Let’s never go through this again

October 20, 2015 ~ Natalie Hart ~ 2 Comments

Boys and girls, this will be my last Kickstarter-related post.

[I pause here to give you a moment to say, “Thank goodness.”]

In three days, the campaign will be over. We’re getting closer: less than $10,000 to go. And there are a few big contributions that I’ve been told to expect that haven’t come in yet. Still, hope and anxiety are battling it out inside me, swooping in and out of prominence like a murmuration of starlings.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmO4Ellgmd0

Frankly, that was so mesmerizing, I’m already a little calmer. Mesmerizing murmuration. That’s fun to say. Go ahead, take a moment to say it out loud.

But the reality of all that swooping in my emotional life isn’t nearly so beautiful. I will be relieved when, in three days, we know the status of this project. When we know whether we’re moving full steam ahead, or scrambling to rethink everything.

It’s been a privilege to hear so many of our supporters tell us their adoption and fostering stories. It’s been moving to feel the support of so many people. Still, I will do everything in my power to never do another crowdfunding campaign ever again. I know it’s a good business model for testing market support and building buzz, but I am not well-suited to the emotional roller-coaster.

So one final plea. One final link. I’d be a bad entrepreneur if I didn’t. Here’s the video, and here’s the link.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1367769515/as-real-as-it-gets-a-picture-book-for-older-adopte?ref=nav_search

I love each and every one of you for sticking with me through this month. Let’s never go through this again.

I am not a natural entrepreneur

October 13, 2015 ~ Natalie Hart ~ 1 Comment

But my father is. Which may be why I am not one. Or, rather, why I never wanted to be one.

Do you know how long and how hard entrepreneurs work? My dad was still pulling all-nighters well into his fifties.

Do you know how much entrepreneurs carry on their shoulders? For a year after high school, I worked for my dad’s fledgling company, and since I was daughter, as well as employee, I knew those times he was one day away from not making payroll. He always worked it out and found backers, but that’s a lot of stress for one person who’s simultaneously building a product, managing the people making and selling the product, finding new markets, taking care of current customers, pushing innovation, coming up with new ideas so there will be more products in the future, traveling to spread the word, wondering whether they’re making money fast enough to keep the investors happy, making sure that the deals made are solid enough for both the near and the far future, all while doing things like spending time with family and friends (who add their own stresses, as well as joys). Entrepreneurs are superheroes. Seriously.

Their ability to maintain hope and determination in the face of rejection and long odds is amazing.

I like to have a job I can complete. I like to have work I don’t have to worry about after I leave the office. I like clear expectations and reachable goals. I like to have my evenings free. If I can swing it, I like to have my late-afternoons free.

But, alas. I am too much like my father: I have ideas that inspire and delight and confound me, and in pursuing them, I’ve become a writer who is independently publishing her work.

In other words: I’ve become an entrepreneur.

This year, I’ve started two companies and brought two writing projects to ever-nearing fruition. I’ve got this Kickstarter thing happening for As Real As It Gets (a picture book about an adopted or foster child who yells, “You’re not my real mother!”) (less than two weeks to see whether we’ll make it!), which is a constant dance of pitching, rejection, acceptance, and learning. So, so much learning. And the thing about mistakes is that you can only see them after you’ve made a decision and acted on it, not before. I am constantly anxious, yet still a little hopeful. Committed to moving forward, mistakes and all.

Given that there are 11 days to go and we aren’t even a third of the way funded, it feels like there is a good chance we won’t make our goal for the Kickstarter, which means that we don’t get any of that money, which means that we have to find other methods for getting this book published. Because we will get this book published.

If every person who told us they think the book is amazing and asked us to let them know when it’s published (not to mention the organizations that do the same), contributed to the crowd funding campaign, we’d be set. But they don’t. Is it because you have to be a little entrepreneurial to contribute to a Kickstarter campaign? I don’t know, but we’re working as hard as we can to get the word out to anyone who might be just that little bit of entrepreneurial. Or to any adoptive or foster parents who might be just a little bit desperate for books that address their kids’ experiences.

Speaking of which, Amanda and I will be interviewed by Grand Rapids community powerhouse Shelley Irwin on the WGVU Morning Show on Friday (I’ll post a link once it’s on the web).

So check us out, if you haven’t already. Spread the link around if you haven’t already.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1367769515/as-real-as-it-gets-a-picture-book-for-older-adopte?ref=nav_search

And pray for me. I’m not a natural entrepreneur and I hate asking people to do things for me … but I’m learning.

The timing is almost always wrong

October 6, 2015October 6, 2015 ~ Natalie Hart ~ 2 Comments

Today marks Day 12 of the Kickstarter campaign for As Real As It Gets, a picture book about how an adoptive family handles the words, “You’re not my real mother,” with love, humor, and a T Rex. If you haven’t done so already, I’ll give you a moment to click on the links above and check it out and, hopefully, contribute. And, just for fun, here’s the last sneak peek of an illustration sketch, when the monster slinks away after the mother defeats it.

* * * *

I’ve been thinking today about that old chestnut, “I’ll do X when the timing is right,” X being a wide variety of things: have children, get married, look for a new job, go to counseling, write that book, start yoga, give up sugar, etc.

To that, let’s add “Open a Kickstarter campaign.”

Now is not the right time for me. It’s been 42 days since my world was turned upside down in the worst way (I apologize for the vagueness, but I’m not prepared to speak about it here yet). I’m still lost and overwhelmed, fielding way too many phone calls, not sleeping well, ferrying people and myself to appointments, reimagining a whole new life, looking for a job. This is not the time to begin an intense campaign to gather enough contributors to fund a picture book project.

Now is not the right time for our series editor/visionary. She and her husband have expanded their family by one more kid, which means their household includes two twenty-somethings, three teenagers, and one tween, all of whom live at home. They’re also getting themselves relicensed for fostering so they can explore a relationship with a recently discovered full sibling to one of their adopted children.

Now is not the right time for our illustrator. He was out of town for a week when the campaign went live (the first miscommunication in our partnership). He’s got a painting up at Art Prize.

And there are always other things going on, other tensions that we don’t know about each other.

But we’re doing it anyway.

If we waited for everything to be just right, we’d be waiting forever. It’s never going to be just right. There will always be challenges. Always be surprises both horrible and wonderful. Always be that terrified voice in your head that tells you it’ll never work and you can never do it.

Do your X anyway.

It may not turn out “well.” We may not make our funding goal, in which case we don’t see a dime of the money and we have to figure out a new way to make As Real As It Gets happen. But it won’t be for lack of trying.

I really do hope that you, my lovely readers, will consider contributing. But whether you can contribute or not, I’m guessing you know some adoptive or foster families, or some grandparents of adoptive families; please send them the Kickstarter link. If you need a little more incentive, here are two endorsements by social workers:

As an adoption professional and trauma specialist working in the field of foster care adoption, the concepts of the monster of doubt, of “I’m not good enough”, “No one will want me”, “Let me leave you, before you can leave me” are VERY real to our children, of ALL ages…toddler-teen. As Real as it Gets! Is a groundbreaking children’s book, for children who have experienced fragile early attachments and tough starts. It acknowledges the monster, the dinosaur, that lurks, and can come and go, but that the steadfastness of the parent’s love, through all circumstances, ultimately vanquishes the foe. As a foster and adoptive mother, I can attest to the need for such a book. It will open conversations in a non-threatening way, and the idea that the child and even parent, are not alone in their struggle against the monster. I am very excited for both the excellent text as well as exciting illustration bringing alive the idea that we as parent’s ARE as real as it gets, and our love is NOT afraid of that monster, which WILL get littler and littler with time.

Sara Blomeling DeRoo LMSW
Trauma Specialist
Operation Forever Family
Intensive Child Specific Recruitment
Bethany Christian Services Of Michigan

“As Real As It Gets” addresses the intersection of our universal need for belonging with the challenges born out of merging families through foster care and adoption. Written out of Amanda’s own experience as a foster and adoptive mom, the book normalizes one of the difficulties foster and adoptive children (and some days all of us) face-the messy truth that sometimes love and forever are hard concepts to grasp. I’m thankful for Amanda’s heart for these children and as a child welfare worker I am confident this book will be a strong resource for foster and adoptive children and families.”

Shelby Van Kooten
Bethany Christian Services Of Michigan

No matter what, I encourage you to do your “X” anyway, whether all the stars are aligned or not. (I write this as much for myself and my book partners as for you.) Let’s put the “courage” in “encouragement” (this is probably one of the cheesiest things I’ve ever said)!

As Real As It Gets: new illustration

September 29, 2015September 28, 2015 ~ Natalie Hart ~ 2 Comments

Today marks Day 6 of the Kickstarter campaign for As Real As It Gets, a picture book about how an adoptive family handles the words, “You’re not my real mother,” with love, humor, and a T Rex. If you haven’t done so already, I’ll give you a moment to head over and check it out and, hopefully, contribute.

Welcome back.

Do you feel like you need to see more? Okay. Here’s a sneak peek of a drawing that Joel Schoon-Tanis did in preparation for a painting.

The little boy has just yelled, “You’re not my real mother.”

Everything stretches and slows down like I fell in a black hole.

This is the brilliance of Joel. The monster is clearly saying, “Whatcha gonna do about that?” It thinks it has won. The boy is dizzy and overwhelmed.

To me, this drawing encapsulates our goals with this project: reflect a child’s perspective with frankness, but also humor and care.

And the mother is unfazed. This is when she delivers her line, but she doesn’t always say it the same way.

The monster always thinks this will be the time it shocks my mother, but she always says the same thing.

Sometimes she yells it in her “Go to your room!” voice.
“I’m as real as it gets and I’m not giving up. I’m your mother in truth. Your mother. Forever.”

What are some other tones of voice a mother might use when saying these words for, say, the twentieth time?

In all seriousness, please support As Real As It Gets, either with a pledge or by sending the link to someone you know who might like it. Not just for the kids who will be able to see themselves in a story (maybe even your own kids or grandkids), but, honestly and vulnerably, also for me — due to some major life setbacks, this has become needed income.

Sometimes you look on in awe

September 22, 2015 ~ Natalie Hart ~ 2 Comments

There was a brief timespan in college when I was going to go into Medieval literature. I’d taken a one-month class, taught by the now very distinguished H. Evan Runner Chair in the History of Philosophy at the Institute for Christian Studies, Bob Sweetman. At the time, his children were still toddlers, which lends dignity to noone; back then, he drank out of a Spiderman mug and students made fun of his ties. Anyway, it was a one-month class entitled Women in Medieval Society, and we read Teresa of Avila, Julian of Norwich, and Hildegard of Bingen.

I have a very clear memory of Prof. Sweetman quoting one of the women (maybe Teresa of Avila?) to us, “Open Thy mouth wider, God, that I may taste Thee.” But I can’t find reference to it anywhere.

This was a group of passionate, fascinating, deep thinking women. We read them, we learned about their lives; Hildegard’s music even became my favorite study music.

But I somehow missed that Hildegard illuminated her own visions, in bright, trippy paintings. I was going to take one and unpack it, but it’s rather like uncoding some of the biblical visions in the Old Testament and in Revelation: they reveal as much about the assumptions of the time as they do matters of spiritual import. So instead of wrestling with that, I just want to gather some of my favorite illuminations for our mutual awe and enjoyment.

Thank you so much to my good friend Christina Van Dyke for showing these to me. I’m pretty sure they’ll still be as astonishing while I’m sitting here at my dining room table, as they were yesterday in the blazing sunshine over a beer.

God Enthroned Shows Himself to Hildegard

Hildegard von Bingen, receiving a vision (that is the holy fire of inspiration coming to her head from above)

Talk about scope for imagination!

The Garden Gnomes’ Revenge

September 15, 2015 ~ Natalie Hart ~ Leave a comment

Following is the short story that won me first place in round 8 of the Writer Unboxed Flash Fiction contest. The photo is by Brin Jackson of a beloved gargoyle named Gabriel, in her garden. The story was inspired by the photo. I hope you enjoy it (Harry Potter fans, in particular).

“Troops, you know what this is about.”

Their stone heads nodded and their red eyes flared.

“Revenge.” I unfurled my terrible wings. “We used to be respected. We used to be feared.”

My hoary comrades, half-covered in the indignity of moss, rumbled.

“We used to have a purpose. Now we’re just ornaments. They think we’re cute. And it’s all her fault.” We glared up at the big house. “Tonight, no more hiding in the hostas. You know your assignments.”

And so it began.

Seven nights of lining the windowsills of whatever room she was in. Seven nights of marking her as the target with the beam of our red eyes. Seven nights of infiltrating her dreams with images more terrifying than those she’d imagined.

On the morning of the eighth day, she came to us. “I’m going mad.”

I rotated my shoulders just enough that she could hear stone grinding on stone.

She crouched in front of me. “I don’t know how you know what I’ve written or who I am, but I apologize. How can I make it up to you?”

I told her our demands. She stood and tapped on her phone and then showed me the results.

@jk_rowling Garden gnomes are not cute objects of fun to be tossed over your garden gate at Harry Potter birthday parties.

@jk_rowling Garden gnomes are gargoyles, which are seriously fearsome magical creatures that we should all respect, if not fear.

@jk_rowling Please stop sending me garden gnomes.

Mission accomplished.

The Parable of the Black Sand

September 8, 2015September 8, 2015 ~ Natalie Hart ~ 4 Comments

The waves come. There will always be waves.

Sometimes the waves bring lovely gifts.

Sometimes the waves are large, and pounding, and they carve away at what’s there, revealing the layers that were underneath the surface.

They reveal the black sand.

The black sand has its own beauty, but it also clings thickly, clumping in a heavy mass on my feet as I walk through it.

I can’t avoid it. Sure, I could try to hike up the ledge, but even if I managed it, I’d have to walk in the sharp dune grass that is full of ticks. I could fight the waves, but I’m not dressed for getting soaked.

So I walk through the black sand (revealing the regular sand with every step).

Here’s the thing about the waves: they exposed the black sand, but they also wash my feet clean.

And the regular sand is right in front of me. Yes, it’s gritty. Yes, there are bits of black sand mixed in. But it is the sand I love to walk in, to play in. Dare I say, it gives my soul, and my soles, rest.

The waves will come. Sometimes they will reveal darkness, and I will have to walk through it. But, even so, with every step, the light is revealed, and I trust that I will walk in the light again.

As Real As It Gets: A Picture Book Announcement

August 25, 2015September 5, 2015 ~ Natalie Hart ~ 8 Comments

I met Amanda Barton in New York City in the mid-1990s. She stood up at a gathering at All Angels Episcopal Church and claimed that nobody there would’ve heard of where she was from in Michigan. Challenge accepted. My husband and I totally knew her hometown, although it was, indeed, super-tiny. Together with two other couples who were, like us, under 30 and married (and therefore felt like exotic zoo animals), we became fast friends. Amanda and I and our husbands even moved back to Michigan within a month of each other in 1998.

So when she said, “I’m looking for someone to help me achieve this dream I’ve had,” I wanted to help her. Her dream was that kids who’d been adopted when they were older might have picture books that reflected their reality — their reality of remembering their previous lives, previous families, of the not-so-smooth parts of adjusting to a new family.

I remembered when she and her husband welcomed a sibling group of three from the foster care system. Now I really wanted to help her.

Out of our discussions came a story about a young boy who feels something monstrous growing inside him (like a cobra, a T Rex, a gas bubble), growing until it comes slithering, roaring, exploding out: “You’re not my real mother!” His mother reassures him: “I’m as real as it gets and I’m not giving up. I’m your mother in truth. Your mother. Forever.” A warm glow spreads inside him (like a flower in June, a cookie out of the oven, a hug). But the feeling doesn’t last. The monster is soon lurking again. One day, the T Rex is only as fierce as a 2-inch tall rubber toy, and it taunts him, “How long is forever, anyway?” The story ends on an “okay for now” moment of love and silliness: “Well, T Rex. Here’s the bad news. Forever for you means that you’ll always have those silly short arms, too short to pick your nose and too short to tickle your son.”

We loved this story. It’s vibrant and silly, frank and loving. So we tried to find agents and publishers who might be interested. None were. But we were not ready to give up on it. We decided to find ourselves an illustrator and publish it ourselves (the story of my life). Because Amanda will ask anything of anyone, she contacted an illustrator who is well-known in our area: Joel Schoon-Tanis.

He said yes. We started West Olive Press.

And here are his first illustrations.

I think Joel totally nailed it. The monster is monstrous but not overly scary. In the top one with the son saying, “You’re not my real mother,” the boy looks angry, but the monster doesn’t. And then in the one with the mother delivering her “I’m as real as it gets” line, the monster looks like he wants to believe it more than the boy does. I can’t wait to see what else Joel comes up with.

Right around Labor Day weekend, we will be opening the Kickstarter campaign. You may become weary of me talking about this in September. But I believe in this project, both because I think it will be beautiful and fun to read, and because there is an underserved group of kids out there, and seeing yourself in a story is a powerful, powerful thing.

I’ll announce here and on Facebook and on Twitter when the Kickstarter goes live, but if you’re concerned that you won’t get the message, let me know via my Contact Me page, and I’ll make sure you are notified.

Exorcising High School

August 18, 2015 ~ Natalie Hart ~ 8 Comments

My daughter started high school today — obsessing about her clothes, her hair, her make-up, the friends she’d made the night before, the plan for lunch, whether she’d get lost, whether it was actually true that she wouldn’t need her textbooks on the first day and that teachers are lenient about getting to class on time the first week, and probably a host of other things she wouldn’t admit out loud.

As a wordsmith, I chose my words of encouragement with care:
Set the bar low. Just live to the end of the day!

Because I know she’ll do fine. She is her mother’s daughter, freaking out about stuff ahead of time so she’s ready for it when it comes (whatever “it” is).

But I’m remembering the thirteen-year-old from 1981 who started high school without the benefit of a launch day that would take her to all her classes before that high-pressure first day, without the benefit of seeing all the kids and what they were wearing and carrying. That poor sweet girl, coming from a weird and tiny Christian school with its graduating class of seven, all girls, two cousin pairs, four of from the same church. Whose grade had been the oldest one in the school for three years. Who only knew two other kids in this school of hundreds. Who knew no boys her own age. Who bought her own clothes with her own money from the local consignment shop, with a very experimental fashion sense, except for jeans, which (according to the weird school’s subculture) had to be boys’ jeans. Who still wore pigtails in her hair. Who went to high school that first day with a doubled Loblaw’s bag (plastic grocery store bag) in which to carry her books.

Should I mention that she went to a public school that had a reputation as the snobbiest school in the city, even worse than the private schools?

She certainly considered it a victory to live to the end of the first day of high school.

Of course, this sweet girl was me. My daughter starting grade nine is bringing it all back.

I’m having flashbacks to that first day, standing stock still in the central hall, students streaming around me, jostling me, my nerdy Loblaw’s bags (while everyone else had backpacks or school bags — oh, the horror) cutting into my fingers, on the verge of tears because I had no idea where the science wing was and I was too terrified and mortified to ask anyone.

To that day when my choir teacher made an appointment for me with a guidance counselor because the altos had been making such obvious and loud fun of me in class that he’d heard it. I hadn’t wanted to deal with it at all, so I said it didn’t bother me. It did.

To that day when a boy who smoked a wide variety of things in what we called Cancer Alley turned my entire desk around in history class so I had to face him while he told me a made-up and obscene dream he’d had about me.

To that day when someone complained about me being at a party because it brought the stature of the party down — to my face. And I had neither the confidence nor the social capital to laugh it off. Because in the hideousness of high school, it was true.

To that day when someone yelled to me, “Nice ass. Shame about the face.”

Other people had it worse, I know. I was never physically threatened, and I’m grateful I didn’t grow up in the digital age with cyber bullying. But oh, did I hate high school.

Now, I had friends, and I was on the swim team and in clubs (nerdy clubs), and I laughed, and I skipped school to go for bike rides or to the mall a block away. There was my birthday buddy who took me to her house once for an authentic Chinese dinner. There was the girl whose uncle was in the mob in New York City (he really was). There was the druggie girl who liked to tell me stories of her exploits (probably because I had no competing stories). There were the two boys who would practice with the girls’ swim team, so I got to know them enough to flirt with them. There was the girl who would invite me to her cottage in the summer. High school wasn’t all skin that felt permanently red from blushing, and clenched teeth.

I’ll still occasionally dip into a daydream in which I get famous enough to be invited back to NTCI to be a graduation speaker, and I speak exclusively to those kids who had a bad time. Which, now that I’m an adult and I’ve talked to more people, I realize was most of the kids; even if someone looked like they had it all together, inside they felt just as awkward and terrified and self-absorbed as I did. Ah, perspective.

Thank you for indulging me while I got all that out in the open. I feel better now.

Want to engage in a little high school horror story one-up-manship? The comments are yours.

Cloaks and slings and the siren song of authenticity

August 11, 2015 ~ Natalie Hart ~ 2 Comments

Or, the pleasures and perils of writing about three thousand years ago.

As the publication date for The Giant Slayer gets closer and closer (I’ve declared it to be October 1), I’ve been taking care of what seem like thousands of details. Besides all the super-fussy stuff like registering ISBNs, I’ve written a glossary and a discussion guide, and started a Facebook author page (insert craven plea to head over and “like” it).

I knew I had to do a Facebook author page eventually, but I’d been dragging my feet. What would I do on such a page? I didn’t want to just repeat my regular Facebook posts, and, despite my recent posts here, I don’t want to talk about the process of publishing or even about writing (not because I think the latter is bad, but because there are already so many people who do it so well). And then I read Austin Kleon’s Show Your Work! and had my aha moment.

What better to do with my hundreds of pages of research and dozens of pins on Pinterest, than share them?

So that’s what I do. Every day, I share one tidbit about ancient Israel. So far, I’ve covered ovens, the unique properties of the white broom and white squill plants (particularly when one might be on the run in the wilderness), and how the clothing did not resemble Jedi robes.

I’ve been jazzing up my research tidbit with a photo, which has meant more research. Which has meant making adjustments in my manuscript. While there’s still time.

replica of ancient sling — sling from http://celticclans.oakandacorn.com/

For example, I’d been thinking of the sling as an open leather pouch with four lead strings, but it’s far more likely that it was a leather (or “skin” as David would have referred to it) pouch with two leads, one of which had a loop at one end to slip over a finger, and the other with a knot at the end, to hold onto during the revolution and then let go of in the launch. Here’s a video that demonstrates it quite nicely.

From Biblical Archeology Daily, photo by Seung Ho Bang

Ovens were totally different than I’d been imagining: they looked more like open volcanoes than like a wood-fired pizza oven. I’d had a soldier sitting on an oven while he watched David’s front door (while David escaped out the back), so I had to change it.

a homespun cloak/cape — The closest image I could find for how I now imagine a farmer or shepherd’s cloak to be.

And despite my research, I’d had firmly planted in my mind that tunics had sleeves and cloaks looked like Jedi robes — probably because I’d sewn too many costumes for church Christmas pageants. Also, in my defense, the few contemporary illustrations I found were of kings delivering tributes to other conquering kings, so there were sleeves and full-length garments. But people living subsistence lives didn’t have fabric to waste for sleeves, and a full-length garment would only get in the way during lambing or plowing. So I had to change the text again to make sure I removed any references to sleeves, and to ensure that cloaks were wrapped or draped around a person, not put on like a bathrobe.

So these are the perils of writing about 3,000 years ago: nobody really knows about daily life for sure, but we have enough hints that we can figure things out. Which means I can still get it wrong. Since one of my goals in writing this story has been to put the reader into 1,000 BCE, I need to get as much right as I can, with as many details as possible to make it feel like an authentic, fully-fleshed-out world.

Join me on my Facebook page or Pinterest board and keep me honest!