Writer Gets Over Self - With a Little Help from Loved Ones

When I give talks or signings or make appearances at book clubs, I'm almost invariably asked some version of this question, usually by someone with a slightly awestruck expression: "So, are your relatives excited to have an author in the family?"

Thanks to a recent conversation with my mother, I now have a terrific new story to help answer to this question.

On the phone yesterday, she was complaining that there's nothing good on TV and she doesn't like to watch as much in the summer.

"You could always pick up one of those books of mine you've been collecting," I teased, since my mom has never been a reader (and often makes unintentionally hilarious excuses trying to explain herself.)

She then launches into a story about how I might enjoy reading but she's never...(loses train of her thought, before launching into:) "It reminds me of when my sisters once convinced me I'd just LOVE buying a kit and making my own hook rug. I loathed every minute of it. It was torture! Sheer torture."

Then it hit me. She was comparing the odious task of reading one of my books to what I remember as her years-long struggle to finish the single ugliest rust-and-floral shag hook ever to come out of the 70's.

Better yet, she had no idea why I broke up laughing and thanked her for the brilliant anecdote!

To be fair, both of my parents love to brag on me, just as they're very proud of my brother the electrician and my sister the RN. In turn, I adore my family, including my husband and son, and think it's probably healthier that to them that my career is simply one small facet of who I am to them and not the focal point.

Besides, over the years, their many "flattering" comments have helped me keep my sense of perspective -- and my sense of humor.

If there's a lesson to be drawn from this, maybe it's that you can choose to collect a bag of bitter hurts, or laugh and take things in stride. You have very little control over anything your family members say about your writing, but all the control in the world over how you choose to perceive it.

So what's the "best" comment a family member's ever made about your writing?