A Summer Breakout
Every month, we celebrate and feature a woman who went for it, bringing their vision and passion to life. While their businesses and projects vary — they all have battled through self-doubt, jumped before fully ready and embarked on entrepreneurship while simultaneously carrying a heavy load specially reserved for modern mothers.
For January, we are chatting with the lovely and talented Colleen Temple, author of Summer Breakdown which absolutely (and rightfully) flooded my Instagram feed last year. This mom of three spent years working on other women’s writing as an essays editor at Motherly before she took the leap to fulfill her own creative dream of writing a novel.
Here, we chat with her about how she completed it with three kids under 5, what she learned along the way and what she thinks about “the woman inside the mother.” We are also plotting to reincarnate the Purple Shamrock if you’re into that kind of thing. IYKYK.
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Did you always want to be a writer? What do you love about it?
I did. It’s something I dreamed about when I was little. I’ve always loved books and reading, movies and tv shows, stories in general—hearing them or making them up (even poems and really bad songs!)—but I don’t think I believed it could be a “real” job for me until I was an adult and decided I could try whatever I wanted. (Within reason—I needed to make a living, etc.)
I love going into a made up world and creating characters that are little bits of so many different people in my life and parts of my imagination. I love the thrill of starting a story and chasing it as I write. I don’t do much for outlining and that’s both fun and frustrating (especially when I get to the editing stage!).
What did your career and life look like before you decided to write your first novel?
I did a year of volunteer work teaching in Chicago right after college, then went into marketing after I got back to Massachusetts. I started a blog during this time, called the daily craic, basically about being young and in Boston. It was super exciting haha. I worked for a daily deal website at the height of that craze and after getting laid off, I went back to school to get my masters in early childhood education. I worked in a kindergarten classroom then a preschool classroom before taking time off to have my first child in 2014 and the blog eventually morphed into a more motherhood-focused blog. A friend I grew up with started Motherly, a parenting website, and I was their first employee. I worked for Motherly for many years and was their essays editor, writing and editing thousands of essays about the wonderful and wild bits of motherhood. I eventually realized the desire to move onto writing the fictional stories that were inside of me was getting stronger and stronger and so, I listened to the call!
The decision to follow a dream is brave. The decision to follow your dream and depend on it for financial means is brave -- and also scary! How did you take the leap to put so much time and focus on writing and then self-publishing your novel?
It took a joint sacrifice between my husband and myself. We knew if I stepped away from my job and freelance writing that our finances would change, so we made a plan together, including a budget I made (and tried my best to stick to!). His support of turning my dream into a reality even though it would cost us money before I made any money gave me the extra boost of confidence I needed to do it. Colin, my husband, has been my number one supporter throughout all of this and I’m really grateful to have him on my team.
As for time—writing Summer Breakdown was my lifeline during a time in my life when I often felt like I was drowning. I started writing it when I had a 5 year old, 3 year old, and 1 year old and almost everything I did and thought about was centered around my kids. Dedicating any free time I had to write this book was solely for me. It was something I could do to fill my bucket; time to be creative, time to be alone with my thoughts, time to dream of all sorts of possibilities. I dedicated a lot of my time to writing Summer Breakdown because I needed to. It helped me tremendously.
The publishing game has changed with more writers going the self-publishing route and thanks to social media, are able to build audiences, community and market their writing on their terms. This also can make for a saturated market. Is this an opportunity or a challenge? What has your experience been with self-publishing and social media marketing?
It’s both! I often flip flop back and forth in feeling like it’s an incredible opportunity and it’s also an incredible challenge. There are so many different paths you can take as an author today. There are millions of different marketing ideas you could try or feel like you have to do. It can be very demanding because you could always be working on it. But, there is more going on in my life than just promoting my book, and that’s something I’ve had to be real with myself about. Like writing! I want more time to write and so the marketing part has to take a backseat at times. It ebbs and flows with book releases. I’m actually excited to promote my next book when it’s finally ready!
Self-publishing has been a great experience for me, but it can be very tricky and exhausting to be the one who wears all the hats, to be honest. You have full control, which is lovely, but you also have full responsibility.
Many of us have heard the advice, "Write what you know." In Summer Breakdown, the main character Sabrina is a mother who struggles with the very relatable issue of loving your children tremendously but also mourning the loss of a past identity. We loved that this was part of her character as our tagline and mission around here is to create content for the "woman inside the mother" because this identity can get overshadowed and repressed. Was this something inspired from your own experience as a mother? Why do you think this is such a confusing and perhaps shameful part of motherhood?
“Motherhood completely disassembles us and puts us back together in a whole new way. And now that my kids are older—9, 7, and 6—I realize, it kind of keeps doing that over and over at each different stage.”
I love that! The woman inside the mother. It’s so true. There’s a whole person inside of this version of “mom” many people/society sees. I’m not just this legging-wearing, messy-bun sporting, coffee-holding child wrangler. I am someone who loves dancing, going to art museums, singing show tunes at the top of my lungs, going to see a play, laughing at inappropriate jokes, painting, going to Celtics games, trying new lipsticks, or thinking about another tattoo I could get. But I lost her for a while, and really had to claw my way back to her.
There’s a lot about Sabrina that I identify with. I started writing Summer Breakdown with three very little kids and my life was completely centered around them. Between raising them and reading/writing about all-things-motherhood at work, I felt like I was completely buried underneath all things “mom life”. This book helped me process a lot of my complicated motherhood feelings and now hearing relatable stories from readers about how they identified with her makes me feel so seen and so proud.
Motherhood completely disassembles us and puts us back together in a whole new way. And now that my kids are older—9, 7, and 6—I realize, it kind of keeps doing that over and over at each different stage.
What have been the highlights of publishing Summer Breakdown? What have been the challenges?
Highlights have been how AMAZING it has felt to be supported by friends, family, community members, internet friends, readers who have been with me since Motherly, and new readers who found me on Instagram or TikTok. People really have shown up for me during this process and have hosted signings or launch parties, they’ve posted reviews or shared about it on social media, they’ve gifted the book or recommended it to someone in their lives, they purchased my book with their hard-earned money. People have been amazing during this and have made me feel very loved and supported.
Hearing from someone who read the book and felt ANYTHING from it makes me feel on top of the world. That’s all I ever wanted—was for people to read Summer Breakdown and feel something. That was my mission.
Challenges have been getting the physical book in more stores and keeping up with that, plus all the other moving parts of promoting a book while still trying to make progress on the next book.
What is the best writing advice someone has given you and how did you apply it to your process?
A teacher of mine and fellow author once said to write like I was telling myself the story and that really rang true for me. I am not much of a plotter, more of a pantser, and writing this way keeps the process exciting for me. I discover everything about my story as I go—the setting, the plot, the characters. Sometimes I wish I was more of a plotter and planner, but at the moment, I’m just not!
Toni Morrison encourages writers (particularly working mothers) to "write at the edges of the day," which is wonderful advice considering many writers have day jobs, families and other priorities that can-continuously push a creative dream off. What was your experience with this? Did you write on the edges of the day or make it a main part of your day? What is your advice for moms who want to write or create -- but feel like it's indulgent or impractical especially if they feel like they can't keep up with basic responsibilities?
Yes, I love this! Another friend of mine and fellow writer says she writes within the margins. That’s what almost anyone—mother or not—who is writing a book needs to do.
I bring my laptop everywhere—doctor appointments, kid’s practices, school pickup line, weekend trips, etc. I also always have my notes app or Google docs app accessible on my phone for jotting down new ideas, or continuing writing within my current projects. Sometimes I wake up super early to get words in and sometimes I stay up super late. Sometimes I’m writing on the couch with noise-canceling headphones on while the kids are watching a movie. Sometimes I give up a Sunday with my family to work at a coffee shop for the day. I have some more time now that all three kids are in full day school, but, dang! That time still goes quickly with everything else that needs to get done. Ultimately, I have to ignore some things (dishes, laundry) at certain times and tell myself it’s okay to do so. It’s okay to sit down and write instead of tending to the mess. It’ll still be there waiting for me in three hours when I’m done writing!
Giving myself permission has been a big lesson for me in this process. Permission to dream. Permission to believe I can write and publish a book. Permission to be okay with asking people to buy my book. Permission to spend time away from the home or family to work on my book.
Seeing how proud I have made my children by writing a book makes me feel so joyful, I can’t even fully put it into words. They are my best promoters, I swear! Knowing they’ve watched me, and have been right alongside me, throughout this whole process of turning my dream into a reality is so fulfilling. I hope I’ve taught them and proved to them that going after your dreams and goals is worthwhile and possible.
We have to ask! Favorite book or we will accept top three!
This is hard! This Is How It Always Is is very moving and such an important story. The Most Fun We Ever Had was impressive and entertaining. I love a good family drama. Chasing Eleanor is fast-paced and so powerful. My friend Kerry wrote it and she is wildly talented. (I’m in a writer’s collective called The Eleventh Chapter—@theeleventhchapter on IG—filled with SO many talented authors!) I didn’t know I liked historical fiction until I read this one! Oh, one more! I also loooved The Great Alone.
And as for audiobooks. I’ve read Rachel’s Holiday before years and years ago and just decided to listen to it on audiobook during a long car ride and it’s been so funny and enjoyable! I’ve also been loving the dramatized reads of the ACOTAR series with different voices for different characters and background noises, etc.
We are inviting the woman inside Colleen to come out and play. What does she want to do??
I kind of want to go to the Purple Shamrock (no longer, RIP) and dance to early 2000’s pop and hip hop or gasp for air in between verses of Shoop on the dance floor, not gonna lie.
What's next for you? We know book #2 is in the works. Can you give us a hint of what to expect?
Yes! This book is still women’s fiction but with suspense. A woman who grew up in a cult is desperately trying to escape the life she thought she left behind, but that keeps finding a way back to her. It’s set in Vermont in September and has a lot of different themes from fertility, menstruation, and a woman’s bodily autonomy to learning how to parent a tween, how to maintain a marriage with a traumatic past, and giving up something that was a huge part of yourself as a sacrifice to save your family.