askyermom

The book, she is born!! I felt as much satisfaction approving the final dust cover as I did in any other part of the production of this work. Four years of intermittent labor takes a lot of endurance, I would say it was more endurance than I have, except that I somehow had it.

The first draft was done during the early 2020 pandemic shutdown. I was very pleased with how calm I was, pecking away on my manuscript instead of panicking about my lack of job or prospects, immunity or toilet paper . There were appointed times to panic about everything, but at least 8 hours each day I was busy and centered and not trying to engineer a bidet. I hired an editor for a minute, but it mostly illuminated for me that the manuscript was not yet ready for editing, nor was I ready to pay someone else to tell me more about how unready it was.

In the intervening years, I fretted about intruding on the privacy of anyone mentioned in passing. Recognizing it was too dark, too personal and generally too much, I stared at a draft with only a smattering of humor and had a minor identity crisis. Early readers sent strings of question marks about passages that I had found hilarious while drunk editing. I tried writing drunk while editing sober instead. In the end sober writing, sober editing and listening to editors seemed like a clear winner.

In this book, I have done a post mortem on all my major mistakes as a mom — at least the ones I know about. It doesn’t always cut deep, because, like anyone, I am a little squeamish about my errors. I tried to be brave and contain my squeam, with arguably mixed results. Some of my inner editors say it’s a bunch of hooey, and while they are sober, they are wrong, I bet.

This book is my twisted love letter to motherhood, which I truly believe is going to help at least one mom now and then and that’s not nothing!!

Love,
yermom

Don’t Eat Your Children is available at most retailers for mail order. Try this one: Bookshop.org. If you subscribe to my newsletter or my substack, you will have a chance to win a free copy of the hard back. Paid subscriptions are not necessary to participate, but they are truly appreciated.