The Brave Art of Motherhood Visual Journey

"This book is without pictures. It's you and me sharing coffee, talking about life. My hope was that you would be able to focus on your life and dreams, so I thought it might be distracting to add pictures of my own".

It brings me great pleasure to know that you've invested time in my book and made it all the way to the end. I wrote it for you. I know it's my story but in the thousands of comments this blog has seen, and the many conversations I've had with readers I began to realize that what I did to change the bad into good wasn't me alone. It was me hearing the insights and nudges of others. It was friends stepping in to say "this isn't normal". The book is me, wanting to be that friend for you.

So now that you've read the book and have been able to see the pictures of your own life in the words, I'd like to share some of the images that colored this journey.

The Book Cover

What's more visual to start the Visual Journey than the cover?

I'm not sure if you know the process of creating a book cover, and actually I've only done it once so I probably don't either. But I can share with you how this cover came to be.

I'm not sure if we knew how it was going to work, whether I was going to be involved or not. Then one day in my inbox came a variety of possible covers. It was exciting, but the covers weren't quite right yet so a bit scary as well. Are we allowed to tell the publisher that the covers they provided weren't right?

The world of a first time author has many learning curves.

But when we called we were pleasantly surprised to be in a very collaborative meeting. We got a chance to tell them more about the book. We got a chance to tell them that the book isn't about multi-tasking with small kids around. And it wasn't about organizing your pantries or getting better at planning.

The cover needed to speak to moms in the trenches, who were working hard on all fronts. Almost like a mom in combat boots, or a mom climbing a mountain. Because ultimately the book isn't about the "momming" but about the woman being the mom.

And we got a variety of possible covers about a week later as a response to that conversation.

We took those book covers to the book store and placed them on the shelves to see which ones stood out. In this picture below there are 4 of the variations. Can you find them?

Ultimately you know which one we picked. And we love it. We got a chance to speak to the photographer, found out who the model was in the boots, the brand of the boots and who put the entire design together. If you're curious as well, here's the data:

Cover Photographer: Kike Arnaiz
Cover Designer: Kelly L. Howard
Cover Model: Cristina Afán
Boots Manufacturer: Diemme Wingtip Hiking Boots
Photo Location: Parc del Garraf in Caralunya, Spain

And that's how the cover came to be. 🙂

At the bottom of each page in the Visual Journey . . .click the boots to go to take the next steps.

Chapter 1 starts with me visiting my daughter at college. We visited the coolest shop there and Hannah face grew this smile I recognized as one I'd seen many times when she was a baby. . .