Yesterday, Lisa McKay was so kind to guest post for me and today we get to chat with her more about her life and her fantastic new memior, Love at the Speed of Email, out this month. I almost feel bad for the Amazon.com employees b/c they are going to be so slammed trying to process a ton of orders for this awesome book after you all read this interview! Thanks again, Lisa!
The #1 question that weighs on my mind is, “How do you do it?!” Seriously, you are so very accomplished professionally, your husband serves as a humanitarian worker, and you are so busy being a mom to your little boy. How do you find time logistically to write books?
You are so kind. Too kind, actually, as I’m not working full time right now J. I quit my job when we moved to Laos (a move we made so that my husband could take up a role with a humanitarian organization here). While I worked as a consultant last year before my son was born, I actually haven’t done much consulting during the last nine months. I’ve focused on figuring out this motherhood thing (anyone else finding that harder than any job they’ve had before?) and writing.
In addition, the fact that we have some house help here in Laos means that I don’t usually have to clean or do laundry or dishes. So while I still don’t feel I have enough time in the day to do what I want to do (does any parent?) I know I actually have more time available to me than many other mothers do.
Tell us about your new book. Why is it awesome and why should we read it?!
Love At The Speed Of Email is the story of an old-fashioned courtship made possible by modern technology. Lisa looks as if she has it made. She has turned her nomadic childhood and forensic psychology training into a successful career as a stress management trainer for humanitarian aid workers. She lives in Los Angeles, travels the world, and her first novel has just been published to some acclaim. But as she turns 31, Lisa realizes that she is still single, constantly on airplanes, and increasingly wondering where home is and what it really means to commit to a person, place, or career. When an intriguing stranger living on the other side of the world emails her out of the blue, she must decide whether she will risk trying to answer those questions. Her decision will change her life.
And why’s it awesome? It’s awesome because it’s a grand love story with a happy ending, and everyone loves those. Also, it will make you laugh and make you think. Three great reasons, right?
I still feel super weird saying this about my own memoir, but it really is a good story. I’ve won live stand-up storytelling competitions in Los Angeles telling parts of this tale.
Your first book, my hands came away red, was a novel. Why did you choose to write a memoir this time around?
I didn’t intend for this second book to be a memoir. In fact, I was working on a novel on human trafficking when Mike and I got engaged. But when we began to plan our wedding I found it increasingly difficult to flip in and out of such vastly different worlds – the happiness of the one I was living in and the harshness of the one I was trying to write about.
After months of trying to force myself to persevere with the trafficking novel, one day I stopped long enough to ask myself what I really wanted to be writing about. The answer to that question wasn’t trafficking. It was the idea of home.
I’d spent my childhood in countries as diverse as Bangladesh and Zimbabwe. I carried Australian and Canadian passports. I was living in Los Angeles working for a non-profit organization that provided psychological support to humanitarian workers worldwide. I was hopelessly confused as to where home was. Perhaps, I thought, I could write my way towards clarity. And that’s when I started writing the memoir.
How has having a baby changed your writing life?
In one word: Enormously. I prefer to write in big chunks – long, quiet, uninterrupted stretches of time (and all of you mothers know that that’s exactly what you don’t have the second you give birth). So I’m doing the hard and painful work of learning to approach writing in a completely new way.
As part of that I’ve been focusing on different types of projects during the last nine months. Both my books were written before I became a mother. You do hear of some authors who only started writing books after they became a mother – in all their “spare time while their baby was sleeping.”
Those people blow my mind.
No, I’ve felt way too tired and life-all-turned-upside-down as busy since Dominic’s birth to think about starting another book quite yet. So I’ve been focusing on shorter pieces of writing – blogging and essays. I’ve been telling myself that this full, intense, season is just that, a season. It will pass and in future years I will have more time and creative energy again, so I’m trying not to fret about not getting more work done and just focus on soaking in and enjoying being a mother.
Some days that works really well. Some days it’s harder than others. And, yeah, some days it’s impossible.
You recently changed the look of your website, and it looks fantastic! I think you do an awesome job of communicating that you are a psychologist, humanitarian worker and an author. Plus, as a bonus for your readers, you share your blog so we can follow you on a regular basis! Where do you see future efforts concentrated?
Gosh, that is a great question, and one I’ve been mulling over a lot lately. I started blogging just for fun, so the blog is pretty scattershot right now. Some about marriage, or motherhood, or Laos, or resilience, or humanitarian work, or our puppy … but I’m thinking about whether to focus more on a couple of specific themes in the future.
Long term I know I want to write more books, but a couple of things I know I will do in the next six months is guest posting to help get the memoir off the ground and starting to write more on the topic of long distance relationships. If you have a blog and you’d like me to guest post for you, do let me know! I’d love to hear from you.
Finally, give us one piece of inspiration/encouragement/take-away to all of those who fantasize about writing a book, but have yet to “live the dream”. Is there hope for us??
Absolutely! I’m a huge believer in following your passions and doing what you’re interested in and over time interesting things will happen. I started writing my first book at 18 with no training in writing at all. Granted, it didn’t get finished and published for 11 years, but that’s another story. Those long years of writing just because I wanted to and felt I needed to have turned out to be so foundational in all the writing I’ve done since then – professionally and creatively. There is so much to be said for the day-to-day discipline of sitting down and just writing. Journaling. Blogging. Writing essays. Working on a novel or a memoir … whatever project lights your fire. You never know where it’ll go in the long run, or how the discipline of writing will feed your life in other ways.
Thanks so much, Lisa! We so appreciate you sharing your time with us!
Thanks for having me! You can pick up a copy of Love At The Speed Of Email on Amazon or Barnes and Noble (a portion of my profits will be going to support charities here in Laos) or drop by my blogand say hello. I’d love to hear from you.
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Meredith blogs at The Mom of the Year, where she dedicatedly earns her title one epic parenting fail at a time, offering quick, relatable laughs for fellow parents and all their empathizers. She has been part of several best-selling anthologies, featured on prominent sites such as Huffington Post, In the Powder Room and BlogHer, and loves her role as the Executive VP/Operations Manager of The BlogU Conference. When she's not breaking up fights over Legos and juice boxes, she remains fully committed to sharing a less serious look at the world of parenting.
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