Inside Scoop: Bottom Line

Let’s be honest: when you write a novel about a Christian lingerie pyramid scheme, you should expect some pushback. After all, those poor publishers! They’d just found out Christians had sex, and now this! Cute clothes to wear and that even ENCOURAGE the having of the sex!

Do you see why it’s always been touch-and-go between me and the pubs?

Bottom Line is the second in the Heidi Elliott series, and it follows Heidi as she dips her toe into the waters of direct sales. Here’s a bit of inside scoop on the story and the writing of BL:

*I wrote this entire novel on an ancient laptop while sitting in an armchair on the second floor of the West Des Moines Public Library. My spot overlooked the pond next to the library and I learned more during those six or seven months than I care to about the daily habits of Canadian geese. There is no plaque on the armchair that commemorates this process, but I’m thinking about getting one and hot-glue-gunning it to one of the legs when a librarian isn’t looking. (GOOD LUCK TO ME. Those librarians are hawks.)

*The idea for a pyramid scheme involving Christian lingerie came out of a particularly raucous phone conversation between me and my best friend, Betsy. I remember  sitting outside a restaurant, late for a lunch date but unwilling to stop talking to Bets. I’m pretty sure she was the one who said it first as she is ever the smarter and wittier of the two of us, and when we couldn’t stop snort-laughing, I knew we were onto something.

*My husband, Marc, is Jake Elliott. I mean, there are differences, but let’s just say Marc also obsesses over great travel deals that are utterly impossible. “Forty-five dollars on a puddle jumper to Bahrain, leaves tonight, no luggage allowed. Let’s DO this!” Ahem. You’ll find me watching the geese in my plaqued-up library chair.

*Marc is the one who makes a killer chocolate lava cake in this house. The recipe in the book is his. And yes, I am the winner in this scenario.

*I don’t journal because I’m selfish and pretty tired, but I DO write books. So this book is kind of like a journal of my eldest daughter’s preschool years. When I read the scenes of Nora and her princess obsession and her time-outs and the way she forces Heidi to speak in a Russian accent and answer to the name Olga…well, let’s just say the truth is not any stranger than the fiction in this case.

Click on over here to buy Bottom Line. Heck, while you’re at it, buy all five Kim Stuart books! They are on wicked sale, and time’s running out for a first edition!

Tomorrow: Inside Scoop on Act Two.

Inside Scoop: Balancing Act

Hi, all. And by “all,” I mean Mom. Thanks for sticking with me, Mom. And for the lovely scented candle for Christmas. You’re the best.

I’ve been away, doing all sorts of things, like laundry, and never-ending dishwashing, and parenting, and spousing, and writing a novel that I buried under a tree in the backyard, and then writing another novel which is still above ground, and getting a puppy, and craving a nap. We can get to all that later, Mom, because now is the best time to buy a Kimberly Stuart book, and in celebration of frightfully low prices (FIVE DOLLARS EACH!), I’m giving a peek behind the curtain for each of my five novels. Today’s scoop: Balancing Act.

Remember Balancing Act? My very first novel and the first in the Heidi Elliott series? Total therapy to write. I wrote that book as if my friends were all in the room, laughing with me and telling stories about motherhood and marriage and friendship. You probably know most of these, Mom, since we talk every day, but you and I both know our collective memory bank is coming up short of a zero balance these days, even without a shared history of marijuana smoking. So I’ll just throw these out there and you can pretend to remember when I know you don’t:

*Balancing Act came about after I met a fantastic editor, Andrea Christian. Andrea hated my non-fiction stuff but was interested in the first few pages of Tightrope, the initial title of BA. I finished it while pregnant with Mitch, who is now ten years old. I still associate BA with a belly that slowly grew over the keyboard of my laptop. When it passed QWERTY, it was time to go to the hospital.

*There were those in the Christian publishing world that got VERY nervous that Heidi and her husband, Jake, ALMOST HAVE SEX on page 45. It fell to me to explain that Christians have sex.  The shock is still reverberating.

*The character of Willow is a combination of two characters I wrote into the first edition and which got axed by my editor. I did curse my editor and all of his descendants during that rewrite but have totally reneged on the curse since then. (Hi, Jeff! Hope all is well!)

*My aunt Jana is every bit as gorgeous and smitten-worthy as the character named after her, only she’s not an adulteress. (Hi, Auntie! Clearing the record, a decade late!)

*I loved every bit of mail I got after Balancing Act released, and I still love it when readers ask for another Heidi book. I will someday. I promise. But my favorite email came from a former student who said reading Jake and Heidi’s story reminded her of how important it was to nurture and care for her young marriage. She said my tiny, insignificant novel had helped save her marriage. Remember that, Mom? I’m crying now to think of it. And I was just trying to make people laugh and forget about the trials of lactating! What a gift, this writing gig.

Thanks for circling back here, Mom. And all you dear people who make story-telling so much fun. 2016 holds lots of promise. I’m glad you’re here.

Tomorrow: Inside scoop on Bottom Line, the second book in the Heidi Elliott series.

Have a new mom in your life? Balancing Act is the perfect gift, even better than cloth diapers! BUY HERE, BUY NOW. First edition sale lasts until midnight on Sunday, January 17, 2016.

Happy Christmas 2013!

Hello, dear people.

Despite all those Internet rumors, I didn't die. Wait--that rumor was about Johnny Depp. He isn't dead either, though he is against showing his teeth in photographs.

I, however, am not!

Listen, I've missed you people. I'm sorry for my long absence, but I have found I cannot multi-task. That's not true: I CAN multi-task if it involves cooking dinner, breaking up fist fights, unloading the dishwasher, and reviewing subtraction facts. I CANNOT multi-task, however, when it comes to writing.

I'm writing a new book and I can't do that and blog. Sorry. I'm definitely not a millennial that way, but it's true. (For the record, I'm also not a millennial in terms of my texting speed and my ab strength. But those are other posts for another time.)

So I'm writing every now and then and hopefully, by the time Thea gets her first speeding ticket, I will finish this book and be back to (the obsolete world of) blogging. 

In the  meantime, please enjoy a beautiful Christmas with your families. Somehow the God of the universe saw fit to up-end all our thoughts on power and kingdoms and inauguration days and entered our fray as a vulnerable baby. Our hearts sing with the birth of our Rescue, our Freedom, our Unfettered Joy. Star of wonder, indeed!

Merry Christmas, dear friends. And much love to you.

Hungry for More

A week ago, the five of us joined up with a great group of folks and packed meals for hungry people.

Have you heard of Meals from the Heartland?

We Iowans grow a lot of food. Not to brag or anything, but we pretty much crush the Growing Food category. We're really good at it. And I love these people from Meals from the Heartland. They are making it possible for folks all over the nation and globe to benefit from the bountiful harvest of the Midwest. Hungry people getting food from Iowa. I love it all.

So we headed down to a huge room where a bunch of people in hairnets were rocking out to Motown and Gloria Gaynor. These are my kind of people.

We took a two-hour shift, which, by the way, sounds easy. When you are elderly and decrepit, however, like the author of this blog, your back does tend to spasm and your arms do start to twitch. At these moments, however, you must stifle the impulse to whine because (A) you are packing rice and soy protein and dehydrated vegetables for people who need to eat and (B) your husband has gone FULL-THROTTLE into THAT GUY mode. He is THAT GUY, the one who keeps altering the packing system so we become the most efficient, least wasteful packing crew on the floor. He is THAT GUY who monkeys with adding SINGLE GRAINS OF RICE so our weight goal is PERFECT. He is THAT GUY who thinks we might get a TROPHY or a STICKER if we have the most amazingly perfect boxes at the end.

You married THAT GUY and you have never regretted it, but you may not, under any circumstance, refer to your aching back because you know without a doubt that THAT GUY will replace you with a faster, more efficient volunteer who happens to be your five-year-old daughter.

Even with these pressures, I recommend coming alongside what the Meals from the Heartland people are doing. A donation of only $20 provides meals for 100 people! Unbelievable! And if you marry A GUY like THAT GUY he will be quick to tell you that by trouncing the next table over, we packed enough meals to feed over 3000 people! Boo-yah! Wiping up on the hunger-fighting competition! (Good thing THAT GUY is so cute.)

Swimming Upstream With Diana Nyad

Have you people heard about this woman?

Her name is Diana Nyad. I first knew of her after I read a fascinating article about her in The New York Times a couple years back. Miss Diana is now 64 years old, and this week, after 35 years of pursuit, she swam from Havana, Cuba, to Key West, Florida. I'm talking 52 hours and 54 minutes, only stopping for nourishment. I'm talking 110 miles. 

Did I mention she was not in a PLANE or on a CRUISE SHIP but that she was SWIMMING? 

Have you ever swum non-stop for 30 minutes? You know that lung burn? Well, multiply that for about a gazillion minutes, add salt water, dehydration and general crazytown, and we'll be about halfway to how Nyad must have been feeling.

Please note her swollen lips. And the absence of a lido deck. And note the stunned and clapping Average Humans looking on in shock. The guy in the life vest (!) is thinking, "Dang! And the most impressive thing I did today was floss!" I can identify.

Photo by abc.com

I feel the need to point out that Ms. Nyad was the first person to accomplish this swim WITHOUT A SHARK CAGE. Time to let that one sink in.....And she wore the mask above and a full body suit and booties during the night to protect herself from jellyfish attacks. And another moment to absorb that tidbit.....

Did I mention I flossed today?

This woman rocks. She first became famous for swimming around Manhattan, a thought that makes me a little queasy, considering the summertime smell of Manhattan and what might be washing into the waters around it. But swim she did and three decades after her first attempt at the Cuba-Florida route, she made it. 

I am so tired from writing this very short blog post, I need to take a few days off from flossing. Maybe don't wait for my shark-cage record-breaking. But I do own goggles! 

Woot-woot-to-the-64th-power, Diana Nyad! Now go eat some pizza and take a nap!

Can't We All Just Get Along?

A few weeks ago, Judith Warner wrote this fascinating article for the New York Times magazine. 

The gist: Moms who, a decade or so ago, jumped off the corporate ladder to stay home with their children now want back into the work force. The piece was interesting and provocative and well worth a read.

Warner's article reminded me of when I was a young child and had just released Balancing Act, my first novel. The book was reviewed in the Chicago Sun-Times, which was a exhilarating and depressing moment. Exhilarating because I love Chicago, I lived in Chicago, and the Sun-Times is a formidable newspaper. Depressing because the reviewer, I felt, distilled my story into a question of whether a mom should stay home or remain in the workplace.

*My point in writing that book, for the record, was cheap therapy. I cannot tell you how freeing it was to write a book that made my girlfriends laugh, involved a disastrous urine/poop scene, and documented Marc's obsession with budget travel covertly into the character of Jake Elliott. Culture wars? Not so much. 

At the risk of sounding a lot like Pollyanna, can we take a moment and just get along?

I am a mom. I have a lot of jobs that are my responsibilities in any given day. Some of these jobs come with a (meager) paycheck. Many do not. I am grateful to count among my friends women who are physicians, lawyers, writers, musicians, nurses, television producers, teachers, realtors, artists, small business owners, and stay-at-home moms. All of these women are hard-working mothers, in the home, out of the home. I haven't met one yet who feels she is doing everything exactly right and lives in perfect balance. (Actually, I did meet one really annoying woman once who felt she was doing everything exactly right and I found I couldn't understand the words coming out of her mouth. So we don't hang out now.)

Can we, as intelligent, passionate, blessed-beyond-measure women support each other? Propel each other to better things? Can we hope sincerely for each other that the woman God created us to be will find her way in this big and crazy world? It's tough enough doing this thing without female infighting. 

I didn't particularly love junior high. I vote that we stop reliving it.

Whether you are on the corporate ladder, crushing it, being pommeled by it, or have jumped off forever or for a season, I applaud you onward today. Do what you do and do it heartily for the God who wired you and knows every curve of your face, every hair on your head. Ignore the naysayers today, girls, and live your own story well. I'm cheering you on.

Fast-Forward Family

Will the big invisible finger pushing the fast-forward button of our lives please step off?

I'm serious. I'm getting irritable.

When did this happen? Is anyone else hearing me on this? Four days ago, we brought Ana home from the hospital and Marc stood in her nursery in the wee hours, listening to her weep hysterically and ticking off all the reasons why she shouldn't be crying.

"She's not hungry because she just ate. She's not cold because I just smooshed that little knit cap on her head. And she's not wet because we just changed her diaper. So she must be tired and we just need to let her cry it out."

Ana was barely out of the womb. But I married a physics major, so, we deal a lot with logic around here.

Then two days later, Mitch came home from the hospital and during his first at-home diaper change, he peed in an arc, right into his own eyeball. Ana was beside herself with grief. "WHY WOULD HE DO THAT?" 

Then the day after that, Thea came home and now....she's five and turns a respectable cartwheel and can make her own bed, including decorative pillows. We're all really old and I don't remember how it happened. 

What gives? 

My aunt, Michele, warned me about this. When our kids were tiny and needy and sapping me of all the energy it took to apply lip gloss, Aunt Michele warned me that life with children really did move at terrifyingly high speeds. She and Uncle Doug have four boys and while I marveled at her ability to live in house with all that misplaced urine, I did not believe her when she said life speeds up with kids. That very morning, for example, I had counted the minutes until nap time. 

But Aunt Michele, you were absolutely correct. Sorry I doubted. The minutes seem to skip directly to years, and I shake my head at the speed. Go kiss those children of yours, dear ones. Tiny kids, huge kids, sweaty kids, surly kids. Fast-forward gets faster every year.