Balancing Acts, Zoe Fishman – Author Guest Post & Review

TITLE: Balancing Acts
AUTHOR: Zoe Fishman
PUBLISHER: Harper Paperbacks
PUBLICATION DATE: March 16, 2010
PAGES: 384 pages
GENRE: Contemporary Women’s Fiction

Charlie seemed to have it all—beauty, brains and a high-paying Wall Street job far away from her simple Midwest upbringing. Then, in the middle of her “quarter life crisis,” she decides that the banker’s life isn’t what she wanted after all, quits her job and opens her own yoga studio in Brooklyn. But like any new business, finding customers is an uphill battle. When she hears about her college’s alumni night, she straps on her best salesman smile and invades midtown -determined to drum up some business.

Unexpectedly, she reconnects with three college classmates—women who, like Charlie, haven’t ended u quite where they wanted to in life. Sabine, a romance book editor, still longs to write the novel brewing inside of her. Naomi, a child of the Upper East Side, was an up-and-coming photographer and social darling, but now is a single mom who hasn’t picked up her camera in years. Bess, a California girl trying to make it in New York dreams of being the next Christiane Amanpour, but instead finds herself writing snarky captions for a gossip mag, which is neither satisfying nor rewarding. When Charlie, who has her own past to contend with, signs them up for a weekly beginner’s yoga class, they become all too aware of the lack of balance in their lives. Each has to dig deep and fight their inner demons to reconnect with what they truly want out of life.

With wit and sensitivity, debut author Zoe Fishman perfectly captures the poignancy, humor, and promise in these four women’s lives. Balancing Acts is a sincere look at what happens when you’re ten years out of college but feel 100 years from who you once were. -  FROM AUTHOR SITE

AUTHOR GUEST POST…When I was thinking of titles for my novel, Balancing Acts seemed like a pretty perfect fit given that the women get to know one another in a yoga class, and also because of the novel’s central question – how does one balance their creative aspirations with the exhausting hustle of everyday life? Charlie, Sabine, Bess and Naomi all lead very full lives in an expensive city, and unfortunately, pursuing their dreams doesn’t guarantee a paycheck. Do they care enough to pursue a balance of “have to” and “want to” in their lives?

This struggle is very familiar to me, as I try my best to balance my day job and my personal life with my love of writing. For so many years I knew that I wanted to write; I knew that I missed writing and felt incomplete – but was too lazy and unmotivated to make it a priority (much like Sabine in the book). When trying to incorporate writing back into my life, I knew that, in addition to weekends, I would have to write in the mornings, before work. I am much more a morning person than a night one, and besides – at the end of a long work day and then either making or joining friends for dinner – there’s no way I’m sidling up to the laptop for a couple of hours. When I was writing Balancing Acts, I would wake up at around 5:30 three times a week to get a few solid hours in before work. There’s something about that time of the morning, when so few others are awake, that I really treasure. There’s also something to writing when you’re not fully awake. You’re much less self conscious and much more open – less concerned by syntax and proper grammar, and more capable of just letting it flow.

It’s true that maintaining that kind of schedule makes for some long days and some serious under eye circles, but so few things make me as happy as writing. I love the entire process – from the inception to the outline to the writing itself, and then of course – the inevitable editing. If you really love something – whether it’s writing or sewing or practicing yoga (or all three!) – I think that you have to make the time for it. Because essentially, you’re making the time for yourself.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR…Zoe grew up in Mobile, Alabama. As a wee one, she would walk home from school and talk to herself as she verbally mapped out Barbie and Ken’s upcoming altercation(s) with Skipper. She loved homework and cleaning. She was wild!

Later, she attended Boston University, where she spent her time destroying her teeth with Swedish Fish and explaining to her peers that people actually did wear shoes in Alabama.

After college, she arrived in New York with nary a clue and an inflated sense of self-importance. Her first apartment was dubbed ‘Wild Kingdom’ because of her mouse, roach and pigeon roommates. She took a job in book publishing and, despite a brief foray into the world of web writing – touting luxury goods out of a beige office with bad carpeting in Chelsea and writing horoscopes based on planet formations from Iceland (best job ever, by the way) – never looked back.

Today, Zoe is the Foreign Rights Director and an agent for The Nancy Yost Literary Agency. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband, whom she met on the subway after four plus years of trying to get up the nerve to say hello to him. Balancing Acts is her first novel.

FROM THE BOOK FAERY REVIEWS…Let me first begin with the fact that my mom often takes the books I get in the mail for review before I get a chance to read them. Balancing Acts was one of those books. She’s a hard one to please especially in the contemporary fiction area and Balancing Acts was one of those books she called me up excited that she enjoyed it so much! In fact so excited I had to tell her to stop before she ruined it for me!

Fishman created wonderful characters that I was easily able to relate to. Each woman had their own story within the story and through their yoga, together they were able to overcome their issues and bond with one another. I  enjoyed Fishman’s debut novel and look forward to reading those that will surely come later. Good read and one I recommend to others looking to be inspired with hope and friendship.

I was provided a review copy from TLC Book Tours and Harper Paperbacks. Thanks to TLC Book Tours I got the opportunity to work directly with the author. I received no other compensation and my copy/author interaction did not affect my book review.