Mom Writer’s Literary Magazine

 

An Interview with Melinda Roberts
by Jackie Papandrew

 

Melinda (Mindy) Roberts is one of the trailblazers of the mom blogging movement, having started her groundbreaking The Mommy Blog seven years ago. Now, as Roberts says, “Every third blog created these days seems to be called The Mommy Blog…All I’ve really managed to do is make my brand the Kleenex of the blogosphere.”

Roberts, a transplanted Chicagoan living in California, wrote Mommy Confidential: Adventures from the Wonderbelly of Motherhood to chronicle her life in Silicon Valley with three children, a disintegrating marriage, a full-time job upended by the tech bust and a fervent desire to use her powers for good.

Roberts is the founder of PearSoup.com and Wonderbelly.com. She is also a founding Panelist of Momversation.com.

MWLM: Tell us about your book. Is it all a true-life story? What made you start to write it? How long did it take to complete, and what was the process of getting it from a manuscript to a published book like? How hard was it to get an agent and/or publisher?

MR: Mommy Confidential is 100% true-life, told in real time. That’s how I blog, usually within a few minutes of whenever something of interest happens. I love the way it keeps it feeling fresh, and it’s easier to capture the frantic, goofy, sad, ironic tone and preserve it if it’s written right away. People often tell me they can hear me shouting some of the things I write, which can be good or bad depending on your closeness to the subject matter.

In fact, Mommy Confidential is almost entirely made up of material from a three-year period of The Mommy Blog, highly condensed, edited and with back story added in. It’s much clearer, easy to follow and feels absorbed into the chaos of a young family’s everyday life.

If you don’t count the three years I spent writing every day on all kinds of topics, it really only took a year or so to edit and publish. It only took that long because my mother, an English professor, creative writing instructor and published author, was running a university nonprofit at the time, and we traded manuscripts back and forth whenever she was in town. She is a good editor in general, but particularly for this project because she has a unique perspective that is not totally unrelated to mine, and also had a good eye for what should stay in and what should go. I felt confident that no one would be offended by the final product­—Mom said it was fine! Go talk to her!

It was fairly difficult to find a publisher willing to take on yet another “blook” or any sort of parenting narrative for that matter. I had some excellent introductions that should have been successful, but I heard more than once that the writing was excellent and funny and had wide appeal, but that they’d jump out a window if they had to read one more “momoir.” The market was a bit saturated at the moment, though mostly by advice-oriented publications BUT I DIGRESS.

I ultimately published first on Lulu.com, not least because you can literally upload a document, choose a few options and buy your book that same afternoon.

 

Seriously, it is print on demand at its finest. There was no easier, cheaper service around, and they are continually growing and expanding. I was able to send my editor a bound copy of the manuscript for about 20 dollars—much better than dealing with Kinko’s or—God forbid—printing it out myself. It started at 1200 pages, and we whittled it down to 500. So yes, it’s long, but we do know and exercise restraint! The sequel will be shorter.

The next step was to work with a publisher tied in with a press, and who could help with all the other important indexing and marketing tasks. I chose Aventine [Press], again because for the money, they provided the best service and just the right amount of options with no pressure on the upsell. Aventine helped me get the book listed in the Library of Congress, arranged for the ISBN, hooked me up with Amazon, Barnes & Noble and all kinds of other online outlets through Lightning Press. Usually, one would have to pay thousands to go through this process, but it was easier for me because I already had an editor who would work for free, and I’m a graphic and web designer. I didn’t need to hire anyone to put those things together.

So, while a publisher would have been wonderful, I didn’t have to wait, have sold books through my site and on Amazon, have had rave reviews and am very happy with the process overall.

MWLM: What kind of reaction have you had to the book from other mothers? Anything that really surprised you?

MR: The vast majority of readers have had wonderful things to say about the book, such as: ‘It’s very funny; It’s the sort of book you can pick up and flip to any page to have a laugh; It’s a little like Bridget Jones, Dave Barry, and Erma Bombeck in that respect; It doesn’t have to be linear, and the flavor is consistent throughout.’
I did have a couple of surprising comments from relatives. One said she had to put it down because it was too personal, and another said, after reading the entire book, that she’d never say those things to or about her own children. So, yes, that was unexpected and a little disheartening, but I’m still convinced that my children won’t be surprised if and when they eventually read it. If I haven’t said exactly those things TO them, they’ve heard it all in my tone and voiced aloud in other, more G-rated terms.

MWLM: What advice do you have for other mothers who want to write, but have difficulty making time for it among all of their family and “life” responsibilities? Do you have a writing schedule and do you stick to it? Or do you write whenever you can squeeze in some time to do it?

MR: I have no organized approach to writing. I guess that makes me a terrible role model! Honestly, I started writing out of desperation, anxiety, sleeplessness, stress and a general feeling of not knowing who I was anymore. I needed to write about what was happening around me to create a new context. It helped that I never slept. I had three children in four years, and between them all, I was up a zillion times a night, and usually wound up sitting at my computer every night in the wee hours, typing away until I could relax enough to sleep. I have a feeling that there are those who find it hard to believe that I actually wrote such volumes of material in the time I had available. I worked full time, so when was I writing? At work? That caused tension, and all I can say is that it is extremely difficult for a childless person to imagine having sleep disrupted to a degree that would allow or fuel such prolific writing. I can assure you it’s possible, and for me, necessary for my sanity.

MWLM: Tell us about your children. What do they think of the book? How has motherhood changed the way you write?

MR: My children are of course the most wonderful, beautiful, witty and charming people in the world. It’s every mother’s right to think so, anyway! My eldest son is curious, athletic, sensitive, funny and very sharp. My second son runs deep. We call him The Loophole. If there’s a way out of something, he will find it. He is also curious, sensitive and funny, but while the first is funny in a Henny Youngman way, the second is more like a blend of Jerry Lewis and the Tasmanian Devil. Flawless comedic timing and a master of physical comedy, which is why he’s nearly been thrown out of both kindergarten and after-school care, he’s also the sweetest boy who tells me over and over that he could never have a better mom. Which is the right sentiment, considering I saved his life more than once. My daughter is a sweet, elfin, strawberry-blond artist. She’s like a giraffe, all arms and legs and neck and graceful prancing. She absolutely kills me with the faces and deadpans and double takes. It’s absolutely true that you get the children you deserve. I’ve got a cut-up, a know-it-all and a stubborn little actress.

They love being in the book and are tickled to autograph them when asked. “Mama, do I sign my real name or my book name?” It’s so cute. And yes, motherhood has changed the way I write, but not in the ways you’d guess. I didn’t start writing until I was a mother, for one, and I also tend to swear a lot in my writing. Of course, I haven’t handed the book to the kids for perusing, but when they do see it they shouldn’t be all that surprised at the language. I am proud to be able to say that they learned most of the bad words from others, not from me!

MWLM: You’re also a blogging powerhouse: founder of TheMommyBlog.net, PearSoup.com, Wonderbelly.com, and a panelist on Momversation.com., as well as being Blogger in Chief at MomBlogNetwork.com. Why has “mom blogging” become such a force to be reckoned with? Tell us about the different blogs you’ve founded or are involved in, and how they’ve grown and evolved since you started them. What’s the future of mom blogging, do you think? Is it in danger of being overdone in that there are so many mom blog sites out there?

MR: I think blogging is the digital age’s natural extension of letter writing, journaling and feature writing. Think about what we know about people in the past: much of what we know that is really interesting and personal about historical figures comes from letters written by or to them. No one writes letters – they write e-mails and sometimes just keep blogs. And the extreme accessibility of these blogs has allowed corporate America to see who’s holding the checkbook in today’s families, and that sudden realization that moms are spending over a trillion dollars annually has led to a stampede to get the mommy bloggers’ ears. We’re suddenly the It demographic. Someone once offered me enough to buy groceries for a month just to tell them how I like their salad dressing. It’s stunning and wonderfully empowering all at once. Of course, there are extreme examples and bad eggs, but overall I think it’s a wonderful show of corporate adaptation and such an overdue recognition of our role in the economy.

Pear Soup is my favorite project and just so easy to love. What’s cuter than the stuff that kids blurt out unexpectedly? I actually hoped that it would become a larger part of the Wonderbelly family of sites, but it remains the younger cousin who pops in now and then. It’s another one of those things that people like when they see it, but I am a crap PR and marketing person, so it just doesn’t get in front of the right eyes.

MWLM: What other writing projects do you have in the works?

MR: Right now I’m concentrating on my daily blogging, filming for the trice-weekly Internet TV show – Momversation.com , doing freelance web design and occasionally glancing at my second manuscript, gathering dust in the corner. Literally, in the corner. It fell off the table by my chaise sometime last year, and I haven’t picked it up yet. But I will. I WILL.

I’m also getting ready to launch a free template site, specifically for celebrations. I’ve been making themes for birthday parties (because I keep losing my children’s invitations under the fridge) so that all the inviting, RSVPing, wishlisting, and thanking can be orchestrated from a simple interface. Keep an eye out for Wonderbelly Party Pages.
MWLM: Who are some of your favorite authors? What’s on your nightstand right now? Which authors have most influenced your own writing?

MR: I was laughing just the other night with my son about our nightstands. We have nearly identical stacks of at least a dozen books next to the bed, and we’re reading them all at once. We were even fighting over the Alex Rider series of books by Anthony Horowitz for a while there, so we were sneaking them off each other’s piles when the other wasn’t around. Usually when I find an author I like, I’ll get all the books they’ve ever written and read straight through. I’ve done this with Celia Rivenbark, Anthony Horowitz, Bill Bryson, Nelson DeMille, Vicky Iovine, Julie Kenner, Malcolm Gladwell, Phillip Done, Michael Crichton, Robertson Davies, J.K. Rowling, J.R.R. Tolkien, Robert Fulghum, Shakespeare and Sophie Kinsella.
Right now, on my nightstand, I have:

Saturday by Ian McEwan; Gun, with Occasional Music by Jonathan Lethem; The Black Pearl by Scott O’Dell; Made to Stick by Chip Heath and Dan Heath; The Christmas Chronicles by Jeff Guinn; The Dip and Small is the New Big by Seth Godin; Matilda by Roald Dahl; Fendi, Ferragamo, and Fangs by Julie Kenner, Johanna Edwards, and Serena Robar; Amphigory by Edward Gorey; Junie B. Jones and the Mushy, Gushy Valentine by Barbara Park; and two Random House collections of The New York Times Crossword Puzzles.

MWLM: Anything else you’d like to add?

 

MR: I’m pooped!

 

 

 

 

Jackie Papandrew is an award-winning writer and editor. Her humor column – Airing My Dirty Laundry – appears in several newspapers in the United States and Canada. Visit www.jackiepapandrew.com to read more of her work.