A couple of years ago, I started reading a blog that was recommended to me called Wandering, Wondering, Writing written by a gal who’d just moved with her husband to Laos for his humanitarian work there. If you think you can’t find adventure in a blog, you would 
be wrong. The blog was chock-ful of humor and exciting adventures that Lisa McKay and her husband, Mike, were having. I have to admit, I was a teensy bit jealous not only of her globe-trotting life, but also of Lisa’s marvelous writing talent as she made me feel I was right there on the Mekong River or listening through the keyhole at their conversations about life in a third-world country.
Lisa and the blog have grown over time, and they’ve added a baby to the mix. And now, she’s written a beautiful memoir called Love at the Speed of Email. Today, I’m honored to have Lisa here to share a little more about her life and the book. A side note here: A few years ago, Lisa penned an award winning novel My Hands Came Away Red. I’ve read it, and it’s riveting. Now, onto her memoir.
LOVE AT THE SPEED OF EMAIL: 
In a memoir that reviewers have called a “modern-day fairytale”, a single thirty-something receives an email from a distant stranger proposing they date. As they get to know one another via email they must confront troubling questions about purpose, passion, and what it really means to commit to a person or a place.
Lisa looks as if she has it made. She has turned her nomadic childhood and forensic psychology training into a successful career as a stress management trainer for humanitarian aid workers. She lives in Los Angeles, travels the world, and her first novel has just been published to some acclaim. But as she turns 31, Lisa realizes that she is still single, constantly on airplanes, and increasingly wondering where home is and what it really means to commit to a person, place, or career. When an intriguing stranger living on the other side of the world emails her out of the blue, she must decide whether she will risk trying to answer those questions. Her decision will change her life.
Your first book was a novel, why did you choose to write a memoir this time around?
I didn’t intend for this second book to be a memoir. In fact, I was working on a novel on human trafficking when my husband, Mike, and I became engaged. But as we began to plan our wedding I found it increasingly difficult to flip in and out of such vastly different worlds – the happiness of the one I was living in and the harshness of the one I was trying to write about.
After months of trying to force myself to persevere with the novel, one day I stopped long enough to ask myself what I really wanted to be writing about. The answer to that question wasn’t trafficking. It was exploring the idea of home.
I’d spent my childhood living in countries as diverse as Bangladesh and Zimbabwe. I carried Australian and Canadian passports. I was living in Los Angeles working for a non-profit organization that provided psychological support to humanitarian workers worldwide. I was hopelessly confused as to where home was. Perhaps, I thought, I could write my way towards clarity. That’s when I started working on the memoir.
Tell me about the process of moving your life from the real world onto the printed page. What did you enjoy? What did you hate?
Some of the things I loved most about writing the memoir were inextricably bound up with some of the things that I hated.
I loved that writing the book helped me relive so many good moments and funny conversations. Writing about these things helped me pin down and cement a lot of happy memories. Conversely, however, I didn’t enjoy reliving and dissecting some parts of my own story that I’m not proud of.
I loved the fact that writing the memoir really made me think. During the process of writing this book I learned things about myself – about my actions and reactions, about my approach to commitment, and about how I conceptualize home.
But sometimes I also hated the fact that writing this memoir made me think so deeply. It took me more than three years and three very different drafts to write this book. There were many times when I looked at something I’d written and knew that I wasn’t quite there, but had no real idea yet of how to take it to the next level. I would try to reframe that feeling for myself as “a season of growth and possibility” but what it usually felt like was “a season of being stuck and frustrated”.
How was the process of writing memoir different than writing fiction?
When I was writing my first novel (My Hands Came Away Red) I found myself getting surprised by what was happening. As I figured out the “what” of plot, however, an understanding my character’s actions and reactions followed fairly naturally.
Writing a memoir reversed this process. I already knew what happened – I’d lived it – but I had to work much harder to figure out what it all meant to me, then and now.
The plotting process was different, too. With the novel I wrote my way into the story blind, without an outline. As I wrote, the story gained momentum as events unfolded.
In contrast, I had a clear vision for the start and end of the memoir, but little idea of how I was going to get from one place to the other. Despite repeated outlines I continued to flounder in the middle until the very final drafts of the manuscript.
You write a lot about long distance relationships in this book. Do you have any words of advice for people in long distance relationships?
Gosh, long distance relationships are their own special brand of challenging. Being apart from someone you’re dating (or married to) is so hard in many ways, but that distance can bring some unique benefits, too.
I think the biggest benefit of all is that being apart forces you to communicate. So a couple of words of advice on that front:
Make communicating a priority. Find out what tends to work for you (talking every day or every two days, writing emails, sending texts, etc) and then treat that communication the same way you’d treat a commitment to have dinner with that person face to face. Sure, there will be some days when you might have to reschedule a phone call for whatever reason, but make sure you’re prioritizing communicating.
Ask and answer questions that go beyond “what did you do today”? I have a free e-book coming out in a month or two called 201 Great Questions for Couples in Long Distance Relationships. Find a copy of that or something like that and use it to help you ask questions about bigger picture “stuff”.
A portion of your profits will go to supporting charities in Laos. Tell us about those charities.
Yes, a portion of my profits on this book will be going to support charities operating here in Laos. The two I have in mind at present are two organizations that focus on literacy and education, Pencils of Promise and the Luang Prabang Boat Library. Pencils of Promise builds schools and trains teachers. The Library Boat goes up and down the Mekong to villages that can only be accessed by boat.
You can’t live somewhere like Laos without realizing how fortunate you are in comparison to so many people in this world, and it seemed fitting to direct some of anything I earn on this book to organizations who are working to get books into the hands of children and improve education in this country.
Carla here: Thank you, Lisa, for sharing about your book and visiting my blog. Here at Those Were The Days, my goal is to take readers to that place in their hearts called home. I love that “home” can take on new dimensions under different circumstances. As for your adventures in Laos, who says one can’t live vicariously through other people? Blessings to you, Lisa.
You can buy Love at the Speed of Email here and visit Lisa’s blog here. I recommend you do both.
Author bio: Lisa is a psychologist who specializes in stress, trauma and resilience. She currently lives in Laos. Love At The Speed Of Email is her second book. To learn more, visit www.lisamckaywriting.com.
Lisa, Mike, and Dominic on Mekong River
