The Frugal Duchess: How I Wrote A Book In One Summer

The Frugal Duchess, Sharon Harvey Rosenberg, is currently on a book tour and today she stopped by to tell us how she wrote her book in one summer. Sharon writes for the Miami Herald on various personal finance topics, especially frugality and also writes for and owns The Frugal Duchess blog, you can subscribe to her blog feed here.

During the summer of 2007, my daily uniform consisted of black sweat pants and a tee shirt. Under pressure to write a book, I cringed when the phone rang. I considered hiding when neighbors and friends knocked on the door. And I wasn’t much help as my siblings tried to plan our parents’ 50th anniversary celebration.

I had a book to deliver and I was behind schedule.

Writing the Frugal Duchess: How to Live Well and Save (DPL Press) should have been an easy assignment for me. My electronic and paper files bulged with prepared material. Since the fall of 2003, I had been writing a money-saving column for the Miami Herald and since the September of 2005, I’ve been blogging on the topic of thrifty living as the Frugal Duchess.

But I didn’t want to write a book that featured just a compilation of my best newspaper columns and online posts. And in fact one agent and former editor –Bob Mecoy—suggested that I write a money-saving book with a narrative theme.

Writing a memoir about my family was something I had tried to do in the past. And over the years, I had spent a lot of time interviewing my parents about their lives during the Depression. What’s more, I had amazing stories about my grandmothers – two African- American women who led unusual lives. One grandmother was a preacher and the other grandmother was a Southern Belle. Both women left their respective husbands and children to pursue their dreams and fantasies.

For years, I’ve been obsessed with my grandmothers. And since the 1980s, I’ve written fiction, creative nonfiction and poems about my grandmothers and the extended family. But merging the family stories with frugal-living tips proved to be a challenge: Here’s how I did it.

• Find a narrative theme: The homes of my childhood and the ancestral homes of my family provided a framework for the personal stories and the money-saving tips. By focusing on real estate, I found a topic that easily yielded to nostalgia and money.
• Take personal inventory: My fascination with a “dream home,” (a $2.6 million structure in the neighborhood) also provided a door into other topics, including parenting, working and shopping.
• Look for humor: I began to seek out and collect funny stories that would give the book additional shape and texture.
• Relax: The structure of the story actually came to me as I was sitting in the audience of a children’s play. I scribbled a rough outline on the back of the program. Taking a break to watch the play with my daughter provided a creative break through.
• Develop a working rhythm: A daily schedule with small goals helped me to stay disciplined and on task. Every day I had a date with a deadline.
• Get feedback from others: I kept the early drafts private, but after I was comfortable with the manuscript, I asked for feedback from friends and family. The editorial staff at DPL press also provided valuable insights.

When the summer of 2007 ended, I was several pounds heavier. Sitting and writing for hours and hours each day pushed me higher on the weight scales. But I gained more than pounds; I also gained a book. My new goal: Keep writing, save money and lose weight.

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You are invited to Sharon’s book party at Hue-Man Bookstore & Cafe in New York City.

Details below.

“Award-winning journalist Sharon Harvey Rosenberg shares how she lives a life of high style without the stress of high costs or deprivation. In The Frugal Duchess of South Beach (DPL Press, $14.95), she chronicles her often hilarious journey of luxury living for less in one of the most expensive cities in the U.S., while equipping readers with the tools they can use in their own cities.” –Books & Books

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What I Learned about Money from Writing a Book
Lessons Learned from a Photo Shoot

What questions do you have for The Frugal Duchess and her book?