{ How to Be Smart About Maternity Leave }.
Maternity leave can be a tricky business. You are over the moon with joy, and you want the time with your newborn to be as glorious-and as unintruded upon-as possible. But you also don"t want your absence to have a negative impact on your job and your career. You can"t afford to fall behind, for instance, or lose clout or create too many problems for the people picking up the slack while you"re gone. In many instances, a company must hold your job for you until you return, but still, some women have come back from a maternity leave to find that the ground has shifted in subtle ways, that their standing isn"t what it was before. That means you have to play things wisely.
How you should handle your leave depends a whole lot on your position and your work environment. How much can be delegated in your absence? How much do you still need to be in the mix? Is your team supportive? Are there any jackals in the midst who might start circling the minute you"re gone?
Your strategy will also need to factor in the type of boss you have. It"s important to realize that your pregnancy will most likely be viewed by your boss-despite the smile plastered on her face-as a pain in the a.s.s. She is going to worry about how much your department or area will suffer during your departure, how much extra work it means for her personally, and whether you"ll even come back after your maternity leave. Bosses can get weird about the whole thing. Some get weirder than others.
My two maternity leaves-and how I handled them-couldn"t have been more different. When I had my first child, I was the number two at a magazine, not running the show; the number two in my own department filled in for me. She was extremely competent and totally up to the task, and I ended up having practically no contact with the office during that three-month period. When I had my second child, I was running Working Woman and barely had a leave. I worked from home for six weeks, spending plenty of time on the phone every day and having packages of articles and layouts messengered to my apartment, sometimes more than one delivery a day. I spent the next six weeks working half days at the office. I didn"t love it, but I felt I had no choice.
In hindsight I realized I"d made mistakes with each. But I learned something from those mistakes. I"ve also gained wisdom from watching colleagues and subordinates handle their own leaves-successfully or not.
My first piece of advice: before you even tell your boss your news, determine in your own mind how things should be handled in your absence. If you have a plan in place, one that you can quickly bring up after you"ve broken the news, it will diminish that internal "Oh, no" response that your boss is bound to have as you speak.
When should you tell your boss? Before you begin to show! Though all women are different, you generally start to show around the twelve-week mark. Your coworkers are on the lookout for baby b.u.mps in the workplace almost as much as the paparazzi are at celebrity events, and trust me, someone will spot the change in your waistline if you wait too long. That will lead to gossip, and if your boss learns the news via the office grapevine rather than from you directly, she will feel totally blindsided. And don"t tell anyone else at work before you tell your boss. As I learned the hard way, you can"t count on people to keep the secret.
If you do need to wait until after you"re showing to tell your boss, there are ways to disguise your b.u.mp. The celebrity stylist Samantha McMillen says you should buy tops one size up so they won"t be tight on the b.u.mp but then make sure your pants are fitted or wear leggings. "Loose on top of loose just makes you look big all over," she says. She thinks that in general dresses are best-especially ones with a tie at the waist to camouflage the protrusion. Also, a "fun big necklace or scarf draws the eyes up."
When you feel the moment is right, grab private time with your boss-not when she"s super busy-and tell her the news. Express your happiness with the situation but quickly emphasize how committed you are to your job and that you have a solid plan for how things will run in your absence.
Many women choose to wait to break the news until they hear the results of the amniocentesis. The procedure can"t be done until you"re fifteen weeks pregnant, and then you must wait two weeks for results, which means you won"t be announcing your condition until you are more than four months pregnant. When you tell your boss you"re pregnant, you may want to explain that you didn"t want to break the news until you were sure everything was okay with the baby.
Whenever you announce, provide key details about your pregnancy: the due date, as well as anything else that"s critical. Women sometimes fail to offer important info (or else leak it out in dribs and drabs), partly, I think because they"re nervous about how a boss will respond. Sometimes, too, they a.s.sume that a boss should know the ins and outs of pregnancy when he or she simply does not. If you fail to divulge information in a timely way, it will make your boss feel even more hyper about the whole thing.
At one magazine, a key editor of mine who was expecting twins mentioned in pa.s.sing that her last day in the office was just a few weeks away. "Wait, what do you mean?" I asked, totally baffled and panic-stricken. As far as I knew, she wasn"t due for three more months. She went on to explain that with twins, women often have to go on bed rest as early as five months. But I"d had no idea. Suddenly I was scrambling.
Once you go on leave, it"s important to try to maintain regular contact with your workplace, especially, of course, if you are in a major position. I think I made a stupid mistake by going cold turkey with my first leave. My boss, I could tell, was uncomfortable with my pregnancy and even made remarks such as "Oh, you"ll be so bored at home you may want to come back in a month." I decided to disabuse her of this idea by having as little contact with the office as possible. But it would have been better for me to touch base with her and my department during my leave. I could have kept it to brief calls, and that would have rea.s.sured her.
But don"t get sucked into more contact than you should have. Set guidelines about the type of e-mails and calls you want to receive so you don"t have too many and they occur at times that are best for you. And if you pick up a hint that a nasty coworker is trying to poach your territory, remember what I said in part II about nipping bad behavior in the bud. Call the person on it. Say something such as "I hear you"ve been asking a lot of questions about the Stanton business. You may not be aware of it, but I"m overseeing that business on my leave. If you have any questions, please e-mail me." The very fact that you"ve gotten wind of that person"s actions all the way from Babyville should give him or her pause.
Don"t be a martyr and do more work than necessary. Yes, people will have a bigger load in your absence, but there"s nothing wrong with having a baby and you shouldn"t be penalized. When I took the job as editor of Working Woman, the owner knew I was pregnant and told me that there was a "big enough orchestra to handle things" when I was gone. Since he"d rea.s.sured me, I should have asked for backup freelance help to make my leave more manageable.
Speaking of asking, don"t hesitate to try to do some negotiating for what"s best for you. Do you want four months off instead of three? If you think your workplace can handle it, go for it. Also, let me tell you a little secret. Though many companies have policies guaranteeing to cover your salary for only six weeks, some bosses manage to cut under-the-table deals for female staffers. If you have a good boss, there"s nothing wrong with hinting a little. ("Is that the best that can be done, do you think?") The best time to negotiate is early on, when your boss is worrying that you might not come back, not two weeks before you burst.
What if you decide during the leave that you prefer to be a stay-at-home mom for a while? That will make your boss p.i.s.sed as h.e.l.l because, in some cases, he will a.s.sume that you knew and didn"t say anything because you needed the health insurance coverage and workman"s comp. But it can be hard to know for sure what you want until you"re in the thick of it.
If you find you can"t bear to leave your baby, arrange to go in and talk to your boss as soon as you"ve made your decision, and don"t beat around the bush. An executive editor once called me a week before she was coming back from her maternity leave and asked if I"d ever consider making the (hugely demanding) job part-time. Huh? I wished she"d raised the issue much earlier. So cut to the chase. Explain how much you appreciate everything your boss did, but you didn"t know until it was time to return that it wasn"t going to work for you.
And you know what? I"d send a gift with a nice note thanking your boss for being understanding. That way you"ve done your best not to burn any bridges.
{ My Kids Aren"t Serial Killers-Yet }.
I"m not going to lie: If you decide to combine motherhood with a successful career, there will be times when you are more bone tired and stressed than you have ever been in your life and there may even be moments when you wonder if you should toss in the towel and just take care of your kids. Or scale back. Trust me, I"ve been there. But due to the fact that my husband worked in a precarious business-TV news-I decided I couldn"t even consider an option such as becoming a freelance writer. I will be eternally grateful for the fact that I stayed on my career track, because it would have been tough to maneuver my way back on. Plus, now that my kids are young adults, I see how much they benefited from the fact that I worked.
We"ve gone through various stages as a culture in terms of how we view working mothers. In the 1970s and "80s, the media often glamorized the concept; magazines did cover stories with t.i.tles such as "Having It All." Then the media became fascinated with the supposed underbelly of the concept. Working mothers were pictured looking harried and wailing things such as "My baby likes our nanny more than me!"
Things have finally settled down a bit. So many mothers have no choice but to work these days and research has shown that children of working moms not only do okay they thrive. We"re more realistic, however, about the challenges and sacrifices. Most new mothers who plan to continue working have enough advance info to know that life with both kids and a job can be nutty at times.
One of our favorite family stories involves my son and the dentist. When he was about twelve, he started going to his cleanings alone and I was always delighted to learn from him that he had no cavities. When he was about eighteen, we discovered that he had never actually gone for all those cleanings (my husband and I had been too busy to notice that the charge had always been for a no-show). I nearly blew a gasket. I told Hunter he had to go in for a cleaning-I think I might have also threatened to not pay for his college education-and quickly made an appointment for him. When he returned home that night and recounted the experience, he made my husband and me howl with laughter. He explained how a wide-eyed dental a.s.sistant had guided him into a child-size examining chair, placed a small bib around him, and then asked if he wanted blueberry- or strawberry-flavored mouthwash. Without thinking, I had booked him with the same pediatric dentist he"d used as a child.
Laughing that hard helped me forgive myself for not being totally on top of his dental care. You will make mistakes. You will feel guilty. But you will get over it. Here are some strategies, most of which I learned from other working moms.
On the Job If you want the work-family equation to make sense, you need to love your job. According to former Working Mother editor in chief Judsen Culbreth, study after study shows that the working mothers who are happiest are the ones who feel pa.s.sionate about what they do.
You must also work (1) for a boss who doesn"t bust your chops about your need to balance and (2) in an overall work environment where the idea of bearing and taking care of offspring isn"t viewed as weird or annoying. A professional friend of mine told me recently that when she was employed by a very forward-thinking nonprofit company (you would recognize the name!), some of the moms who worked there in high-powered jobs always left their coats on another floor so that when they departed for the day, it wouldn"t be obvious. It can be draining to have to function that way or to work for a boss who doesn"t respect your situation. My advice, if that"s your situation, is to do what you can to find a more hospitable, mommy-friendly environment that lets you flourish professionally.
A week after I returned from my first maternity leave, my boss called me into her office and told me she didn"t want me leaving at five every day. Her att.i.tude really worried me-she hadn"t even allowed me a week of adjustment-so I found a new job three months later. My new boss, a father of two, had no concern about when I left as long as my job was done right.
But sometimes even the most seemingly sympathetic bosses have only so much sympathy to spare. People you work for (or with) may secretly a.s.sume that you have less to give because you are doing the balancing act. You know that isn"t true, but avoid behavior that might inadvertently reinforce that view. Keep kid talk, kid pictures, and kid videos to a minimum at work. And I"m a firm believer in using statements such as "I have a doctor"s appointment" or "I need to leave at four thirty today," rather than "I have to run my daughter to the pediatrician." Be vague. Also, I forgive you here and now for any white lies you tell in the name of motherhood, okay?
Though you don"t have less to give in terms of talent and effort, you probably will have less to give in terms of time. If you have a baby or young child, you are going to want to arrive home at a reasonable hour most evenings. The one thing I will tell you with absolute surety is that no one will ever announce to you in a meeting, "Oh, my gosh, it"s five thirty. Don"t you have to get out of here?" So you have to take a deep breath and dare to set your own schedule. Yes, be cognizant of your boss but also of your own needs. Remind yourself that some of the people who clock long hours are there not because they have work to do but simply because everyone else is. Try to figure out the plan that will suit you best, and don"t feel bullied by offhanded comments or looks from coworkers.
How can you get your job done brilliantly and still manage to leave at a reasonable hour? Letena Lindsay, the head of L2 Public Relations, a mother of young twin boys, and one of the most fabulously pulled-together women I"ve ever worked with, says she learned her main survival strategy from a baby nurse who helped her for a few weeks after the boys were born. "My life was suddenly split into all these different facets," she says, "and I wondered how I could handle everything. The baby nurse told me, "You have to work smart and not hard." That just stayed with me from the moment I heard it."
So many working moms have told me that they became far more efficient when they had kids-and turned ruthless about their time. Take a look at what"s on your plate, and figure out what can be eliminated, delegated, or shortened time-wise. Lindsay says that in the PR world, clients are often given regular reports that list every voice mail message left on their behalf. That was something she unloaded. "I tell a new client that I appreciate the fact that other agencies do these kind of reports, but I don"t think it"s a good use of my time. I"d rather spend time focusing on getting coverage."
And do work late sometimes. A colleague of mine told me that the best advice she acquired about going back to work after her child was born was not to become caught up in a rigid new schedule. "I worked a bit late one night a week," she said. "And not always the same night. So there was never this sense of "Oh, she"s always out the door by six." "
Of course, if you work for a business where it"s essential to put in maximum hours (i.e., a law firm), you have some deciding to do. Will you be okay with seeing your child a minimum amount of time on weekdays? Could you arrange to do your job part-time?
When you first return to work after maternity leave, your brain may feel a little fuzzy, but that will clear up soon enough. Try not to coast. Look fully engaged, even if you have to kind of fake it. Review the tips in "Beware of Sudden Promotion Syndrome."
When your kids are small, you also have to be realistic. Before you go after a new job or a promotion, consider what support systems you have. Ask yourself whether the timing is really right for you. When I became editor in chief of Working Woman magazine, I was seven months pregnant with my second child. During the interview with the company CEO, a little voice in my head had whispered that I might be taking on more than I should, especially considering that my husband worked nights as a TV newscaster. A month after I started, I came down with pneumonia and pleurisy, in part, I think, from exhaustion. In hindsight, I wish I hadn"t taken that job. I was still young, and other opportunities would have emerged if I"d stayed put for a while.
In other words, don"t bite off more than you can chew.
What about the notion of dropping out temporarily when your kids are small? Certainly many moms toy with this idea, if only briefly. It depends on your needs, your child"s needs, how many kids you have, and the kind of business you"re in. If you"re considering it, but wish you didn"t have to go there, ask yourself if there"s an alternative to dropping out altogether? Part of the reason Letena Lindsay started her own agency was to create a job that would allow her more time with her kids than a corporate job would.
And here"s an interesting insight I heard from Marisa Thalberg, the founder of ExecutiveMoms.com: "Sometimes women tell me that they don"t think it"s worth it for them to continue working because they barely break even once they pay the sitter and their commuting costs. But if you love your job and you"re still even a little bit ahead financially, I believe it"s worth it. Because when you try to return to the workforce years later, you may not regain the ground you lost."
On the Home Front One of the smartest things I did as a working mom was to be a sponge around other moms and learn everything I could from them. With the exception of the names of Sat.u.r.day-night babysitters, they will share all sorts of good info with you and also the strategies that have worked for them. Even consider doing a weekly or biweekly coffee session with other moms where you just swap ideas.
A great piece of advice I heard from a mother pal of mine involved how late to keep up my new baby. I hated the fact that I had so little time with him in the evenings. "Babies don"t have to go to bed at seven or eight o"clock, you know," she said. "You choose the bedtime." So I did. Until my kids were in school, I kept them up to nine thirty most nights and they took the longest naps in recorded history.
It goes without saying that a good partner can play a vital role in how you pull it all off. Sometimes guys don"t do as much as we need them to because we don"t ask the right way (see "Men, Love, and Success") or we inadvertently box them out. When I was the editor of Child, I learned about a phenomenon women engage in called "gatekeeping." We"re so overwhelmed with baby love and wanting everything done just right for our newborn that we don"t let our partner in or we constantly critique the way he does things. Then, when we"re finally ready to ask for his help, the damage has been done. Let him in. Then bite your lip if you don"t like how he does things. I remember the first time I went out to run errands on a Sat.u.r.day afternoon and left my husband with our baby, who was about six months old at the time. "Do not," I told my husband, "let him fall asleep-or he won"t take his regular nap later." When I returned later, I found the baby sitting up in his high chair, wide-eyed and happy. But his face was crusted with hardened cereal. My husband explained that while Hunter was finishing his cereal, he"d started to nod off, so my husband had playfully let the hair dryer blow on him. I clamped my lips together as hard as I could.
One of the most hectic times you have to deal with as a working mom is when you first walk in the door or pick up your child from day care. Your child is clamoring for your attention or for you to just be with him. You want to give that attention, but you probably feel you"d be better able to if you could quickly brush your teeth, leaf through the mail, and throw something into the microwave. But kids don"t get the concept. "At moments like this, I think it pays to be a "just-in-time" mother," says former Working Mother editor in chief Judsen Culbreth. "Put your agenda temporarily aside. Be mindful and in the moment with your child. Those ten minutes on the swing set now can save you hours of whining repair later."
Two other things that help during busy workweeks: systems and rituals.
By systems I mean certain procedures or routines that solve problems. Years ago a friend of mine worked as a nanny for two Oxford dons who were rarely home in the evenings. The kids-a young boy and a girl-had a big lunch each day and then teatime treats, so for supper my friend was instructed to take a wide selection of leftovers from the fridge and put them on the table for the kids to pick from. That meant a lot of taking out and putting back, so my friend told the kids that from now on, three things would be "featured" for supper each night. One night the mother happened to dash through the kitchen and noticed the pared-down fare on the table. "My goodness!" she exclaimed. "I"m sure we have leftover ham. And deviled eggs, as well." "But, Mummy," the little boy told her, "they"re not being featured tonight."
I love that story because it highlights how much kids not only adapt to systems but also find them rea.s.suring (as long as they"re not horribly rigid). Systems can be everything from "Stories are read after teeth are brushed" to "Mittens always go in the wicker box by the door."
Rituals are kind of like systems, but they"re far more fun. Around the time I had my first child, I read a profile of a woman who had been one of the first female powerhouses on Wall Street. The reporter had interviewed her adult children, who said that despite their mother"s demanding job, they"d been very happy growing up. They had always had dinner together as a family, and weekends had been sacred. That made me think about my own working parents and how much regular rituals had played a wonderful part in our life.
Kim Kardashian told me that when she was little, her family followed a nightly ritual called "peak and pit." At dinnertime, they"d go around the table with each person describing the peak moment of his or her day and then the one moment at which the person felt in the pits. I wish I"d known that one years ago. Rituals are an absolutely delicious part of family life.
Speaking of parents, there"s one other thing my mom did that totally influenced me. She was the school librarian, and she sometimes had me come in and decorate the display windows of the library. I loved doing that so much. So from the time my kids were small, I tried to engage them in my work. For instance, I had them make lists of what celebrities should be on the cover of whatever magazine I was editing. I showed them cover shots and had them pick their favorite ones.
And here"s the funny thing: not only did they like doing these tasks but their judgment was also really good, because as kids, they relied totally on their gut instincts!
One last point. Despite how helpful other mommies often are, you"re bound to come across a few who aren"t. Sometimes, for instance, they can be horribly braggy not only about their kids but also about the perfect life they have set up. Unsolicited comments that begin with the words "We always . . ." or "In our house . . ." should be ignored.
They can also be judgmental, particularly if you work and they don"t. A terrific Hollywood agent I know told me that the parents" group at her child"s private school recently gave out awards and the one she received was for "World"s Fastest Drop-off." Pretty d.a.m.n b.i.t.c.hy, right? But remember, you can"t worry about being liked on this front either.
{ Discover Rotisserie Chicken and Other Ways to Keep Life Simple }.
When I decided to introduce a food column in Cosmo, Katie Lee, the author of the terrific cookbook The Comfort Table, seemed to me to be the perfect person to do it, and she agreed. Instantly it became clear that she was a dream to work with, and I loved the recipes she created. They were always delicious but also incredibly easy.
As I got to know Katie, I would sometimes ask her advice about food to serve my family. I know that fast food-pizzas, Subway sandwiches, Chinese food, whatever-can be a real lifesaver for a working mom, but I was never a huge fan of takeout. Sitting down to a good meal was one of the few rituals I could squeeze into my life, and I thought, as long as I"m doing it, I want to do it well. The only problem: I sometimes made myself a little nuts pulling it all together.
One of the best tips Katie Lee gave me was to make rotisserie chicken a part of my repertoire. Have you ever had one of those things? They"re the chickens you see roasting on spits in furnace-size ovens behind the deli counter of most supermarkets. (Try to get beyond the fact that the chickens appear to be in a medieval torture chamber or the ninth circle of h.e.l.l.) Once I tried one, I realized that they were flavorful and moist and all you have to do is add a green salad and a baguette to make a simple but hearty weeknight meal. If you want fancier fare, you can roast carrots, potatoes, and onions in a pan in the oven with a little olive oil, salt, and pepper and scatter the roasted veggies around the chicken on a platter.
I started having rotisserie chicken regularly. It made dinner soooo easy. The chickens also forced me to think about the whole notion of simplicity and how I probably needed more of it in my cooking and home life. I realized that in my quest to serve good food and make entertaining friends and family a priority, I probably guaranteed that things were more complicated than they had to be. When I had friends for dinner, I"d always find myself adding another dish late in the game or coming up with something extra to do.
One night in particular jumps out in my memory. I was having friends over for an August barbecue, and I"d planned to serve grilled chicken with corn on the cob and a plate of tomatoes from the farmers" market. But that afternoon I started thinking I needed more. I"d seen a recipe in the New York Times for a salad made of tomatoes and peaches, so I decided to go for it. I spent at least a half hour peeling peaches, and when I served them with the tomatoes it was a big soupy mess. The tomatoes alone, with some great olive oil and basil leaves scattered on top, would have been so much better.
Around the time Katie introduced me to the pluses of rotisserie chicken, I took a trip to Greece with my family. One of my favorite experiences on the trip was eating in the wonderful tavernas that were everywhere. We"d sit outside at a wooden table under trees that created patterns of dappled light. The food was simple but wonderful: grilled meat or fish, good bread, and of course Greek salad made with cuc.u.mbers, tomatoes, onions, and feta cheese. No complicated sauces or layers.
On the flight back I decided I needed to bring taverna style into my cooking. Rotisserie chicken was one way, but there were others if I kept reminding myself to simplify, to get rid of the peaches layer. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that the taverna approach could be applied to life in general. Say no to "complicated sauces" and extra steps. Ask yourself, "Do I really need it?" "Will anyone notice if I don"t do it?"
I really liked this line from one of the blogs of Executive Moms founder Marisa Thalberg (she"s also a beauty industry executive): "Relished stolen coffees and many fabulous dinners with fabulous friends. . . .Cooked at almost none of them."
Maybe she and her friends just picked up a few rotisserie chickens!
{ Take Your Own Sweet Time }.
When you"re in a demanding career, one of the things you are often in search of is time for yourself. You crave the opportunity to disconnect and relax, and if that time includes a spa treatment involving hot stones and scented oil, all the better. This is especially true when you have young kids. Your hours after work and on weekends are pretty much devoted to them, which means there"s rarely even a spare moment just for you.
When my kids were young, I felt frayed around the edges from having so little time to myself. I used to fantasize about having a day to do my own thing or even going away for a whole weekend with my husband-but I knew it was impossible. My sitter didn"t work weekends, and there were no relatives close by to stay with the kids. Plus because I worked, I believed that weekends needed to remain sacred days just for my kids.
It was only later that I came to see that though big blocks of time to yourself are incredibly satisfying, you don"t need that to feel rejuvenated. Small pockets of time here and there can do wonders if you use them correctly. A writer friend of mine pointed this out to me, and as I began to experiment, I saw how right she was. I"d put too much stock into the concept of a whole day or weekend for myself and had failed to see the value in an hour alone.
I talked about this recently over lunch with Maryam Banikarim, the senior vice president and chief marketing officer of Gannett (the media company that publishes USA Today), and she said that she not only agreed with the concept but also had a name for it: sweet time. "The reality," she said, "is that you can"t just wait for large chunks of time to come your way. Life is busy-really busy-and we"re perpetually having to mult.i.task."
So think small. Look for the hour-or even thirty minutes-you can make pleasurable and all yours.
"We talk ourselves out of our restorative moments because we think it has to be a full, weeklong getaway," says Letena Lindsay, the head of L2 Public Relations and one of my favorite former colleagues. "But it could be years before that happens."
Sweet time possibilities: your morning shower (use it to enjoy a fragrant body wash rather than fretting about the day ahead), lunchtime (take a walk rather than eating at your desk), the drive home from work (listen to an audiobook), the moment your kids go down for a nap on the weekends (read a book and then focus on ch.o.r.es). Banikarim finds airplanes to be one of those rare places where she can still have uninterrupted alone time. "I love to use the trip to read or to watch a movie," she says.
One catch: you need to carve out sweet time for yourself because no one will carve it out on your behalf. Lindsay, the mother of twins, goes for a thirty-minute manicure and hand ma.s.sage every week. And every Wednesday morning she has her "s.e.x and the City coffee hour" with a friend-after they drop their kids off at school.
That"s not to say you don"t deserve a weekend away with your partner or a girlfriend or even alone. But if you schedule plenty of sweet time into your life, you won"t feel in desperate need of it.
{ Make Your Back-Pocket Dream a Reality (While You"ve Still Got a Day Job) }.
Despite your professional success, is there something you"ve secretly yearned to do but haven"t tried yet? Perhaps it"s a dream you"ve never breathed a word about to anyone. I can relate, because for years I had a crazy back-pocket dream myself. As a young girl I liked reading books, but when I stumbled on a copy of Nancy Drew and the Secret of Red Gate Farm-with its spooky cover and eerily provocative t.i.tle-I suddenly became a ravenous reader rather than simply an avid one. I devoured that mystery and then proceeded to read dozens of others in the series. My pa.s.sion for the "t.i.tian-haired" sleuth made me long to become a private detective (I used to walk around my hometown in a little trench coat with a rubber pistol in my pocket). Later, as I came to realize what a terrible wimp I was, I vowed instead to one day satisfy my fascination with corpses and perplexing puzzles by writing murder mysteries rather than actually solving them.
That desire got tucked away for years as I pursued another aspiration-to be a magazine editor-which also happened to offer more financial security. But as I mentioned earlier, I pulled that old dream out of the back pocket one Sat.u.r.day morning when my kids were sleeping in. With the encouragement of my awesome agent Sandy Dijkstra (who"d represented me for nonfiction books), I wrote several chapters and sketched out an outline for If Looks Could Kill. It was the story of an irreverent true-crime journalist named Bailey Weggins who discovers the dead body of her boss"s beautiful young nanny. She"d been poisoned-and there were plenty of suspects. I loved working on it.
I was also motivated, I must admit, by a desire to create a professional Plan B. I knew of so many magazine editors in chief who had been unceremoniously dumped by their companies when they were in their fifties, and I decided that if that happened to me one day, I wanted to have a backup way to earn money. I gave myself eighteen months to complete the book.
But then Cosmo Sunday happened. That"s when I was called out of the blue on a Sunday morning, asked to come in to work, and handed the job of a lifetime. As I accepted the position, trying to conceal my angst about it, one of the thoughts racing through my head was "Well, now I"m never going to be able to write my mystery." I felt heartsick about letting that old dream go.
Five months pa.s.sed, and the Christmas holidays rolled around. Since I had a few days off, I decided one afternoon to read over the pages I"d tucked away back in August. One of the lines caught me totally by surprise. I"d written that Bailey had found the dead nanny lying on a copy of Cosmopolitan. I had no memory of adding that detail-but I instantly took it as a sign from the G.o.ds. Maybe I was meant to finish the mystery while editing Cosmo. So I did it. Since then I"ve written five more Bailey Weggins mysteries and two stand-alone thrillers, Hush and The Sixes.
Whenever I"m invited to give a speech to a woman"s group, there"s generally a Q-and-A session built in at the end. Almost without fail the first question anyone asks is "How do you manage to do both?" What the questioner means is "How can you manage having a demanding full-time job and still write books?" Some women, I think, are simply interested in hearing a few time-management tricks that they can apply in various areas of their lives. But many, I suspect, have a back-pocket dream of their own and really want to have it see the light of day.
If you"ve got a dream like that, pull it out and take a fresh look at it. Does it still excite you? Could you leverage it financially? Your girlhood dream may have been put aside-or, worse, trampled upon-but that doesn"t mean it"s not valid.
There may be a certain time in your life when it"s better to tackle that dream than others. I never wanted my mystery writing to infringe on my kids, so the best period to start was when they were sleeping later on weekend mornings. I dragged myself out of bed at six and wrote for a few hours before they came padding downstairs, hunting for French toast. You don"t have to do everything at once. Think of yourself as a serial achiever, someone who will probably live a long life and can take on different goals when the timing is right.
But one day you"re going to have to take a breath and plunge in. Begin with a very simple task, such as writing the first sentence (I did that) or prepping the canvas. See how it makes you feel.
It will help if right from the start you realize that some stuff in your life is going to have to go and then decide what that stuff will be. I used a lot of time-management tricks to help me build writing into my day (see "Terrific Time-Management Tricks"), but I still had to jettison certain routines and activities. I gave up my plan to become a decent tennis player. I never again spent a Sat.u.r.day afternoon prowling around Saks or Bloomingdale"s in search of booty. Instead I started shopping online at night and began to use a personal shopper for major fashion purchases (they"re available free at major department stores). And when Facebook took off, I decided I would have to postpone using it, except for my author page, to another time in my life. Last, I read far fewer books than I would have liked. But the pleasure I"ve experienced from being an author has outweighed the losses.
You might also have to shape-shift your dream a little to make it more doable. I did. I"d always wanted the lead character in my mysteries to be a private eye, but that would have meant a ton of research, and because of my full-time job, I didn"t have time for research. So I made my character a magazine writer. It meant I would still have to research all the forensic and crime-scene material for each mystery-which I enjoy-but I didn"t have to spend ages learning what it was like to be a private eye. I could even paste snippets from my job right into the book.