in the published version she's way toned down) and the rest is history.







3. What genre does your book come under?
Bad-ass hilarious fiction about women's real lives and issues. Is that a genre?

4. Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?
If someone is asking me this question, I want to see a six figure check and a red carpet.
Seriously? Oh, man. I haven't watched a movie in ten years. How about Minnie Driver does Nora, I get to play Annie (hey, I'm an excellent actress) Barbie plays Cynthia and Bradley Cooper plays David Hayworth. Betty White can do the MIA grandma. Tina Fey can play the outrageous and disturbed cousin Elle.


5. What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?
Captures the oozing, molten core of American life with profundity and grace.
Oh, woops. Sorry. That was someone else's book AND it was really bad.
My book for real this time: Read it or I will un-friend you on Facebook.
Ha! Just kidding. That was my evil twin. Last time: I'll Take What She Has explores friendship, envy, motherhood and marriage with humor and sass, taking on feminism, working versus at-home motherhood, infertility, married and family love with hilarity, insight, verve and wit.

6. Is your book self-published, published by an independent publisher, or represented by an agency?
Bantam Books, man! All the way. Random House rocks!

7. How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?
Maybe 6 months. But then I revised it for four different editors for years.

8. What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?
This is hard to answer. There is so much women's fiction out there, but this book is funny. It wants to be funny and people think it's funny which makes it different from the women's romance fiction and women's fiction that centers around trauma, death, etc. I usually find books like it, but they are often memoirs. Maria Semple's Where'd You Go, Bernadette? may be the closest in that it's funny but about serious stuff too, except the NYTs reviewed her and they won't review me unless I dance for them first. I told them I only dance for Facebook fans. They cried.

9: Who or what inspired you to write this book?
My running joke is that I wrote a book about envy and had to do a lot of research on the topic. Wanting what others have is almost as human as breathing. And what happens when you envy your friends? Or when you finally get to be friends with the popular girl, but it threatens to ruin your oldest, closest friendship?

10: What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?

It's full of naked pictures of...my dog. Just kidding! I would never take advantage of a canine like that. One plot line I love in the book is about finding home, a sense of belonging, and Annie and Nora both look for it and find different ways to make it, which includes making peace with imperfect childhoods and zany family members. Annie, in fact, goes to therapy to help with raising a "spirited" child and in the process confronts her own ambivalence about her choices.

Okay, next week's hoppers, consider yourselves tagged!
Nancy Thayer
Jamie Cat Callen
Jordan Rosenfeld

Check out their Next Big Thing posts next Wednesday. Do be sure to bookmark and add them to your calendars for updates on WIPs and New Releases.

Happy Writing and Reading!

Have an old friend? Win a Book

Annie and Nora, the two main characters in my soon-to-be released second novel (called "thoroughly entertaining," "honest, unflinching" and "smart and funny" in early praise) I'LL TAKE WHAT SHE HAS, have been friends since kindergarten and their twenty-five year friendship is at the heart of the novel.

Here's my five-year old best friend. A woman who has known every one of my hairstyles. As children, we loved the Frog and Toad books and somehow, I became Frog and she Toad. Today, she is my sister (I don't have one by blood) and our shared history has an incalculable value.



In celebration of lifetime friendships, I am giving away my last ARC (advanced reader's copy) of I'LL TAKE WHAT SHE HAS, signed and shipped (US only), to one lucky person who leaves a comment either here or on my facebook site and tells me a line or two (or more if you wish) about YOUR Annie/Nora friendship of a lifetime.

Sara's college graduation.Stay tuned for more historical photos!

How Facebook makes me feel Unsuccesful, Unpopular and (probably) Fat

I want you to know that I never wanted to join Facebook. I wanted to join the Amish but they wouldn't have me since I look bad in a bonnett. But my mother made me do it. She basically said, "I won't send you those weekly six dozen homemade cookies unless you get yourself on Facebook and start making something of yourself!" So let's be honest with each other: I didn't join Facebook to find my lost loves, to spy on my worst enemy or to show anyone cute photos of my kids, I joined to help promote my second novel, I'll Take What She Has, which (according to my publicist, since I've never read the thing), is the best, funniest, most heart-felt and entertaining novel you'll ever read.
Face Book. Of course.
And you know what's happened to me since I became the last American to join Facebook? My self-esteem has plummeted into the earth's core and I have LOST not gained money by having to see a shrink every other day. I know this hasn't happened to you because I've looked you up on Facebook and read all your old blog posts so I know everything about you and your children and the awesome birthday party you threw where you took six thousand photos--so cute, can't wait to get more, :-), LOL!!!, so I'll go ahead and tell you why Facebook has ruined my life.

First, until Facebook, I thought I was pretty popular, doing pretty well in the friendship category. I could host a party and at least two people would show up and if I met an old friend in the grocery store she always said, "Oh, yeah, I think I remember you," so imagine my surprise when I got on Facebook and realized how totally, completely, profoundly unpopular I actually am. How do people get hundreds of friends? I mean, I guess I know how. I thought, if I just look up all my old lovers and get them to be friends with me, then I'll have at least one thousand friends, except I couldn't remember any of their last names which is why I'm going to teach my children NOT to have one-night stands with strangers who leave before sunrise so that when they grow up they won't have to feel like a virtual loser. (Kids: know the name before you do the deed!)

Second, Facebook exposes you to all the people from your past who you couldn't stand the first time around because they were so much better than you only now, because you're friends with them so that at least you don't look like the world's most unloveable human on the planet, you have to be reminded of this fact every time you turn on your computer (which is why after I finish this blog post I'm going to through this computer out the window). I mean, who needs to see messages like this: "I'm so happy! The larger dose of Prozac is amazing!" Or, "Finally kicked my crack addiction, now I can use my billions to buy some stuff I saw on Pinterest" or "My book just hit number one on the bestseller list and yours didn't!" Look, if I wanted to get depressed, I'd read Sylvia Plath. And she'll never unfriend me because she's dead.

Third, I am not fat, but Facebook makes me feel fat. I'll tell you why, because I can hear the intrigue in your silence (and by the way, it's so great that we could have this special moment together, a real heart-to-heart), get ready for it (drum roll, please): it vaporizes your time! And before you know it, once you've read every entry in your newsfeed, looked up every person you ever kissed, your worst enemy, your husband's new secretary (thank God, she's fat, except you had to guess based on her chin because she doesn't have a single picture of herself from the waist down), and all the most unpopular kids you knew in high school (to make yourself feel better, of course, which it doesn't, because it turns out they have more friends than you now), that you have been sitting at the computer for EIGHTEEN HOURS! And during that time, you have done nothing but mindlessly eat Cheez-Its (comfort food, natch), also your toddler has died of starvation and your six year old got stuck in a tree and couldn't come down and your husband run off with a woman who actually engages with him (and what's up with that? You did "like" his latest post, after all), and your mother called to say she's sorry she can't friend you on Facebook but she doesn't want to make herself look bad because she's next in line to be the Best Selling novelist of all time and you'll only drag her down (but she's sure you don't mind and she's sending cookies so your fat ass can just get even bigger!).

Ah, well. Envy. What a good topic for a novel. I should write something about it....
Oh, right, I already did.
And really, normally, I wouldn't ask you to buy my new novel. I'm not that kind of girl. But if you don't go and buy it, I will not be able to continue seeing my therapist for help with my Facebookphrenia. Won't you please help a good cause?