A feel good story for Labor Day:
Dawn Meehan's blog:
mom2my6pack.blogspot.com
Dawn Meehan's story:
Fans, offers pour in as mom of 6 makes light of life on blog
By Ted Gregory
Tribune staff reporter
September 3, 2007
Through high school and a series of waitress and clerical jobs, Dawn Meehan was unable to find what she wanted to be when she grew up. She married, had six children in 12 years and found her calling.
Her mission in life involves a flooded toilet, smelly diapers, a yogurt-covered TV, an escaped pet crab and a syrup-covered baby who eats the dog's food -- all before lunch. The mission also has to do with the power of the World Wide Web and the strength of Meehan's writing, which has been compared with that of legendary humorist Erma Bombeck.
Meehan, 37, a suburban Chicago everymom, has become a blogging phenomenon poised to become much more.
This week, she is meeting with a publisher on a book deal. A producer from Nickelodeon has asked her to write a TV series, and a movie producer asked whether she would be interested in writing a screenplay. Four literary agents have offered representation for her work.
And all of it started with Meehan placing a dirty, beat-up baseball for auction on eBay.
"I've never submitted a single thing," an overwhelmed Meehan said of her writing. "And now they're coming after me. I had no idea it would get this big."
It all started two years ago when Meehan shared a funny story on eBay about how her sons shattered a light fixture while playing ball in their bedroom.
The hilarious 1,235-word story drew more than 220,000 people to view her auction listing for the ball.
The ball sold for $1,125. Thousands of people encouraged Meehan to write a book.
"I guess I still didn't buy it," Meehan said of the praise and encouragement. She loved to write and showed talent in high school but never took a writing class, never attended college.
She decided to start writing stories but keep them private.
But money problems were bearing down on the Meehans. Last spring, Meehan's mother sent her an e-mail with ideas for making money from home.
One of those ideas was a blog. If enough people read the blog, companies would place ads on it. If people start clicking on the ads, the blogger receives payment.
Meehan started a blog June 29. She was getting about 10 visits a day. On Aug. 17, she decided she might get more traffic if she shared another funny story of modern motherhood on eBay -- the story of her buying Pokemon cards unknowingly after her children sneaked them in the cart during grocery-shopping.
"I would rather swim, covered in bait, through the English Channel ... than take my six kids to the grocery store," Meehan wrote in the auction entry. "There comes a time, however, when you're peering into your fridge and thinking, 'Hmmm, what can I make with ketchup, Italian dressing, and half an onion...'"
Again, response was explosive -- 14,000 online visits in four days. People asked if she had a blog, and she directed them there.
As of Friday, visits to www.mom2my6pack.blogspot.com, were numbering close to 100,000 a day. People from nearly 70 countries have registered as "buddies" on her blog.
Since that Aug. 17 posting, publishers, a TV producer, magazine editors and a pop culture online magazine coordinator have asked her to write for them. Literary agents have offered their representation.
"I just thought it was hysterical," said Jennifer de la Fuente, a mother of three and an agent with Venture Literary, which has offices in New York and San Diego. She called Meehan's writing "warm" and said it struck the right balance of "love but desperation."
"A lot of the 'mom stuff' out there feels so negative, catty and whiny," de la Fuente said. "This just felt a little fresher to me. I really responded to that tone."
Added Janet Grant, founder and agent with Books & Such in Santa Rosa, Calif.: "She invites you to enjoy her cheeky, plucky view of momhood, and you want to keep reading to find out what witticism will escape from her next. Erma Bombeck with six kids and two grocery carts wreaking havoc with your funny bone."
Meehan's fans, many of whom are stay-at-home moms, a lot of them with military husbands deployed overseas, send heartfelt e-mails to her in which they say they have been brought to tears, both from empathy and laughter. She is, to many, a comic therapist, and one who always looks to self-deprecation.
Asked to explain her popularity, Meehan said, "I just think so many people could relate."
Meehan's husband, Joe, a school maintenance man and part-time remodeler, and her mother, Diana Damalas, said she has always had a love and gift for writing.
That talent, sense of humor and a wealth of material have combined to create one very popular humorist.
"All our kids are so different," Joe Meehan said. "But I think everybody can relate to one of them."
Dawn Meehan, who was born in Chicago and raised in Hoffman Estates, did not fit a gifted academic profile as a teenager at Fremd High School in Palatine. She called herself "a slacker" who loved writing and often was placed in accelerated classes.
"I would try and goof off until they moved me back in the lower classes," Meehan said. She participated in drama and was in the art club at Fremd, graduating "toward the top" of her class in 1988, she said.
"I can't even remember back then," she said, chuckling. "I think I was too much into having fun with my friends. I didn't know what I wanted to be when I grew up. So I didn't go to college."
After shrugging off college, she got a tattoo of a fish on her right ankle. She worked as a waitress, then as a clerk for a heavy machinery distributor. In 1990 she met Joe Meehan, and the two married in 1992, about the same time they moved into a 1,000-square-foot, three-bedroom ranch that they later converted to four bedrooms.
Their first son, Austin, was born in 1994. He was followed by a daughter, Savannah, in 1996. Since then, their family has welcomed Jackson, Lexington, Clayton and Brooklyn; the Meehans said they ran out of cities, so they started on boroughs.
Dawn Meehan wasn't writing. But she was excelling at hawking Tupperware, earning a trip to the Bahamas and two vans before it became too hectic and she quit. She also was collecting reams of material. At one point she came up with the idea of placing an item on eBay.
"I have no idea why," Meehan said. "I guess I just kind of wanted to share this story I thought was funny."
She types her blog from a cheap computer wedged in a corner of her bedroom, which she and Joe share with 1-year-old Brooklyn. And Meehan often writes after 11 p.m.
She writes about all things domestic, from lamenting the lack of patience in children to discussing her battle with dieting and her approach to teaching a daughter to shave her legs. Meehan said she writes very fast and doesn't model her writing after anyone.
She just thinks about what happened in her day, looks for the funny parts and starts tapping on the keyboard.
The method, as late in life as she found it, is working.
"Five years from now, hopefully I won't be locked up in an asylum," Meehan said. "I would just love to see a couple books in print.
"But the biggest thrill for me is all the people who have e-mailed me, saying it has affected them in a positive way. I am loving that."
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tgregory@tribune.com
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