Write on Mamas Co-founder Janine Kovac reads her essay, “The Next Prompt,” at Mamas Write Book Launch, Diesel Bookstore

It happens to be V-Day for the A to Z Blog Challenge, which I did not officially participate in except for carrying the letter E for a tiny stretch of the blogging relay on behalf of my writing group, the Write On Mamas. Unofficially, I cheated, and wrote a single blog post with just a lazy line or two for each letter of the alphabet to help kick-off our new anthology, Mamas Write: 29 tales of Truth, Wit, and Grit. WOM co-founder Janine’s initial entry for the official blog was “A is for Anthology.” You can read what she had to say then here, and what another WOM co-founder, Claire Hennessey, has to say today, in “V is for Victory.” (You can also read all the other letters in between on WOM’s blog.)

Victory because we had our first Book Launch event last night at Diesel Bookstore in Oakland, and it was a blast! The place was crammed with people who laughed and cried through the excerpts we read. The overflow crowd gobbled up the books almost as fast as the chocolate-zucchini bread from Bittersweet Cafe, the same treat that over the last few months had fueled the creative juices of our editing team, Janine, Mary, and Joanne. (Chocolate Muse, anyone?)

Just as all our children were once gleams in our eyes, so the anthology was once a gleam in Janine’s eye. Two years ago, when she threw out the idea of the Write On Mamas’ publishing an anthology, I thought, “Yeah, right, this will never happen.” The initial working title was “Writing Our Motherhood, Mothering Our Writing,” which none of us really understood. But wanting to be a team player and also to fake my way into productivity, I signed on, submitting a somewhat shitty essay before moving on to other projects. Why invest in something that was going nowhere?

The great thing about the Write On Mamas, besides the wonderfully talented, competent, and supportive mothers (and one dad) who constitute it, is that nobody else thinks that way. Or possibly everybody does when staring at the blank screen or page in isolation. But the alchemy of the collective transforms inertia and demoralization into something altogether different. It’s easier to be there for others than it is for yourself, and MUCH easier to be there for others when others are there for you. As the saying goes, many hands make light work (even though a small WOM core did the bulk of the heavy lifting). The Goddesses of WOM would not accept why bother, would not accept shitty. They kept at it, coaxing, inspiring, never guilt-tripping anyone through two years of submissions, rewrites, fundraising, professional editing, PR campaigns. And they did all this while also coaxing, inspiring, and never guilt-tripping their own children!

It really does take a village, particularly one blessed with kick-ass village leaders. I am so grateful to be a part of the WOM village.

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Check out WOM’s website for more book launch events and a whole lot more. Maybe you even want to join our village. And if you can’t find Mamas Write at your friendly neighborhood bookstore, you can always do the Amazon thing. Thanks!

• A is for Avoidance, which is the most time-consuming aspect of writing. It also leads to . . .
• B is for Binge Eating, which is one of the worst ways to avoid writing.
• C is for Children, as in, “Please go away so I can write about how much I love you.”
• D is for Deadline, without which I would never get anything written. Or done.
• E is for Everything, as in “Everything is copy.” (Thanks, Nora Ephron’s mom!)
• F is for Friends, who will (a) buy your book; and (b) stop being your friends after discovering that you’ve used random bits of things they’ve done or said in your writing.
• G is for Grammar Girl, a handy online resource, particularly if, like me, you were too young to protest the Vietnam War so instead boycotted Miss Dubinsky’s attempts to brainwash 8th graders into parsing sentences.
• H is for Huffington Post, a to-die-for publication venue whose compensation plan may lead to actual death should you depend on HP income for your livelihood.
• I is for Internet, which you should turn off if you hope to get any writing done.
• J is for Journaling and wondering whether or not you should arrange for your journals’ burning or publication upon death.
• K is for “Kill Your Darlings,” the process of eliminating your precious verbiage to which you are erroneously attached. (Not to be confused with actual acts of sometimes-tempting violence that could land you in prison.)
• L is for “Like Me” on Facebook. Or as my friend Julie said when asking everyone to go online to endorse her son’s entry in some competition, “Thank you for ‘Liking’ Michael’s project. And if you don’t like it, thank you for lying.” Oh, and by the way, please “Like” the Write On Mamas at https://www.facebook.com/WriteOnMamas.
• M is for Modesty, which you must overcome enough to do the social media thing, but not overcome so much that everyone hates you.
• N is for Nattering Nabobs of Negativity, by which Vice President Spiro Agnew meant the anti-war press. But all writers know the real meaning of NNN: those damn voices that live in our heads.
• O is for O Magazine, an in-my-dreams submission venue.
• P is for Procrastination. Try to make it productive procrastination so you at least have a clean house.
• Q is for Query Letter, as in, “Dear Editor, If I put in ungodly amounts of time and energy for this fabulous idea, will you pay me in actual cash rather than in the opportunity to build my platform?”
• R is for Rewriting. You can’t do enough of this, unless we are talking about your first and only sentence, or if you suffer from severe OCD.
• S is for Social Media. About which I still know too little.
• T is for Twitter. About which I still know nothing.

• U is for “Under-commit, over-achieve,” my favorite bit of writing (and life!) advice from writer and teacher Leslie Keenan. Another favorite is from Joyce Maynard: “Pretend every word you use costs $5.”

• V is for Village, as in “It takes a Village”—to which the creators of our anthology, Mamas Write, can attest!

• W is for Walking, a crucial step in writing! Clears the cobwebs, gets the juices flowing, coordinates left and right brain hemispheres, and helps the puzzle pieces fall into place—or at least ameliorates the effects of B.

• X is for XXXing out, which “Track Changes” will magically do for you. (Caution: “Track Changes” may also make you want to shoot yourself.)

• Y is for Youth, which is wasted on the young but might eventually make its way into your memoir if you were far-sighted enough to keep a journal.
• Z is for Zyzzyva, a literary magazine. When you google it, as I just did, you will also discover that Zyzzyva is a genus of tropical American weevil and the last word in many English-language dictionaries. Hence Zyzzyva’s tagline: “The Last Word.”

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What’s your last word (and first 25) for your alphabet soup of writing?