My Valentines Day Tree. It’s a tradition…in Finland…ok the insane asylum.

Yesterday, I did an author interview (here is the link if you care to show this sweet new writer some blog love) and one of the questions was:

Kristen, I have four children and a full time job to juggle alongside my writing, so I can understand how busy life gets, but you, you are a business woman, a wife, a mother, a role model to all of us. How do you find time to juggle all of this and still stay sane? 

My first response is, “Who ever said I was sane?” Yes, I work hard, but this idea that we are going to work a day job, write books, blog, build a platform, be the perfect mother, spouse and have a Martha Stewart home is absurd. Yes, I confess. It is now Valentines Day and my Christmas Valentines Tree still proudly stands in my dining room.

Exactly how long can one leave up a Christmas tree before you are officially white trash?

I know that, technically, an artificial Christmas tree isn’t a living thing, thus shouldn’t evolve, but yesterday I heard Willie Nelson coming from the dining room, and, when I looked closely at the tree? I saw it had sprouted THESE:

Stop standing there like a GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEE and get me a BEER!

To keep my tree from shooting in the air and playing banjo, I had to come up with a plan.

Take down the tree.

*clutches sides laughing*

Are you kidding? I have writing to do!

So I distracted the tree with Bud Light and some glittery nail polish from Wal Mart and took it to Pic Monkey for a Makeover:

Evolution of the Christmas Tree…

And now my Valentines Tree allows me to happily live in denial. It also no longer swats me in the @$$ and asks me to cosign for a bass boat.

I think the Easter Tree will be AWESOME.

And the whole “I am a role model to all of you” part? I think it gets clearer by the day why I wasn’t allowed to play with the other neighborhood kids.

So what about you? What is the longest you have ever left up your Christmas tree? Did it like to sing Stand By Your Man and watch fishing shows? I figure if I drag this out long enough I won’t look like a slacker. By the end of October I will be a role model!

Confess! Tell us about the Christmas lights still on your house or the plastic reindeer still munching your grass. Oh, and Happy Valentines Day! You know I love each and every one of you and THANK YOU for blessing me by coming to my blog.

I LOVE hearing from you…

To prove it and show my love, for the month of February, everyone who leaves a comment I will put your name in a hat. If you comment and link back to my blog on your blog, you get your name in the hat twice. If you leave a comment, and link back to my blog, and mention my book We Are Not Alone in your blog…you get your name in the hat THREE times. What do you win? The unvarnished truth from yours truly.

I will pick a winner once a month and it will be a critique of the first 20 pages of your novel, or your query letter, or your synopsis (5 pages or less).

And also, winners have a limited time to claim the prize, because what’s happening is there are actually quite a few people who never claim the critique, so I never know if the spam folder ate it or to look for it and then people miss out. I will also give my corporate e-mail to insure we connect and I will only have a week to return the 20 page edit.

At the end of February I will pick a winner for the monthly prize. Good luck!

I also hope you pick up copies of my best-selling books We Are Not Alone–The Writer’s Guide to Social Media and Are You There, Blog? It’s Me, Writer . And both are recommended by the hottest agents and biggest authors in the biz. My methods teach you how to make building your author platform FUN. Build a platform and still have time left to write great books.

The post What to Do When Your Christmas Tree Wants a Bass Boat appeared first on Kristen Lamb.