M.J. Pullen's Blog, page 24

Some Boobalicious News

I am so excited that I’m spilling out of my 38Ds! Okay not really, but you get the idea.

Livi Rae Lingerie – online or in Kennesaw

I am thrilled to announce that next Saturday, January 25th, I will be hanging out with the fabulous staff and customers at Livi Rae Lingerie (home of Bravo’s famous Double Divas). If you’re in the area, please stop by and say hello. I can’t promise Molly and Cynthia will be around but Livi Rae is always a fun outing! And definitely, girls, if you’ve never had a REAL bra fitting, do yourself a favor and come early to get in with one of their experts. Your girls (and back, and shoulders, and husband…) will thank you! After slacking off on upper body workouts… pretty much forever, and breastfeeding two babies, my fitting at Livi Rae a few months ago helped pull my anatomy back to all the right places, and made me look and feel SO much better. They can do the same for you!

For those who missed the Baggage Check launch, this is also a great time to snag an autographed copy of any of the three books, because I’ll have several copies on hand. Or  you can get a picture with me and your autographed copy (and maybe some hot lingerie), which obviously you will put in an 8 x 10 frame next to that time you met the President….

The right bra makes you feel like Bettie Page. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

The other great news, especially for those who are not near the Atlanta area, is that Livi Rae now has live product ordering and virtual fitting on their website. I tried the virtual fitting tool and it is INCREDIBLE. Even better, between today and February 10th, 2014, Livi Rae is giving free shipping to my readers!! Just visit LiviRaeLingerie.com and enter LIVFREE in the promo code box at checkout.

Please feel free to share this offer with friends, but if you’d be kind enough to share the blog link rather than just the code I’d appreciate it!

And if all that doesn’t have you feeling (ahem) perky enough, Livi Rae is also adding a $25 gift certificate for their website to the Valentine’s giveaway already in progress. How awesome is that?!? Below is the giveaway box for those who haven’t completed all their entries…

So let’s talk boobs. Hooters. Melons. Ta-tas. Abbott & Costello. The Girls. Do you love them? Ignore them? Do they get in your way? Ever thought of having them surgically enhanced/reduced/lifted? Personally I used to very arrogantly say I would NEVER surgically alter my body for appearances; but that was before mid-30′s, breastfeeding, and the day one of my boobs got caught in my belt.

I know there are more than a few breast cancer survivors among my readers, how has your battle changed your perspective?

Thanks, as always, for entering, commenting and sharing. Here’s to an UPLIFTING week!

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Itty Bitty Losses

[Heads up: This blog is intensely personal and just a bit graphic. If you need to sit this one out, no hard feelings].

It started three nights ago, the night of January 6th. I had just worked all day on getting ready to launch my new giveaway: meeting with my coach, composing a peppy email, polishing a blog post, finessing Rafflecopter, Facebook and other social media to announce the excitement I was feeling about my latest promo. There was a lively discussion on my personal Facebook page about the local schools closing due to cold – a good discussion amongst friends always gets my adrenalin pumping. Plus, I had several phone meetings scheduled for the next day to discuss some exciting new projects involving my books.

That night in the bathroom, however, all that excitement and energy began to fade into white noise as I stared at the tiny trace of pink on the toilet paper that was all-too familiar. And the pain in my abdomen I’d been hoping all day was just indigestion announced loudly how wrong those hopes had been.

I always hated the word “miscarriage” when I was younger. I pick some random times to be really feminist and righteous about things that don’t matter, and that word always stuck in my craw. To say that when a woman loses a pregnancy, she has “mis-carried” implies just that: if you lose a baby it’s because you ‘carried’ it wrong. But if you’re one of the millions upon millions of women who have had a miscarriage (or two, in my case) you understand something my youthful feminist self did not: when you lose a baby, no matter how tiny, the first thing you think is what you did wrong. Was it the glass of wine I had before I was sure? Was it because it took me a couple of weeks to wean down to mostly decaf? Was it that workout where my heart rate got to 130 bpm before I could slow down? Is it my stress level? Picking up my super-heavy toddler (how can I not)? And the worst, most vicious thought of all: Am I being punished by G-d for being a terrible mother?

Logically, I know that last one is not it. There are moments where I really do think I’m a terrible mom, especially with the hormones of early pregnancy raging through me. Sometimes I yell when I should teach; sometimes I even scream when I should leave the room altogether and calm down. I grew up in a volatile household and I have been only moderately successful at unlearning all that anger, despite working damn hard at it. But I love my children just as fiercely as any Mama Bear could, and for every flare of the temper I regret, I know in my heart I give my children ten times as many hugs, kisses, cuddles and words of encouragement. As a friend of mine said to me recently, a mom who is constantly trying to figure out how to be a better mom cannot be a terrible mom. Imperfect? Absofrigginlutely. Undeserving? No.

At least, this is what I tell myself. But when we are confronted with loss, it’s human nature to try to figure out why. In the absence of any solid information to cling to, the most logical target of the blame becomes… ourselves. If I had a friend in this position, I would tell her (as I have) that she did absolutely nothing wrong, that pregnancy is a mystery and a miracle, and we have to believe that Mother Nature knows what she is doing when a pregnancy turns out not to be viable. I am 38 and have two beautiful, healthy children. We’ve tried twice to add a third to our roster and both times have ended the same way. Time for graceful acceptance and moving on.

But that night I slept restlessly, painful cramps waking me every few minutes and visions of the names we’d been toying with haunting my sleep. I also thought about everything that would be happening the next day. What I wanted to do was ignore all of it, curl up in a painful little ball and hide from the world. But the boys needed to go to preschool and I needed to work. It was too late to cancel at least one of my phone meetings – I would have been shooting myself in the foot professionally. I thought about pulling the giveaway announcements, because it felt weird to me that my ‘online self’ was going to be posting perky notes about Valentine’s Day while the real me was curled up in a chair, bleeding. But really, what good would it have done to crawl in a cave? I wasn’t ready, then, to pour my heart out to everyone within reading distance – so should I just disappear? I called my doctor, put my feet up and put on comfortable clothes: what more could be done?

The show must go on. Life must go on.

I know there are many, many strong men out there who deal with pain and loss with grace and swagger. But I do think there is something uniquely feminine about the ability to weather the grief of unfulfilled motherhood. When we got pregnant with our first son, it was after two years of trying and several rounds of fertility treatments.  My body felt like a science experiment, robbed of the mystique of natural conception, and I didn’t care one little damn about any of that as soon as I saw the positive pregnancy test. Hearing his tiny heartbeat for the first time remains one of the peak moments of my life, and he and his little brother will always be my greatest treasures. Having been through the experience of bringing children into the world makes it both easier and harder to bear when that little heartbeat doesn’t sound when it should. You have your healthy kids to console you – many, many blessings to count – and yet, you know exactly what you’re missing, too.

Miscarriage is not the only way to experience this loss, either. I know friends who have been trying to adopt for years, several times coming very close, only to have something not work out at the last minute. I imagine that feels very similar to a miscarriage in some ways. I say to myself: you can rebound from this – you can pick up and move on and even be very, very happy. But you will never be exactly the same.

We had decided before this pregnancy that this would be our last shot at adding another biological child to our family. With my age, our kids’ ages, and a summer miscarriage all in the list of factors, we decided to roll the dice one last time. Whether we stick to that remains to be seen. How do you decide you’re done having children, that your family is complete? Some people seem to know from the minute they find their life partner exactly what they want their family to look like and how many years apart everyone should be. Sometimes it even works out that way. Others make the decision slowly, over time – or even delay until time makes the decision for them. Maybe my body has made the decision for us. Whatever we decide, I know it will be enough.

I will take some time to grieve. I will find a moment or two in which I can safely retreat to the proverbial cave, curl up in a ball and feel sorry for myself. Just for a minute. Maybe with ice cream and old movies. And then like every other woman I know who’s been through this, I will stand up again. My body will heal. My spirit will triumph. I will look around me and see the love that is abundant, not the parents and children who I cannot hold in my arms. I will count my blessings and scaffold my patience and focus on raising my boys, writing my books. Telling my story, because no matter how hard it gets in the middle, mine is going to be a happy ending.

Early in the morning of January 7th, after I’d writhed in blood and pain all night, our two little guys both eventually made their way to our bed, as they almost always do. I lay there, looking at the ceiling, abdomen aching, wondering how I was going to get out of bed and make the day work. On my left, my sweet four-year-old was snoring softly, curled into me for warmth. On my right, our little two year old had wiggled and wriggled on my arm in his footie pajamas until I thought he might have fallen back asleep. I sneezed. This hurt, of course, and brought fresh tears to my eyes.

Then I heard it, a tiny whisper in my right ear from the lips of my two-year-old. “Bless you, Mommy.”

Yeah. You know what? I really am.

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Want to Win a Kindle Paperwhite for Valentine’s Day?

Photo courtesy of FreeVectorDaily.com

What? It’s barely January and I’m already thinking about Valentine’s Day? Well… you know, romantics. Actually, my husband “doesn’t believe” in Valentine’s day because it’s “orchestrated by Hallmark” to force the purchase of cards and overpriced candy. And those bears with the little magnets in their snouts. Sigh. Do you know what it’s like to be someone who writes loves stories as a career, married to a Valentine’s Day cynic?  Talk about your first-world problems.

Anyway, I get around all that by making him celebrate our engagement anniversary instead, which is February 11th. The restaurants are generally less crowded that night anyway – works for me!! This also leaves me free to lavish my unrequited Valentine’s affection on my two little boys and, of course, YOU.

I’m planning lots of lovey-dovey stuff for the entire month of February, including some stuff that you’ll want to be on my mailing list to stay on top of. In the meantime, I am going to go ahead and kick things off now by starting the clock on this awesome giveaway. Use the widget below to join my mailing list and you’ll be entered FIVE TIMES into the drawing for the Kindle Paperwhite (it’s the Wi-Fi version with Amazon’s special messages, but who cares? It’s a Paperwhite! They’re supposed to be amazing for reading in any light. In fact, I might want to borrow yours if you win just to test it out). Two additional winners will get either signed paperbacks of the Marriage Pact trilogy or a $15 amazon gift card, which you can put toward anything you want.

Enter to win this awesome Kindle Paperwhite (purse and hand not included)

So, yep, join the email list: use the widget below – current list members can simply affirm that you’re on the list to get the entries. You can also earn additional entries by liking my Facebook page (or telling me you already do), Tweeting about the giveaway, Pinning one of or more of my books on your Pinterest page, and/or by leaving a comment on this blog about your Valentine’s Day traditions, or lack thereof…

Are you a fan of Cupid? Do you get crazy with the pink, white and red? Romantic dinners and expensive wine? Or are you more of a snuggle up with a good book and keep it simple type? Something in between? Maybe you’re like my hubs and think the whole holiday has pretty much gone off the rails. Whatever your take on it, leave your Valentine’s-related comment below and submit your entries by Feb. 14th. Good luck!

PS – You also get entries for sharing, so… you know, do that, too.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

 

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My Reading List for 2014

HAPPY NEW YEAR! After some fussing and moving things around, here it is, my to-read list for 2014. (You can find this list, add the books to your own shelves, and watch my progress through the year at my shelf on Goodreads). Commentary follows.

179 Ways to Save a Novel: Matters of Vital Concern to Fiction Writers by Peter Selgin
A Grown-Up Kind of Pretty by Joshilyn Jackson
Beautiful Disaster (Beautiful, #1) by Jamie McGuire
Confessions of a Scary Mommy: An Honest and Irreverent Look at Motherhood: The Good, The Bad, and the Scary by Jill Smokler
Confessions of a Shopaholic (Shopaholic, #1) by Sophie Kinsella
Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese
Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury
Divergent (Divergent, #1) by Veronica Roth
Juliet, Naked by Nick Hornby
Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garci Marquez
Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl
Me Before You by Jojo Moyes
Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult
On Writing by Stephen King
Pieces of the Heart by Karen White
Poetic Medicine: The Healing Art of Poem-Making by John Fox
Raising Cain: Protecting the Emotional Life of Boys by Dan Kindlon
Rise of the Machines–Human Authors in a Digital World by Kristen Lamb
Save the Cat!: The Last Book on Screenwriting You’ll Ever Need by Blake Snyder
St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves by Karen Russell
Strange Brew by Mary Kay Andrews
The Creative License: Giving Yourself Permission to Be The Artist You Truly Are by Danny Gregory
The First Five Pages: A Writer’s Guide To Staying Out of the Rejection Pile by Noah Lukeman
The Five Destinies of Carlos Moreno by George Weinstein
The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman
The Reading Group: A Novel  by Elizabeth Noble
The Sound and The Fury by William Faulkner
The Violets of March by Sarah Jio
The Writing Life by Annie Dillard
Then Came You by Jennifer Weiner
Voyager (Outlander, #3) by Diana Gabaldon
Writing from Life by Susan Wittig Albert
Writing the Breakout Novel by Donald Maass
Zen in the Art of Writing by Ray Bradbury

A few of the books on my list, and my trusty Kindle!

Whew! You can see that this is quite a list with a lot of variety, which is how I like to read. It’s pretty ambitious, especially for a slow reader like me (and P.S. I’ll be writing at least one book this year myself). When I look at this list, I’m torn between how many things are missing and how overwhelming the list already is. There are a few mitigating factors for the overwhelm, at least. First, I’m including audiobooks that I will listen to in the car and while cleaning house, both Voyager and Strange Brew are already in my audible library (along with MKA’s Ladies’ Night, which I’m listening to currently but started in 2013). There are a few re-reads of old classics I haven’t read in several years: The Sound and the Fury, Mrs. Dalloway, Man’s Search for Meaning, Love in the Time of Cholera, and Stephen King’s On Writing.

The list is heavy on Women’s Fiction (duh), and I’ve included some quintessential chick-lit by Sophie Kinsella and New Adult fiction by Jamie McGuire, as well. I’m trying to deepen my understanding of genre this year. I also started out with a goal to read one non-fiction book for writers each month, and if you count Viktor Frankl, I’ll come close with eleven. Everything else is a mish-mash of recommendations from friends, comic relief, parenting stuff, and last but definitely not least, The Five Destinies of Carlos Moreno written by my friend George. All the books on craft and working left less room for fiction than I would like, but that’s an occupational hazard. It will be interesting to see if that pushes me to read faster so I can finish the list and add more fun books.

So what do you think? Do you have your own list of books to read this year? Any books in common with my list? What recommendations would you make for 2015 based on what I have listed here? I love reading your comments!

Enjoy good reading in 2014!

_____________________________

I’m M.J. (Manda) Pullen, an author and mom in the Atlanta, Georgia area. I blog with humor and honesty about writing, publishing, parenthood, life in general and the many lessons I’ve learned the hard way. If you enjoy reading this blog, please sign up for the RSS or sign up for my monthly updates here (and enter the monthly giveaway). Thanks for reading, commenting and sharing!

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New Year’s Wishes for Readers and Writers

Graphic courtesy of hdwallpaperspictures.com

Just a few hours left until the ball drops in Times Square, and the peach drops here in Atlanta, to ring in 2014. Time to take a quick breath and reflect back on the past year…

Looking back over 2013, I see a year of blessings and challenges. We had several changes in our household this year -we bought a new house and moved in February; hubs lost his job and then got a new, more fulfilling one; and we experienced the common but heartbreaking loss of a miscarriage in between. Meanwhile, we enjoyed our two healthy (slightly wild) boys and have watched them progress in their learning and personalities by leaps and bounds. There’s a special madness about the preschool years – the kids can drive you crazy one minute and then astonish you with their brilliance and love the next.

Somewhere in there, I managed to write and publish my third novel, BAGGAGE CHECK, and had a great time celebrating the release with some really fabulous friends. I have big plans for 2014, too, and while I haven’t made any New Year’s Resolutions, I am excited about the changes and adventures ahead. The New Year seems as good a time as any to take a deep breath and get ready to dive in headfirst. I hope y’all will join me!

In the meantime, here are my New Year’s wishes for you (with apologies to the wonderful people of Ireland for my take on your traditional blessings)…

For My Reader Friends

May the page rise to meet you

May your Kindles and nooks be bountiful with stories

May your heroines be strong and passionate, but never too perfect

May your heroes awaken something brave and tremulous inside you

May you laugh, and cry, and sometimes both together

May the words flow before you so that time passes without notice, and

May your passion for reading feed your passion for life, all year long.

For My Writer Friends

May your word counts be high, your discouragements low

May you tell the stories of your heart with clarity and passion

May you laugh at obstacles in the rear-view mirror as your fingers smoke across the keys

May you surprise yourself each day with what was inside all along

May you discover simple truths by telling elaborate fictions

May your friends be supportive, editors be honest, and family be patient

May each blank page be a starting point for your greatest adventures yet.

Happy New Year, everyone!  Wishing you a healthy, happy and fulfilling 2014!

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Christmas Past: Reflections of a Convert

My baby brother and me, circa 1979.

Can I be honest with you? No rabbis in the crowd, right?

As a whole-hearted convert to Judaism for nearly eight years, I have to confess: I’ve been missing Christmas lately. Not the religious meaning (sorry, bumper sticker people), but the secular, gift-laden family event that was Christmas morning at my house growing up. You know, when my brother and I would wake up before the crack of dawn to run downstairs to see what Santa had brought, with Mom and Dad in their robes with hastily-prepared coffee, watching us tear open presents and searching for AA batteries…

I loved getting and giving presents, but more than that, Christmas was one day of the year when my parents always seemed genuinely relaxed and happy to be together. Santa aside, there was something magical about gathering around the tree on one peaceful morning when the world was quiet and nearly everyone in our neighborhood was off work. My mom was a Lutheran and my dad was an atheist; so while Christmas Eve often involved church (sans my Dad, of course), Christmas morning was just us. We generally didn’t visit grandparents or do much else that day — we just hung around the house, playing with our new toys and enjoying each other. Through my child’s eyes, it was a glorious, hedonistic day that went on forever – and no fighting or family drama was allowed.

Hanukkah is a lovely holiday, beautiful and joyful in its own right, even though it’s less religiously significant than Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur or Passover. But because it’s always at a different time in December (or November) and lasts 8 nights, it often feels more hectic and rushed to me than the Christmas mornings of my childhood. Many nights, we are trying to squeeze in the candle-lighting, dinner, a little game of dreidel, and small gifts for the kids into the 2-hour window between school/work and bedtime. When your faith’s winter holiday is a movable feast, and the world doesn’t stop for “8 Crazy Nights” the way it does on December 25th, it can be relatively hard to slow down and really appreciate it.

Hanukkah at the Beach, 2011

Now, my conversion to Judaism has rewarded me tenfold for the sacrifice of Santa Claus and stockings.  And there are myriad ways for our family to enjoy Hanukkah, Christmas Day, and the whole Christmas season. We drive around and look at the lights together, sipping hot chocolate and circling the block a second time to revisit our favorites.  We visit with friends, who welcome us into their Christmas celebrations with open arms and share in the lighting of the menorah with us.  This year we’re having a bunch of our Jewish friends and family over for pasta on the 25th in lieu of the standard Chinese food. We take cookies to the fire station on Christmas Day, and participate as a family in a wonderful local program to provide Christmas presents to children in foster care. When our boys are a little older, we plan to start volunteering to serve the needy on Christmas, which will be the best tradition ever.

Not a bad list of traditions, and as I list them I’m reminded how blessed we really are.

There are challenges, too: like trying to help my four-year-old son respond when well-meaning strangers ask if Santa is coming to see him (which happens at least twice a week this time of year). As a mommy, that one cuts straight to my heart – I always want my boys to view their Jewish identities as a special gift, and never to feel that they are missing out because of who they are. And I admit it, part of me wants to share with them those special Christmas mornings I experienced so many years ago. Isn’t that natural as a parent? To want to give your children the best of what you had growing up?

When I’ve talked to friends about this longing for Christmas past, the inevitable answer is, “Well, can’t you just do both? Put up a tree. What would it hurt?” I’ve had a hard time answering that question, because the answer is anything but simple. On the surface, putting up a tree and letting my kids have Santa would hurt no one. It would be an easy way to assuage my feelings. In fact, many interfaith families do successfully celebrate both holidays.

But we are not an interfaith family. Almost eight years ago, I stepped into the healing waters of the mikveh and recited the sacred prayers confirming my new identity as a Jew. I love being Jewish. It has brought me comfort, joy, fellowship and a closeness to the Divine I was never able to attain through a connection with church. It fits for me, and I’m proud of the commitment I made to myself and my husband that we would raise our children with a single Jewish identity. Every family is different, but in our house, a Christmas tree would not fit with our family philosophy.

Before you go getting the idea that I live with a religious tyrant who won’t let me express my semi-Christian heritage in our house [insert laughter of everyone who's ever met my husband here], let me say that if I decided this was absolutely important to me and I’d had a change of heart on the whole no-Christmas thing at our house, my husband would certainly try to listen with an open heart. But there’s more to it than that.

As I think about answering that question, “Why not do both?” I realize that my longing for Christmas morning is a longing for something I can never get back, even if I put up a tree and tinsel. I mentioned earlier that Christmas morning was one of the few times my parents seemed genuinely happy, but our family Christmases became tension- and crisis-filled as I approached high school, and my parents divorced my freshman year. Mom’s life became unpredictable from there, and while she did what she could to bolster the traditions when we were with her, the holiday never held the same unfettered joy in our family again. Dad kept the house and the old artificial tree, and for a few years he made a show of dragging it out and lighting it. By the time I was in college, however, he’d given up the pretense.

A lot happened in the years that followed. Between living in various cities, getting married and divorced, and losing my mom, I think it’s fair to say I never had the same Christmas twice. When I moved home to Georgia from Austin, I discovered that somewhere along the way I’d lost the handmade set of ceramic Christmas ornaments Mom painted for me while she was pregnant, and I cried for three days. I actually called my ex-husband in Texas and tried to get him to go to the local Goodwill to see if we had accidentally donated them. It was pathetic, and I still tear up when I think about those damn ornaments. I don’t think I was grieving for the ornaments (well, duh), but for my mom, and a family life that had begun deteriorating years before. Now that my grandmothers and my Dad have also died, and my brother and I have a polite but distant relationship, that whole part of my life seems shrouded in a white haze of loss.

Putting up a tree and taking the easy way out with Santa won’t bring back a family life that could have been, nor will it help my kids feel closer to the grandparents they’ve lost. I’ve been around long enough to know that things aren’t that simple. But I can tell the stories. I can create those warm feelings for my kids, and more than just once a year, by trying to slow down and be present with them.  I can say “no” to some of our weekend commitments and spend more days sipping coffee with Hubs in our robes and slippers, letting our kids play unstructured and feel that their days are stretching out limitless before them. I can focus on what is meaningful and beautiful about our Jewish life together and build new traditions around that. And I can be honest with them, when they’re ready to hear it, about how hard it is to make big choices in life.

Choosing one road means leaving another behind, for better and for worse. I hope I can help my boys develop the character and courage needed to follow their authentic paths, wherever they lead, with open eyes and strong hearts.

Wishing everyone blessings and hope this season,

M.J.

 

I love hearing from you! Please leave a comment below and/or sign up for my email list here to be entered into a monthly drawing for various bookish prizes.

_____________________________________________________________

M.J. Pullen is a mom of two, wife of one, and the author of three highly-rated contemporary women’s fiction books: The Marriage Pact, Regrets Only, and Baggage Check. She lives in the Atlanta, Georgia, area, where she frequently neglects the housework.

 

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Enter to Win an Autographed MARRIAGE PACT Trilogy!

Three great reads are better than one!

Wouldn’t a book lover in your life just kiss you if you handed them a personally inscribed Marriage Pact trilogy to enjoy for the holidays?

Well, I’m giving one THREE away! Between today and December 15, if you sign up as a new member of my Inner Circle mailing list, or if you’re already a member and someone else puts your name or email address in the “Referred By” field when they sign up, you will be entered in a drawing to win one of three Marriage Pact trilogies – including all three books, autographed to your specifications: The Marriage Pact, Regrets Only, and the new release Baggage Check.

So here are the details:

1. All current members of the Inner Circle mailing list will be automatically entered in the drawing. Easy!

2. All new members between now and December 15, 2013 (midnight, EST) will automatically get two entries into the contest.

3. If you share this page or the email and your friend lists you as the referral when she signs up, you will gain two additional entries into the contest. That means you and your friend get equal chances of winning! (You must be on the list yourself to get referral credit).

4. On December 16, I will randomly select three different winners from the list. If you win, I will use the email provided when you signed up for the mailing list to reach out to you and find out to whom you would like your trilogy sent and how you would like it inscribed. The first book can include a short message of your choosing (“Merry Christmas 2013!” etc.), the remaining two will simply include the recipient’s name and an autograph.

5. There is no limit to the number of entries one person can earn, but each winner can only win one set of books.

6. You can send all three books to anyone in the U.S. -  yourself or someone else – but they must all three go the same place!

Join MJ’s Inner Circle and Enter to Win!
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Cooking with My Mother

This time of year is always filled with a mixture of joy and sadness for me. I love the fall colors, the cool weather, and the time to relax with friends and family. Since it’s “Thanksgivmukkah” this year, the joyful part is amplified, especially for two little boys who are thrilled they get to play dreidel and open presents as well as help me cook the Thanksgiving meal. But the sadness is there, too. Our Thanksgiving table is much smaller without the presence of my Dad, who died two years ago, his sister, who died in January, my brother, who is far away from us in many ways, and others who have been lost or have simply moved on over the years.

Such is life, I guess. There can be no true appreciation of happiness without experiencing the loss and loneliness that are the other side of the coin. Grief teaches us better how to love and vice versa.

The person I miss most, however, as I make my way into the kitchen today to start preparing dishes for our meal, is my mother, who died in 2001. She and I were extraordinarily different from one another, but a love of cooking and food was common ground. The happiest times I remember from my childhood center around Mom in the kitchen, preparing food for a party or a special meal. Later, when she was no longer able to cook much and I tried to make her recipes on my own, I would call her for advice and she would talk me through the steps. It was one of the few areas in which her self-confidence was unfailing, and her prideful daughter would accept her help.

I pulled my recipe box today, looking for something personal to add to our Thursday meal. I rarely use these old recipe cards anymore, for a number of reasons. One, I don’t cook as much as I’d like. Two, many of these recipes were written in a different era – before processed foods and our largely sedentary lifestyle were in full effect. So they are full of the fats, sugar, and carbs that were at one point necessary (or believed necessary) to sustain life in a rural farming community. They are old-school comfort food. And three, when I’m looking for something to make for dinner, like many of my generation, I find just searching the internet is often simpler than flipping pages in a book or digging through a box of cards.

My (maternal) grandmother’s peach cobbler recipe

As I look at these cards today, however, I realize what I’m missing when I just search for a recipe online. Right off the bat, I see my mother’s distinctive handwriting and feel a pang of longing for her presence. I was only 25 when she died, which is longer than some people get with their parents, but her loss still feels profound – a big hole in my adult life. Looking at her treasured recipes written in her own hand reminds me of some of my favorite dishes growing up, and makes me smile at her attention to detail and some of the quirks these cards reveal about her.

Citations were important when passing recipes from one household to another, and they also give some insight into the social dynamics of Mom’s world. I notice the names Mom has filled in on the “From the kitchen of…” space and I recognize other women I’ve known – both of my grandmothers, aunts, family friends, neighbors. One or two of the cards even appropriately credit both the original cookbook and the woman who modified the recipe to make it her own: “Betty Crocker and Gail Campos.”

On a couple of the cards she made a point to emphasize that the recipes were from “My mother,”  which I suppose was intended for me to be sure to distinguish between her mother and my paternal grandmother (who had a frosty relationship with my mom and is credited by first name only). On another card she actually crossed out the name of a neighbor who’d offended her at the top of a cookie bar recipe. She banished the neighbor, but kept the recipe. It just goes to show that good cooking transcends the boundaries of relationship dynamics. Relationships are what they are, but good food is serious stuff, people.

Some of the recipes are good old Southern fare – Pecan Pie, biscuits, cornbread dressing. Others, like Pacific Chicken, Quiche Lorraine,

Southern Pecan Pie = Delicious Heart Attack

and Chicken Kiev — were presumably gleaned from my parents’ time in California, where my brother and I were born and many of my parents close friends were Asian, European, and even (gasp!) Yankees. There are recipes that make me think of white gloves and ladies’ teas, like Strawberry Party Punch; and a simple recipe for peanut butter candy from my elementary school. Some are meticulously hand-written on cards, some scrawled on envelopes, some cut from the backs of ingredient boxes and bags and taped to the cards. The best recipes are spotted and smeared from years of use; and several favorites have duplicate cards. Mom could be a bit of a space cadet, like me, and I imagine she wanted to make copies of her favorites so they wouldn’t get lost or loaned out and never returned.

Now that I’m a mom, I wonder which dishes and meals will remind my kids of me down the line (here’s hoping it’s something that doesn’t involve a drive-thru). Lately I’ve been re-thinking my relationship with food, and the way I feed my family, and I find myself wondering how to bring forward traditions and create healthier habits at the same time. Today I’m also wondering, beyond the food itself, how to keep the voices of all the women in my family present in my kitchen and in my life. How to convey their love of food and family to my own children? How to preserve, in the Digital Age, something that can only be truly appreciated on a spotty, fraying, hand-written card?

There’s no easy answer, I know. So today I’m going to be thankful for the question, and the women – living and dead – who’ve inspired me to ask it. Now, back to the kitchen.

Happy Holidays!

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Baggage Check is Now Available!

First, just let me say that when I decided to publish The Marriage Pact in 2011, I never would have dreamed that two and a half years later, I’d be releasing the third book in the same series to eagerly-awaiting friends and fans. And that I’d be writing Rebecca’s story to boot! So fun. I’m so grateful to all of you for your support, and thrilled that you’ve told me you enjoy reading these characters as much as I have enjoyed writing them.

Now for the business at hand… Book Launch!

You can now purchase Baggage Check (Book #3 of The Marriage Pact Series) at all the places listed here. It should be at iTunes and Kobo in the next couple of weeks as well. The promotional ebook price of 99 cents is just for the day of the launch, give or take, so snag it before the price goes up to the standard price of $3.99!

Amazon Paperback: www.amazon.com/Baggage-Check-Marriage...
Amazon Kindle: http://www.amazon.com/Baggage-Check-T...
Nook: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/bagga...
Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view...
Goodreads (review only, no purchase): https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1...

I hope y’all enjoy Rebecca’s story, and if you have time, I hope you’ll take a moment to review the book at your venue of choice. And if you’re in Atlanta, come drop by my book launch party at Tin Lizzy’s in Dunwoody tonight!

Happy reading, everyone!

The post Baggage Check is Now Available! appeared first on MJ Pullen.

Being an Author and an Extrovert… at the Same Time

No matter what your personality profile, the writing life can be a hard road. Long hours alone, staring at a blank screen in the beginning of a project, then a screen overwhelmed by words you’ve seen so many times you’re going blind near the end. Writing well requires attention to detail, emotion, plot, character and (not least) language. It means functioning on many levels at once, while drawing everything from inside yourself to put on the page.

For an extrovert like me, this can be even more challenging. Extroverts (in general) are people whose primary way of being in the world tends to focus outside themselves. Extroverts get their energy from interaction with lots of other people, while introverts are more likely to refuel with time alone or in very small groups. BTW, it’s a common misconception that extroverts love people and introverts don’t — the difference is about energy, not a like or dislike of other people. Extroverts can be malicious hotheads as well as social butterflies, introverts can be deeply loyal friends as well as shrinking violets.

Extroverts tend to process things aloud — or on paper — and we often have a hard time stopping until we feel we have reached resolution, however messy or melodramatic that might be. And then we’re on to the next thing as though this one never happened.  This is unlike introverts, who may prefer to process things quietly on their own sweet time, and might be reticent to share their thoughts until they feel they’re more fully fleshed out.

At first blush, the solitary, detail-focused vocation of writing seems ill-suited to the stimulation junkie personality of an extrovert. In fact, I’d love to do a study of this trait among narrators and main characters in the literary canon. I’d venture to guess that the overwhelming majority are introverts — maybe because introverts are simpler to write, or maybe because they reflect the personality styles of their authors. Introverts may self-select into this profession by nature, because they are better suited to writing (and finishing) long pieces.

For a while, I was so discouraged by this idea that I even gave up on the serious pursuit of professional writing myself, because I didn’t think I could handle all the time alone and trying to draw so much energy from within. Since then, I’ve learned that I can handle far more than I thought possible. And I have learned a thing or two about how an extrovert can be a writer. Here is some of what works for me; maybe it will help others as well:

Find people time. My emotional gas tank gets filled being around people. Whenever I sit down to write, I’m spending that fuel, so I include social time in my self-care routine to fill it back up. I also still do some consulting and coaching work, which gives me a chance to flex my social muscles in a work setting.
Share your work. I also try to bring others into my writing process at various stages and develop professional and semi-professional relationships – my friends, my beta readers, my proofreader, my critique group. The servers at my favorite coffee shop.  Some people are very protective of their work and don’t like to bring others in on it. I’m the opposite – I work better when I can share my ideas, and when there are other voices and energies around. The small risk that someone will steal my work is far outweighed by the benefit of support and encouragement.
Picture the readers. Yeah, I’m alone when I write, but I try to vividly imagine how others will react when they read a particular scene or line of dialogue. Sometimes I think of specific people in my life, other times I just visualize happy readers, good reviews, or someone waking up her significant other with laughter at 3 a.m.
Make real connections with characters. I love it when people say that my characters feel real to them, because that’s my first goal when I write. I am energized and fascinated by people, so I try to write characters who will energize and fascinate others, and who feel real to me. Sometimes, as with Rebecca in BAGGAGE CHECK, I have to channel my understanding of introverts to do this well. Good thing I’ve known one or two.
Get help with the detail work. Once I’ve done all the emotionally juicy, socially gratifying parts of writing, there is still a tremendous amount of work to do. This is a place where introverts have the advantage, with their low-idle staying power, and I’m the first to admit it. Knowing this helps, so I can give myself extra time and balance out the detail work with lots of fun, extroverted activities in other places in my life. I also rely on others to help  me with this stage.
Use your extroverted super powers. As an extrovert, you probably understand way more than you realize about social interaction and human nature. Tap into your intuition about people to pull out realistic character traits, dialogue, and emotional exchanges. Introverts can have great intuition about people too, of course, but this is an area they might find more energy-draining than energy-giving.
Use your friends. (In a nice way.) With our flitting from person to person and our tendency to “collect” people, we extroverts often understand a little bit about a lot of things, rather than a super-deep knowledge of one thing. That means we might have to spend more time researching things we don’t know about, but it also means we probably know someone who is an expert at most things. So helpful, especially when you’d rather learn about something over a plate of chili fries than on the internet.

So there you have it, for me at least. If you are in the Atlanta area and want to practice socializing with me in person, come hang out at my book launch Wednesday night!

The post Being an Author and an Extrovert… at the Same Time appeared first on MJ Pullen.