Daisy and Me

By Josi

I get asked a lot if my life is like that of my characters. For the most part, it isn’t, and that applies to Daisy. I did not get pregnant as a teenager, I have never been divorced, I’m not a snazzy dresser who gets my hair done regularly, I don’t have a career like she does, I didn’t take my kids to daycare, I’m not catholic, I have not left the faith of my youth, I have a good relationship with my parents, and I will not have any ‘surprise’ children—a hysterectomy guaranteed that. For the most part, Daisy and I are very different women. But there are some similarities.
I am blonde, I like to keep my hair long, I drive a red Prius, I have daughters, I am ambitious, and I have had my struggles with my role as a mother. I might go into more detail on that in another post, but in a nutshell I thought I would “enjoy” motherhood more than I do. I feel all squirmy inside to say that, because I don’t want it to reflect negatively on my children or call in to question whether I’m happy with my choices in regard to motherhood—my kids are great and I wouldn’t change my role for anything in the world. But motherhood is waaaaay harder than I expected to be, and not nearly as fun as I had hoped it would be. Daisy feels the same way, and though her journey as a mother has had much more angst and complexity than mine has, as I wrote her feelings about waiting for her role to be done, they were reflective of the same things I have felt at times over the last 20 years.
In the story, Daisy experiences a change and though hers is more forced than mine, I’ve experienced some similarities. For many years I have counted down for my kids to start leaving home. I once saw a sign that said “Dear kids, check out is at 18” and I wanted one of my own. I anticipated all this freedom and less things to worry about all my insecurities associated with my role as mother would go away. About five years ago my husband said “Do you realize that we only have 5 Christmases with Breanna at home.” We were lying in bed and I think my heart stopped for a second. It was the first of many times since that I felt this panic of “The end.” And my feelings toward motherhood shifted a little bit. It shifted some more when I ended up making some connections to my own withdrawal at times from my family—therapy can be a very eye-opening experience. For the last two years I’ve felt the time my daughter leaves creeping up on me and I have found myself wishing I could have a do-over. I’ve wondered how much I missed because I didn’t love it and was counting down for it to be over with. I’m not one to swim in regrets, my journey is my journey and I have learned much through my time at the University of Mom. But writing Daisy was a very personal journey for me. It’s a story of a woman who has worked hard and done everything she needed to do without looking back, without questioning herself, and then she gets thrown into the biggest question of all—can I be better than I’ve been?
Though my trials aren’t the same as Daisy’s, I know that everyone has those pinnacle moments of life when they find themselves reevaluating, questioning, wondering at what’s happened and where it might take them. They can be scary moments. Sometimes the answers are right there waiting for us, but more often than not we have to make changes and compromises and dig deep to get through those things. Sometimes we end up in a completely different place than we started at.
It’s my hope that Daisy’s story will reflect that process that all of us go through. It’s my hope that watching the other members of the book club help her and lift her up will reflect the need we all have for friends when we face our own demons. It’s my hope that even if you don’t agree with who Daisy is or what she chooses to do with her future, you will understand her and learn something from her. She taught me a whole lot.
My daughter started college in June, living on campus an hour from home. It’s been far harder than I expected it to be but I am attempting to learn everything I can from the experience and use it to be the mom I never thought I’d be. My role as Mom has taken on a lot of new dimension over the last little while and I'm anticipating even more of that in the future. Which is a good thing. People often say they learn a lot from their children, I have certainly learned a lot from raising them and I anticipate many more lessons ahead.

What's in a Name: Daisy

By Josi 

          One of the fun things about being a fiction writer, and creating characters, is that you get to name them. I have four kids, and I lost every name-decision my husband and I had with them. Lost might be the wrong word, since I like all their names, but they were names my husband and I agreed on, not necessarily either of our favorites. 

           When I was expecting my fourth child—also my last—I had two favorite names: Esther and Daisy. My husband made a face at both of them. He thought Esther sounded old and Daisy sounded air-headed. I was, of course, offended, then he said his name of choice was Charlemagne and I knew he’d lost it (no offense to any Esthers, Daisys, or Charlemagnes out there.) My next suggestion was Keeley, but Keeley Kilpack had a weird ring to it. We both liked Kylee, however, and so that became our baby’s name. It’s a perfect name for her and neither of us cringe when we say it, so it was a good choice.

            When Annette, Heather, Julie and I were discussing characters for this series, I threw out the idea of Daisy and then braced myself for compaints—since my husband hadn’t liked it—but to my surprise they were all good with it. So, her name was Daisy and she's not an air-head. Originally Daisy's character was suffering from an eating disorder, but as I further developed her that didn’t stick very well. I kept playing with ideas and then came up with the idea of her being in her forties, excited for her last daughter to leave home, feeling like everything was going as planned, and then facing an unplanned pregnancy. THAT story idea took off for me and the story unfolded rather quickly from that point forward.

           AND, I got to use Daisy in a book. Maybe one day I'll use Esther too (though Heather Moore is beating me to that point right now as she writes the story of Esther). I will likely not use Charlemagne, however. :-)

Cover Reveal for DAISY!

We are excited to show you the cover for DAISY, the 2nd installment in The Newport Ladies Book Club series.

DAISY is written by Josi S. Kilpack and will be out May 2012. What do you think?

OLIVIA is here!

Julie Wright's OLIVIA, the first published book in the Newport Ladies Book Club series, is now available. (Earlier than we were told, be we certainly aren't complaining!)

It's on shelves in stores, and it's also available for the Kindle HERE (seven bucks cheaper).

We'll post more soon about the upcoming launch for OLIVIA, but in the meantime, join the OLIVIA Launch Party Facebook page to be in the loop.

And after you read OLIVIA, be sure to read the excerpt from Josi's book, DAISY, in the back.

DAISY will be released next!

January 2012 Updates

Things are moving right along . . .

1. We've received a huge response from reviewers. Thanks so much. We aren't seeking additional reviewers at this time, but if you happen to review any of our books, please let us know and we'll post it on the sidebar. OLIVIA will be out in February. It's available for pre-order in paperback and audio CD at Deseretbook.com

2. Josi Kilpack just announced on Twitter that she is working on galleys for DAISY. This means that the book is almost ready for press. Josi is doing a final review. Very exciting.

Speaking of Twitter, all of us are on it. If you'd like to follow:

Julie: @scatteredjules
Josi: @josiskilpack
Annette: @annettelyon
Heather: @heatherbmoore

3. Also, something fun:

In the back of each book, there will be the first chapter of the *next* book included.

In OLIVIA, you'll also get to read chapter one of DAISY.

In DAISY, you'll get to read chapter one of PAIGE.

Etc!

4. We've started drafting the next four books in the series, which will be about Ruby, Ilana, Shannon, and Victoria. On the side bar we've updated the books that the book club is reading.

Olivia Cover Preview!

Here is the cover to the first book in the Newport Ladies Book Club series! As cold and shivery as I currently feel, I envy the model in the picture! It makes me want to truck on down to Newport and spend the day on the beach reading.

It's been such a neat process to work with other authors I admire and create something different and new. I signed the contract this afternoon and love how the managing editor at Covenant sends me a letter with the contracts telling me how excited she is for what I'm doing. Those letters are a huge boost to my fragile self confidence. They remind me that someone else loves what I wrote.

Olivia comes out in February. Daisy (by Josi Kilpack) will be coming next--out in either late April or early May. We will definitely be having a launch party for the release, and there will definitely be lots of fun, food and prizes involved.

In the mean time . . . YAY!

ACCEPTED!!!

Today, August 31st, we received official word from our publisher today that our series has been accepted. We'll keep you posted on release dates & order of books!

Edits: Daisy Done, Starting Athena

Yesterday I finished my edits on Josi's DAISY. I laughed and cried and came to totally love her character. It was extra fun to see how our joint scenes (the ones where both Daisy and Paige interact) fit into the whole of her book, since they serve different purposes in Paige's story.

Now I'm beginning edits on Heather's ATHENA. One chapter in, and already, it's a fresh, new character with an entirely different story. Can't wait to finish this one and then dive into Julie's OLIVIA!

Oh, and then go through the edits the others have done on PAIGE. It's hard to explain how cool it is to see how something that began as an idea become real!

Finished reading PAIGE

by Heather Moore

I just finished reading PAIGE, by Annette. I loved the story because it focuses on relationships, and Paige is so different than DAISY that it was fun to see how both totally opposite women lived their lives and developed their friendships.

PAIGE has some heart-breaking moments in it, but it's so fulfilling in many many ways. I seriously want to go be a part of their book group!

Daisy--Final Draft Done

By Josi S. Kilpack

Wahooo! I'm the first to finish my personal revisions! Not that it's a contest but I totally smoked the team!

Ahem, anyway, we'll be trading manuscripts here in a few days and start editing each others stuff to make sure it's all coordinating, it's been a really fun process having other people write parts of the story that I then change to my character's POV. And, this is the first book I've ever written in first person. I had a really hard time with it at first, but then eventually got the hang of it, although in my revision I would find paragraphs here and there where I'd flipped back into third person.

Exciting stuff!

My official Pitch for DAISY:

Since becoming a mother at the age of 17, Daisy has looked forward to the day when she could check "motherhood" off her list of things to do. At the age of 46 everything seems to be right on track, until she suddenly finds herself facing a very different future then she planned on and an uncomfortable evaluation of the past she thought she understood.