Back in 2007 when I started blogging about family life and my pregnancy, my grandma had told me my writing style was similar to that of Erma Bombeck. Every day happenings with a twist of humor thrown into it. It was just always something that stuck out to me, but I never set out to write a book. In fact, when I started blogging, publishing a book was the farthest thing from my mind, it wasn’t even a thought.
My grandma always encourages me to write and even though I have started several businesses and have put writing off to the side, my ability to tell a good story in words is always the first thing she mentions to people when they ask about me.
Over the years of working at home, I have started two books, but never really felt compelled to finish them.
Book writing is hard, people!
The first book was going to be a pregnancy book for non-first time moms. I started writing this one when I was pregnant for a second time and had read through every pregnancy book out there. I was not getting any new information that I hadn’t read the first time around. I wanted to know what it was going to be like already having a child when pregnant with a second and how my body was going to react this time around. There was lots of untapped information out there that many pregnancy books only give to one chapter to second time moms. The reason I didn’t finish that book is that once I had my baby the information wasn’t relevant to me. I tend to write for the moment; that one had passed.
Take two: This time around I had partnered with a graphic designer friend of mine to write a business book. We wanted to write a book for small business owners who were moms and how there is a capability to be successful in both family and business. Again, lots of information to write about but just not enough time to devote to the book. That idea was scraped.
It’s been almost two years with no temptation of writing a book. Then this new idea popped into my head and yes, this topic is in my moment. I really want to explore this topic but I’m afraid my past hesitations will come back. I don’t know if it’s because I don’t really think of myself as a writer or I get a block and don’t want to finish. I’m also worried that I won’t have enough content to fill a whole book. And will anyone want to read what I have to say?
But here goes the premise for the book:
They say it takes a village to raise a baby, but in today’s digital world the village is looking a little different. On Facebook, a mother has the ability to post that her child just colored all over the white wall and get 20 likes and 10 comments about how this has just happened to one of her friends. Twitter explodes with hashtags that parents can follow just talking about #kids #parentfail for this particular incident. Instagram instantaneously shows us exactly what the wall looked like after the coloring took place. Finally, after the child has gone to bed, the mother blogs to her readers about this experience and how she cleaned up the mess in which they can StumbleUpon later. While on Pinterest, she is able to come up with some crafty way to turn the coloring into an art project.
Parents all over the world are looking for that community. Yes, we still have play dates and chats on the playground with our IRL friends but it’s nice to know that a woman in New Jersey can have the same experiences as a mother in Arizona. There is a sense of camaraderie that Mothers of small children have when they can express their feelings to one another.
The digital age has not only taken over the way that we research parenting information but how we communicate and raise our children.
As a mother of three young children, the social media world has become the outlet which I can share the ups and downs of our everyday life, shared proud mama moment, not so proud moment, the occasional poop story and asked for advice of my online friends.
This will either be a compilation of moments or my social media journey of raising my kids. Either way I’m still brainstorming and taking solicitations to go one way or another.
