Lela Davidson is the modern woman’s role model — a family woman who still has some sass and a sense of humor, and with a paying gig doing what she loves. Davidson pursued writing full time after indulging first in the conventional career of a CPA; the she realized she had some pretty funny stories to tell. In her online bio she says, “I believe it’s your moral responsibility to find the thing that makes you lose track of time, the thing that empties all the racing thoughts from your head and leaves you deaf to the oven timer so you forget about the cookies until the smoke finds you. Writing is my thing”
It’s Davidson’s experiences in parenting, marriage and living on the “mean streets” of a cul-de-sac in northwest Arkansas that inspire her collections of essays, Blacklisted from the PTA and Who Peed on My Yoga Mat?, published in 2011 and 2012. She has also been published in countless parenting magazines, and she’s written a guide to better search engine optimization called Sexy, Smart, & Search Engine Friendly: Get Found Online Without Losing Your Mind or Wasting Your Time, offers SEO consultation and is a founder and owner of Peekabo Media Group.
Q: You say in your bio that becoming a CPA was the ultimate rebellion from an unconventional upbringing. Then, you became a writer. What sparked that transition and made you turn to writing?
A: I was having a rough time acclimating to my new “stay at home mom” status. I watched a lot of Oprah where there was a lot of talk about finding one’s passion and, even though I missed my work at the CPA firm, I had never felt particularly passionate about financial analysis and tax returns. (But I love spreadsheets.) We had just moved to Texas from Seattle and I was experiencing serious culture shock and I wanted to capture the characters around me. I met another writer and it took me about a year to work up the courage to ask her for advice. It took a few years to land my first paying gig. Oprah has yet to call.
Q: Tell me a little bit about Who Peed on My Yoga Mat.
A: This book, like my first, Blacklisted from the PTA, is a collection of essays from my vantage point on the cul-de-sac. In the title essay, I seek inner peace, or at least an excuse to lie down on the floor for a few minutes uninterrupted. The rest of the stories follow the other themes of my life, which are parenting, marriage and trying to age gracefully in the era of injectibles.
Q: You have a Klout score of around 70. Sync has done a story on Klout before, and though measuring social influence is an interesting and potentially useful tool, the site’s score doesn’t seem to be always relevant or reliable. Still, 70 is a high score, and you obviously have a strong online presence. What’s your take on using social media to promote a brand?
A: I’m not sure what that 70 means either, but I’m happy to have it, especially when they send me free swag. I’m a firm believer in the power of social media. Small businesses cannot beat the access social media allows to current and potential customers. Social media is just another tool, but it’s still so relatively new that people aren’t quite sure it’s going to stick around. It is. The way we communicate and consume media has fundamentally changed and we’re not going back. Not until the zombie apocalypse, anyway. I love demystifying social media and search technology for business owners (and brands) because I know how much both have contributed to my own success. That’s why I wrote Sexy, Smart, & Search Engine Friendly: Get Found Online Without Losing Your Mind or Wasting Your Time. Maintaining an effective online identity is not as foreign and complicated as a lot of people think.
Q: Give me three quick parenting tips.
A: 1. Never back down. 2. Check the photos on your kid’s phone. Those memes are revealing. 3. Buy store brand cereal.
Q: Writing, tweeting, blogging, parenting ... and still finding time for yoga and maintaining that inner peace. How do you find time for it all?
A: Spreadsheets, Google Calendar and the timer on my phone. Chardonnay and dirty martinis really help with the inner peace part.
Q: How do your husband, children, family and close friends react to your work?
A: My kids are teenagers now, so I ask permission to write about things that are more their stories than my own. So far, so good. My husband has become accustomed to having our stories made public. (I compare him to Richard Gere every once in a while to keep him happy.) My friends are fairly anonymous in my writing, just in case we disagree about what is is funny and harmless. I’ve only offended a few PTA moms and neighbors who don’t talk to me anymore, but they were a pain in the ass anyway.
Lela Davidson, Sync’s sponsored author, will appear twice during the Arkansas Literary Festival. You can see her in a panel discussion called Distaff Stories with Courtney Miller Santo, author of The Roots of the Olive Tree, at 1 p.m. Saturday, and in a workshop called Naturally Funny at 4 p.m., both at the Witt Stephens Jr. Central Arkansas Nature Center.