2014: Why Not!?

Shall there be resolutions for this new year?  Of course!  And they shall be meaningful, specific, and totally unattainable (in most cases).  At the end of the year, I'll hope no one remembers my lofty goals, that no one notices my pants are *tighter* rather than looser, that my eyebrows are still blond and invisible and therefore alien-like.

Thinking of really good resolutions.  

So here goes.  What I've turned my third eye toward for 2014:

1)  I've always been good at asking WHY NOT.  I've moved all over the country, going where the wind blew me, forever hurting my earning power but helping me become the very round person I am today. I mean, well-rounded.  I'm turning it up a notch, though, this year because asking WHY NOT is harder when you have a husband and three children.  Some people forget what that phrase even means after they have kids and turn from the life of the party into the plainest vanilla in the room.  I won't be that gal!

Thankfully, I've already started on this goal. I took a class, for credit, at our excellent local community college just for fun.  We painted our family mottos on the living room wall.  I bought really big weird glasses that are purple in the sunshine.  I slurped down raw oysters for the first time, one of the few foods I had been afraid of.  I started using butter on everything.  Maybe that last one doesn't count.  But I shall stop asking WHY and starting declaring WHY NOT!  I will say YES more.  I will care even less if someone thinks what I'm doing is weird. In fact, the weirder, the awesomer!

2) Speaking of awesome, I'm going to start a motorcycle club.  Ryan and I have been watching Sons of Anarchy, and I realized, in the fashion of WHY NOT, I needed to head up a group of motorcycle gangsters. What will my group of badasses look like? I do know there will be leather.  Oh yes, leather. I'm thinking chaps, low-cut t-shirts, tattoos everywhere.  Some brawls in the backyard, a few prospects to torment (wax my floors, pond scum!), and wild raucous parties that end in a happy naked pile.  I will tell you what there won't be: motorcycles. I hate the things. But I feel I can't be a gangster without calling my club a motorcycle gang.  Maybe I'll put a few photos of motorcycles up on the wall of our "chapel", which will be in the kids' playhouse out back.

The name?  Bitches that Read.  I really wanted it to be Bitches That Read, Write, and Cook in a Generally Awesome Way, but that doesn't roll off the tongue too well.  I'm not sure when or if we'll ever meet, but know that I'm an official BTR badass and that you had better pay me the respect I (think I) deserve.   In fact, if you ever see me, you'd better run up and bump my belly with yours. I've always wanted to greet people that way, and now that I have a motorcycle club, I can do it!

If you wanna join, send me 500 words on whether I should ever tell my kids that rather than prepare for an essay exam on Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse in high school, I watched a Green Acres marathon, showed up to class without having read one word of it (and no Cliffsnotes either), read half of it during the exam, and managed to eek out a B.  I mean, that's pretty much the most badass thing I've ever done, and I gotta show my kids I'm more than just a really hot mom. I'm a GANGSTER, dammit!

3) I'm going to practice the art of brevity.

I'm out, y'all.  I gotta go shine my van and oil the stand mixer.  Happy New Year!

I need advice

The past week has put me in a funk.  The kids, our finances, the damn drought...they've all conspired to make me a grouch.  So Monday night, I headed to the movies all by myself, Peggy Olson style (although I was doing it more than a decade ago before Mad Men was around to inspire me).  I used to go solo all the time to the movies--it's relaxing to be quiet for awhile, soaking in a story.  Sunday mornings are best, but Monday night was pretty tame, too.  I saw The Avengers and learned a few things:

1) Chris Hemsworth is perfectly cast as a god.  Loved him in Thor, and again in this flick.  Per usual, I'm asking myself why I can't be Natalie Portman, but I think we all know I'd be the chunky sidekick anyway.

2) I am really glad I don't live in NYC or any other big target for aliens.  Kansas City wouldn't be on most aliens' radar, except for maybe the most savvy who'd realize that the bbq really is that good. Of course, perhaps I'd rather my city be destroyed by a giant fishy monster thingie than survive and be enslaved and forced to mine dilithium crystals.

3) I don't actually hate Samuel L. Jackson as much as I thought.  I almost liked him in this movie!

Random squash photo.  Pretty, isn't it?

But all of this is a completely unrelated introduction to my post for today (it's my blog, so I can do it any which way I want, right?  Preferably with orangutans named Clyde, but that's not always possible).

I would like your advice.

I know, weird coming from someone who dishes it out so easily.

I have written a non-fiction e-book.  And I have no idea how to price it.  E-books are priced so inconsistently that this is not an easy task.  I recently bought one for 99 cents to see what I'd get at that price and not only did it consist of regurgitated blog posts, but it was also not very much substance.  I've spent five times that amount for disappointing content, and I've bought $2 books that were awesome.  One e-book I read a few months ago wasn't even that great or ground-breaking, but the writer has sold a few thousand copies at almost $10 a piece!

My book: 98% of the content is completely original, never seen before by my readers, so I'm not recycling anything from the blog except for maybe a couple of anecdotes.  I had briefly considered working in some essays and testimonials from others, but decided to stick with my own writing.  The subject matter?  Generally speaking, it's about motherhood and being home with the kids, so kind of a niche market. It falls under self-help (as much as it pains me to use that phrase, it works).

It's looking to be between 125 and 150 pages, perhaps more (haven't converted it yet).  I'll offer it in as many formats as I can.  The book is still in the editing stage, but I'm hoping to wrap things up soon.  


So any advice? I've thought about offering it for free as a gift to the universe or as high as $1Million since it took a long time to write this thing. Neither of those seem appropriate, so I'm open to ideas.  Feel free to comment here or send me a private message at starr@thekiefercottage.com


PS I have not gotten any good spam or rants recently.  You guys, those brighten my day!!