When my twins were babies, the only writ­ing I had energy and time for was com­pos­ing gro­cery lists and “to do” reminders on pastel-colored Post-It notes. As they got older, I’d write down some of the funny things they said and what was hap­pen­ing at the time. When Billy was four he firmly stated “I want to be an astro­naut because they get to count back­wards.” Clara, no slouch in the funny thoughts depart­ment, opined to her brother, “Only the Pres­i­dent can say bad words.”

The fol­low­ing years brought more mem­o­rable lines: Clara looked thought­fully at a piece of broc­coli and remarked, “If you painted this pink it would look like your taste buds.”

The day Billy learned how to ride a bike he con­fided to me, as I tucked him into bed that night, “I was scared and I had tears in my eyes but I didn’t let them fall over the edge.”

That book of early quotes is still an adored arti­fact in our home. It has been read and re-read dozens of times, mostly by the twins themselves.

When I went back to work full­time and reg­u­larly spent hours trav­el­ing across coun­try, I would use the air­plane time to pen a story; fax­ing it home to my hus­band so he could read it to the kids before they went to sleep. Those early bed­time sto­ries always included twins who saved the world. Look­ing back, I’m not sure if I did the writ­ing more for them or for me. The travel was tough on all of us and con­nect­ing with the kids through words made me feel like a bet­ter mother, or at least one who wasn’t quite as absent.

A decade later, on a whim, I entered a short story con­test spon­sored by the Marin Inde­pen­dent Jour­nal. It was to fin­ish a half-started “Christ­mas story” in 500 words or less. On Christ­mas morn­ing my most sur­pris­ing gift was see­ing my name next to “First Place” on the cover of the Lifestyles sec­tion along with my story and two lovely four-color illus­tra­tions. My tears did fall over the edge when I real­ized I just might be a writer.

The next year I entered the con­test again and won with a story enti­tled “Sur­ro­gate Santa.” With a lit­tle more con­fi­dence, I responded when the sports edi­tor of the IJ asked read­ers to write his col­umn while he was on vaca­tion. My entry was pub­lished in his sec­tion, and the sports edi­tor asked me to write a sec­ond one. Dur­ing that same period, a women’s pro­fes­sional orga­ni­za­tion on whose Advi­sory Board I served, asked me to write for their glossy-four color mag­a­zine. That turned into a recur­ring vol­un­teer ‘job’ com­pos­ing  quar­terly arti­cles about busi­ness top­ics like meet­ing facil­i­ta­tion, how to become invalu­able at work, and the best ways to look for a job in a tough economy.

A sur­prise call from a dear high school friend, now an Emmy-award win­ning screen­writer in Hol­ly­wood, prompted me to join him in enter­ing a play­writ­ing con­test. I wrote a one act play based on the Pilates class I was tak­ing in Mill Val­ley with eight hilar­i­ously wacky women. It was the kind of class that was equal parts psy­cho­log­i­cal ther­apy, phys­i­cal exer­cise and com­edy. My play—and my friend’s too—was selected to be pro­duced. There are few things bet­ter than hear­ing peo­ple laugh, sigh, and react emo­tion­ally to your words while sit­ting with them in the dark. I was a playwright.

Shortly after the pre­miere, a friend of a friend who occa­sion­ally showed up for Pilates class, approached me about team­ing up to write a novel. Sue had seen my sto­ries in the IJ and had a plot in mind. My first thought was to say ‘no’ but Sue was so per­sis­tent, funny and inter­est­ing, I said ‘yes.’

It took almost three years to complete—there were lots of starts and stops due to job changes, kids being sick and injured, Boy Scout cam­pouts, band con­certs, SAT tests, dri­ving lessons, birth­day par­ties, deaths in the fam­ily, and the gen­eral chaos that is mar­ried life with kids. More sur­pris­ing yet, it’s sell­ing well on Ama­zon (Kin­dle), Nook, iBooks, and in paperback.

Meant To Be is a story about a fam­ily. It’s funny, sad, truth­ful, a bit steamy, and, ulti­mately, shows how resilient peo­ple can be. Sue and I would love to know how mem­bers of the South­ern Marin Moth­ers’ Club like it. Check out the web­site at www.meant-to-be.net or share your thoughts with us via Twitter:@meantotobebook or by email at meanttobebook@gmail.com.

This arti­cle was pub­lished in the Sep­tem­ber Issue of the South­ern Marin Moth­ers’ Club.

Ah, vaca­tion …what do most of us have in com­mon? An activ­ity we long to do on our vaca­tion? I’m not talk­ing about sight­see­ing, “pig­ging out”, or drink­ing too much. Every­one I sur­veyed (ok, all 9 of us on my vaca­tion) said that they can’t wait to read that spe­cial some­thing that they saved to “enjoy” on vaca­tion. Time off con­jures up ideas of which mag­a­zines and books to grab and shove into the back­pack that my hus­band insists on lim­it­ing me to.

When you travel to get to your vaca­tion loca­tion, a book passes the time, dis­tracts you from per­haps your not-so-ideal sur­round­ings (man, those air­plane seats are tight), and keeps you com­pany until you get to your des­ti­na­tion. Hours in a car, plane, or train? A book is a great way to pass the ime. A book is some­thing famil­iar that you brought from home or a pur­chase to remind you of the place you were visiting.

Stay­ca­tions are becom­ing even more pop­u­lar, as more peo­ple stay at home doing fun things around town. How about lay­ing in a ham­mock in the back­yard sip­ping on some iced tea with past issues of your favorite mag­a­zine? A trip to the library or book­store to grab some books that you have been mean­ing to read? An after­noon slum­ming on the couch with your favorite read­ing mate­r­ial piled high is excit­ing, cost effec­tive and sounds to me like heaven!

After a day of sight see­ing, hik­ing, or fam­ily gath­er­ings I long to hop into bed and read a local paper to see what is going on in the town I’m vis­it­ing. It’s a great escape from the sights and sounds of a new loca­tion and a fab­u­lous way to unwind. Isn’t that what vaca­tion is all about, relax­ing from the daily grind? Gather your favorite book, and even if it’s just the after­noon take a vaca­tion with your spe­cial text and escape!

What do you like to do on vacation?

Join in the fun of get­ting and giv­ing input, shar­ing feel­ings, and ask­ing ques­tion dur­ing the July 29^th “Twook”…also known as a Twit­ter Book Club ses­sion. Sue and I will be tweet­ing with read­ers of Meant to Be at 9 AM (Pacific) and noon (Pacific).  Did you loathe or love Tammi? Did you see some of your­self in Judith?  Did you adore or abhor Rod? Tell us and others!

Nora Ephron once deliv­ered a clas­sic line to her then-new hus­band, Pulitzer Prize win­ner, and noto­ri­ous wom­an­izer, Carl Bern­stein: “Our life together is material.”

That’s the way Sue and I feel when peo­ple ask, “Is the book autobiographical?”

Despite being very dif­fer­ent from one another, both our lives are full of work­ing crazy hours, rais­ing amaz­ing kids, being in rela­tion­ships, mak­ing mis­takes, hav­ing fab­u­lous jobs, doing too lit­tle of one thing or too much of another; it’s all mate­r­ial for infus­ing the char­ac­ters with the traits and flaws that make them human. We pulled from our indi­vid­ual and shared expe­ri­ences to cre­ate peo­ple and plot.

It’s the high­est com­pli­ment when read­ers tell us they relate to Judith; or how peo­ple in the book remind them of peo­ple they really know. Actu­ally, some of the char­ac­ters are based very closely on real indi­vid­u­als and some are more like Mr. Potato-head; real parts but all rearranged.

As they say in the news busi­ness: Why let the truth get in the way of a good story?

Tell us if there is a char­ac­ter in Meant To Be you rec­og­nize or feel you have met before!

I mean, really, what’s not to like?  Granted, there are less tedious descrip­tions of engine rooms than a Tom Clancy novel and fewer bloody bod­ies for Dirk Pitt to stum­ble over as he often does in Clive Cussler’s books, but a good story with inter­est­ing char­ac­ters and some steamy sex suits many people’s sum­mer read­ing appetite regard­less of gender.

Here’s what one “real man” (a broad­cast jour­nal­ist in the Bay Area) recently said about Meant To Be:

“I read it, EXPERIENCED “Meant To Be,” sweated every epiphany, every steamy moment with Judith’s char­ac­ter, as she twisted-and-yearned, look­ing for lov(ers) in all the wrong places — wow, my fin­gers burned as I turned the pages, the book was that HOT!  I wanna see the movie … now!  This is like ‘Eat, Pray, Love’ … on drugs!“
–Christo­pher S., San Fran­cisco CA

So, let’s just say that Meant To Be pleases a vari­ety of palates, car­ni­vores as well as veg­ans. Men and women. Mar­ried and sin­gle.  Over-21 and vintage.

Get your man to read Meant To Be and see what he thinks!  Would love to have you post a com­ment about it!!

By Judith McCoy

Every­thing sounds bet­ter with song, right? The adorable fel­lows at wesingy­ourtweets hon­ored Meant To Be by per­form­ing a tweet from the other week. You can lis­ten to it here. Bet­ter yet: down­load the book and read what all the singing is all about!

Be like Lori Howard: “Just fin­ished Meant to Be. LOVED it!!! Couldn’t put it down!” (From Meant To Be site)

How can the old fash­ioned Book Club become more mod­ern? Add a dash of Social Media! That’s what one online com­mu­nity is doing with Meant To Be. It has cre­ated a Twit­ter Book Club and the very first “assigned read­ing” is Meant To Be. The group will read the novel and tweet reac­tions and insights. It’s open for any­one to join and just started today. Don’t have the time to go to meet­ings and eat squishy fin­ger food?  Then this is the club for you. Join in the fun and digest some hot sum­mer reading.

Wahoo!!! Meant To Be is done! This is so excit­ing turn­ing on the Kin­dle and see­ing our book cover Meant To Be appear right before my very eyes. It’s even more trippy think­ing that so many other peo­ple will be read­ing it too! This three year jour­ney with Bev­erly has been a life learn­ing les­son of “there are Chick Lit books on the shelves at Barnes and Noble, how about if we write one?!” I have no for­mal writ­ing train­ing, or book expe­ri­ence, (that’s me Sue), just an intense desire to tell a story that could be a book…or a movie?! With a vodka/tonic in hand (Bev­erly is a wine drinker), we have writ­ten, self pub­lished and are now sell­ing our first Chick Lit book, Meant To Be. What chutzpah!

We like to “fig­ure things out”. With the tenac­ity of pit bulls, we fig­ure things out. I’m writ­ing this 1^st post, to tell oth­ers that if you have a desire to write (or read), it’s later than you think and you need to  “fig­ure it out”.

Here’s my tough love speech. It’s really fun to let your imag­i­na­tion go wild! You don’t have the time you say? Sleep less. Eat faster. Write poolside/in the bleach­ers while lit­tle Mike or Sally have 30 sec­onds of play­time in a sev­eral hour game. Bring your e-reader and read. Bring a note­book and write. (Note: Clap at appro­pri­ate moments). My favorite sug­ges­tion might be to put the clocks ahead a half an hour and put the kids to bed early and sit down and read or write! Here’s the big one, KILL THE T.V.! You will be amazed at what you can get done.  I’d love to hear where or when your favorite place is to read or write!