Blogging

A blast from the past

Elodie

Thank you again so much Kat for this award! I am now going to be able to showcase some of my past posts which can fit the seven provided headlines.

Let me tell you something, it´s really not that easy but it´s fun to look back 😀 I have been blogging since September 10th, 2011, so not a year yet but keeping this blog updated is really amazing. Not only did I meet wonderful people, I am also having a blast with it!

Most Beautiful Piece
This one is beautiful to my heart because this is the post with which I shared a few pictures of my wedding.
Published on 29th December 2011
Most Helpful Piece
My hubby wrote that one and many other writers commented how they would share it with their significant others. Reading it always makes me smile.
Published on May 3rd, 2012
Most Popular Piece
If I am looking at the one which received the most comments (almost 100! well counting my replies I think but still :D) , it would be the flash fiction I did for the Campaigner Challenge. It was also the first flash fiction I ever wrote.
Published on February 20th, 2012
Most Controversial Piece
 The one where I wonder about vocabulary and how going through revising makes me think about the words we use in our YA novels.
Published on March 5th, 2012
Most Surprisingly Successful Piece
I was overwhelmed by the positive response and by the amount of comments this one post received. This is the one where I reveal my first name and no longer go by “commutinggirl” only.
Published on January 11th, 2012
Most Underrated Piece
I really enjoyed writing this piece but it was published before I had a lot lot of followers…And  I do still ask myself the same question from times to times…
Published on November 14th, 2011
Most Pride-Worthy Piece
This one is more a pride-worthy moment captured in a post :D…it´s the post I published after finishing the first draft of my first WiP…
Published on January 15th, 2012
And here now the seven bloggers I pass on the award to because I cannot wait to see what they come up with 😀
  •  Jaime Morrow (YA Writer and Reader + wonderful Critique Partner)
  • Katy Upperman (Musings of An Aspiring Young Adult Author)
  • Jessica (Jessica Love – Writes, Reads, Rocks)
  • Rebecca Behrens
  • Alison (Left Brained by Day – Write Brained, all the time)
  • Tracey (Words on Paper)
  • Christa (Christa rambles and writes)
Observations, personal, reading, revising, writing

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder…

Elodie

                                                                                                  Source: guidetomenhattan.com via Rachel on Pinterest

When one thinks about artists in the spotlight, very rarely will the word “writer” come up. And sure, J.K. Rowling, Stephen King and others do not grace the pages of US Weekly or People Magazine every week. TV channels may not discuss their latest book at length like they may do with the latest performance of whatever actor…but writers like any other artists put their souls out there.

Reviews.

They´re everywhere.

You cannot entirely hide from them.

                                                                                                                                      Source: xkcd.com via Michael on Pinterest

They come from within, from our wonderful critique partners, our great beta-readers. Then, from agents, possible editors and then from the readers themselves.

After reading this post by Shannon (if you haven´t read it, you definitely take a look :D, I´ll wait) and a comment by Christa on my post from last week, it hit me both as a writer and as a reader: Not everyone will like my work. Not everyone likes the books I could not put down. Of course we know it but there is a moment where it seems to become more real.

And then, I remembered that old saying “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder”…readers bring their own baggage, past and taste to the books they read just like writers laugh or cry words on paper.

Getting published is really putting yourself out there, in the big big, sometimes scary world. There is no “Dealing with reviews for dummies”.

I checked one of my favorite books on Goodreads.com, The Ripening Seed by Colette and it has quite a bit of bad reviews. At the beginning I got a bit distracted thinking how is it possible? Can´t people see the art? The beauty of her words? The cynical look at the bourgeoisie world while still going through the motions of growing up? There are also great reviews of this story but usually the eye has a tendency to focus on the negative. But all the negative reviews of the world will not take away the feeling of awe I had while reading my mother´s copy of this book as a teenager or the flutters in my heart as I reread it years later. What should matter to me the most is how I felt about something.

As writers, we owe it to ourselves to go the extra-step, the scary step in our writing (like I mentioned in my Monday post last week) but then we´re standing out there naked. And let´s face it, being naked in front of possibly millions of people reading your words is SCARY.
So, I think we also need to protect ourselves once our words are out there. We need to have a safe place we can go to and need to know that yes we may be awkward in dealing with all this but what is important is that at the end of the day, we remember that we had the courage to go in the big scary world, that some did love our words and that, sometimes as a reader and as a writer, it is ok to just do that:

….as long as we walk with our heads high the next day and continue to be happy with our tastes as readers and proud of our words as writers.

Oh and if I ever get published and start freaking out, can someone remind me of this post? 😀

Looking forward to reading your thoughts on this!

Happy Friday, revising, writing

Happy Friday #19 – Stories, books and awards!

Elodie

Yay, it´s time for Happy Friday 😀 Looking forward to know what made you smile this week!

Writing: I reached 13000 words in ONE, TWO, THREE (my YA contemporary WiP) and I am happy to report that my main character is getting a very short break this chapter (yay!) but one of her new friends is in big trouble. I am loving this story and I am very happy that I pushed forward even if picking up after my holidays was a tad difficult because it´s really moving along. Plus I got feedback from Jaime and it will definitely help me tighten up future chapters as well (so again YAY!) And, she sent me more chapters to look at and I am super excited about it!

Reading: This week, I finished THE SELECTION and I thoroughly enjoyed this book, I am really anticipating the sequel. Here´s what I wrote about it on Goodreads:

America Singer´s story is one which pulled me in from the beginning…Maybe I wanted to know more about the world it was taking place in but overall, I really loved that story. I have a thing for books which make me love ALL characters and this one did. I loved her sister, her brother…I enjoyed getting to know some of the other girls…And there are the boys. Yes, boys 😀 The love triangle is so very nicely done that I am not sure which one I prefer! Already looking forward to Book number 2!

And on a total unrelated reading note, I now own all books from Karen Rose. See, Karen (I don´t think she knows I am calling her by her first name :D) is my little guilty pleasure reading. Her books are considered Romantic Suspense and they´re scary, sexy and steamy.

I completed my collection this week and that definitely made me smile 😀

Blogging awards:  I have received several awards this week (and one during my honeymoon). So huge thanks to Kat from My Writing Journey for the 7×7 link award, to Carissa Taylor for The Sunshine Award and to Heather from Adventures in Writer land for Create-spiration blog award. You ladies are all so kind! It warms up my heart to know that you enjoy my blog so Merci! Danke! Thank you! 😀

Cover reveals: There were a lot of amazing cover reveals this week but in case you haven´t seen, here´s the cover of TAKEN by Erin Bowman and DUALED by Elsie Chapman (for the summary of the books, just click on the cover, don´t they sound amazing? :D)

               

Randomness: Ok, I had an OMG moment this week I have to share with you when I noticed in my stats someone from Random House came on my blog. I know maybe one of my regular readers may work there but in my dreams, it was an editor who stumbled into my blog, loved it and is about to give me a call 😀 One can dream, right?

So, tell me what made you smile this week?

personal

Road trip – it´s all about the food…

Elodie

Food. I love it. All types of food. Really. And Chemical Engineer feels the same way. So on our road trip/honeymoon, we knew there would be lots of eating and lots of different type of food (homemade by our dear friends, fast food on the road and restaurants in the towns we stayed at…).

And…we were not disappointed 😀

My favorite fast food restaurant was WAFFLE HOUSE.

I miss it here in Germany, really, their Texas Melt is just too yummy 😀

When it comes to restaurants, well while we loved all restaurants we went to, Delmenico´s in NYC stood out. This steakhouse had everything: a NYC history (it´s considered a “classic”), an interesting atmosphere (including some people celebrating a birthday, students, a basketball player and Wall Street bankers), a funny waiter and great great great food!

The restaurant (2)
The restaurant…
Yummy filet mignon
Those potatoes…I have no words
THE dessert 🙂

So tell me, what is your favorite food while on the road?

personal, Road Trip Wednesday

Summer after graduation…

Elodie

Road Trip Wednesday is a ‘Blog Carnival,’ where YA Highway’s contributors post a weekly writing- or reading-related question and answer it on our own blogs. You can hop from destination to destination and get everybody’s unique take on the topic.

This Week’s Topic: In preparation for our Bookmobile discussion of Kody Keplinger’s A MIDSUMMER’S NIGHTMARE, how did you spend/how will you spend the summer after graduation?

In France, we don´t really have a graduation: no ceremony at school, no wearing a cap and gown, no big prom celebrating the end of the year. What we do have are those really hard exams called Baccalauréat. During the last two years of High School, depending on your major, you have to take national exams on many. many, many subjects. I went to pick up my results with my dad…I still remember searching my name in the pass section. I was there and with honors (yay!).

The month of July after my High School graduation was spent working where my dad worked, filing a lot and in August, I think I went on holidays with my parents  there (it´s in the Pyrenees, close to Spain and we used to go every winter and every summer) :

This is a postcard clearly showing Winter so you´ve got to imagine how it looks during the Summer time 😀

And then I went to spend some time at my sister´s (also in the South but close to St-Tropez)

This picture was not taken right after my HS graduation but in 2003 probably 😀

Some very random memories from this particular summer:

  1. The pair of the jeans of the girl I was working with. She had kind of expensive jeans and I thought maybe I could buy some like hers with my money. I never did.
  2. It was hot in the small office but the radio we listened to made me smile very often.
  3. Feeling all grown-up going in to work with my dad – I babysat before but this was different somehow…
  4. Getting drunk for the first time (17/18 was kind of a late bloomer) –> and at the age of 30, I still wonder if it´s ok for my parents to read this even though I´ve gotten a tad too much to drink a bit more since then!
  5. Turning 18 (I still have the empty bottle of Champagne from that day, it was biiiig)
  6. Spending  fun times with my sister in the South
  7. Waiting to hear from US families as I wanted to go as an au pair. I actually ended up going to the US only the next year and starting university first.
  8. Getting my driver license the day after turning 18

So tell me, what was your very first job?

 

Books, reading, Top Ten Tuesday

Top Ten Books On My Summer TBR List

Elodie

This Top Ten Tuesday feature is hosted by The Broke and the Bookish and I first came across it on Jaime´s blog. It´s a lot of fun and they post the topics way in advance!

Top Ten Books On My Summer TBR List

All summaries kindly provided by Goodreads…

The following books were written by authors I was lucky enough to hear at the Teen Author Carnival and I suddenly have an urge to read some of their works. This is just a sample, after this event my TBR might have to go a tad crazy and might officially explode with new books 😀

1. The Near Witch by Victoria Schwab: The Near Witch is only an old story told to frighten children.If the wind calls at night, you must not listen.The wind is lonely, and always looking for company. And there are no strangers in the town of Near. These are the truths that Lexi has heard all her life. But when an actual stranger—a boy who seems to fade like smoke—appears outside her home on the moor at night, she knows that at least one of these sayings is no longer true. (…)

2. A Midsummer Nightmare´s by Kody Keplinger (I did love her first two books :D): Whitley Johnson’s dream summer with her divorcé dad has turned into a nightmare. She’s just met his new fiancée and her kids. The fiancée’s son? Whitley’s one-night stand from graduation night. Just freakin’ great. Worse, she totally doesn’t fit in with her dad’s perfect new country-club family. So Whitley acts out. She parties. Hard. So hard she doesn’t even notice the good things right under her nose: a sweet little future stepsister who is just about the only person she’s ever liked, a best friend (even though Whitley swears she doesn’t “do” friends), and a smoking-hot guy who isn’t her stepbrother…at least, not yet. It will take all three of them to help Whitley get through her anger and begin to put the pieces of her family together.

3. Belles by Jen Canolita: Fifteen-year-old Isabelle Scott loves her life by the boardwalk on the supposed wrong side of the tracks in North Carolina. But when tragedy strikes, a social worker sends her to live with a long-lost uncle and his preppy privileged family. Isabelle is taken away from everything she’s ever known, and, unfortunately, inserting her into the glamorous lifestyle of Emerald Cove doesn’t go so well. Her cousin Mirabelle Monroe isn’t thrilled to share her life with an outsider, and, in addition to dealing with all the rumors and backstabbing that lurk beneath their classmates’ Southern charm, a secret is unfolding that will change both girls’ lives forever.

The following books have been recommended by friends from the Blogosphere…and they´re always spot on 😀

                               

4. Audrey, wait! by Robin Benway: when two bloggers with whom you share similar taste rave about a book, you know you have to pick it sooner than later. This book was loved by both Tracey and Jaime. They both highlight the wonderful voice…

5. Something Strange and Deadly by Susan Dennard, Katy gushed about this book some time ago and she mentioned the following: A scant pinch of historical + a few shakes of steam punk + a generous dollop of horror (spirits and zombies — oh my!) = Something Strange and Splendid. (her entire review can be found here). It comes out end of July 😀

6. The one that I want by Jennifer Echols, Jessica shared the love about this book in May and since then I have had it on my radar. It´s time to pick it up 😀

The following two books are new releases and I cannot wait to get my hands on them!

                             

 7. If I lie by Corrine Jackson: Quinn’s done the unthinkable: she kissed a guy who is not Carey, her boyfriend. And she got caught. Being branded a cheater would be bad enough, but Quinn is deemed a traitor, and shunned by all of her friends. Because Carey’s not just any guy—he’s serving in Afghanistan and revered by everyone in their small, military town. Quinn could clear her name, but that would mean revealing secrets that she’s vowed to keep—secrets that aren’t hers to share. And when Carey goes MIA, Quinn must decide how far she’ll go to protect her boyfriend…and her promise

8. My Life Next Door by Huntley Fitzpatrick: A gorgeous debut about family, friendship, first romance, and how to be true to one person you love without betraying another. “One thing my mother never knew, and would disapprove of most of all, was that I watched the Garretts. All the time.”

The last two books on my list are older releases (published before 2009)

9. Cracked up to be by Courtney Summers: When “Perfect” Parker Fadley starts drinking at school and failing her classes, all of St. Peter’s High goes on alert. How has the cheerleading captain, girlfriend of the most popular guy in school, consummate teacher’s pet, and future valedictorian fallen so far from grace? Parker doesn’t want to talk about it. She’d just like to be left alone, to disappear, to be ignored. But her parents have placed her on suicide watch and her conselors are demanding the truth. Worse, there’s a nice guy falling in love with her and he’s making her feel things again when she’d really rather not be feeling anything at all. Nobody would have guessed she’d turn out like this. But nobody knows the truth. Something horrible has happened, and it just might be her fault.

10. Looking for Alaska by John Green: Miles Halter is fascinated by famous last words and tired of his safe life at home. He leaves for boarding school to seek what the dying poet Francois Rabelais called the “Great Perhaps.” Much awaits Miles at Culver Creek, including Alaska Young. Clever, funny, screwed-up, and dead sexy, Alaska will pull Miles into her labyrinth and catapult him into the Great Perhaps.

So tell me which books do you want to get your hands on this summer?

revising, writing

It takes courage…

Elodie

Browsing Pinterest, I came across this:

                                                                                                                           Source: dawncamp.bigcartel.com via Susan on Pinterest

It made me think at all the time writers need to show courage to be true to their stories…

  • Sometimes it is about writing in a way which scares us a little because we´re not sure we can. It seems too powerful, too out-there, too crazy, too elaborated, simply too much for our ability but we take our chances.
  • Sometimes we reach a place in our writing which is painful but we power through.
  • Sometimes we know we´re breaking the so-called writing rules but we go for it.
  • Sometimes we wonder if we will ever succeed but we keep on writing.
When the writing gets tough, it may just mean we have to overcome our fear, whatever it is. We´re all courageous in our writing one way or another and we should remember it.

Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear. (Mark Twain)

Tell me, what is one scary moment you had to overcome in your writing  journey?

Uncategorized

Happy Friday #18 – First week back from holidays :D

Elodie

Yay, it´s time for Happy Friday 😀 Looking forward to know what made you smile this week!

This was my first week at work after more than 3 weeks away, after our wonderful honeymoon and while I was happy to be back and to see my colleagues, I am tired 😀

Looking back at the past 7 days, quite a lot made me smile, so here is a little recap:

Reading: I almost read all the books which were on my Spring Reading List (I´ll do a recap soon). This week, I read two wonderful stories: IF I STAY and WHERE SHE WENT (both by Gayle Forman).  The way they were written inspired me to work even harder on my WiP. I read the second one in the train and yep, trying to fight the tears. Again. If you haven’t read them, you should!

                                       

Writing: On Monday, I reread my YA Contemporary romance WiP and I surprised by myself: I really like it 😀 but then I froze: where is the story going? That’s when I decided that I needed to get my creativity going before sitting my butt in the train and powering through on it. Enters Christa and her fantastic idea to compile flash fiction with the theme “This one time at band camp”  stories. And I wrote it in two days. And I loved it. But then I froze again: what if I got everything wrong (grammar, feelings…) and I turned to Jaime for help. Have I said before that Jaime is amazing? And that if you get a CP like her you’re one lucky writer? 😀 So yep, I am ready to send it off to Christa…

Jogging: I decided to take up jogging again. I need a way to burn stress…I started this week and while I can’t run that far yet, the feeling after I was done was one of calmness and happiness…All those happy hormones, you know 😀 Plus I get to jog by the Rhine so it’s pretty cool (and with my hubby if he’s patient enough to let me run with him)

Last but not least…the view from the train as I was coming back from work yesterday. I was tired, the train was late which made me a bit cranky (I know if hubby is reading this, he is rolling his eyes: yes, I was only a bit cranky :D) but as always, looking outside of the train window while  getting closer to where I live, made me smile and feel more serene (for a little while at least :D)

So, tell me what made you smile this week?

Honeymoon, Photography, Road Trip Wednesday, writing

Falling in love with Cape Cod and…Isaiah Jones Bed and Breakfast

Elodie

I am trying to go through the pictures of my honeymoon and organize them so that I can share them (I don´t think anybody would really go through  1600 pictures). Today, I mesh it with Road Trip Wednesday (Blog carnival from YA Highway) as they asked what would be the place of our writing retreat and the people we would bring with us (yay for Colin who asked on Twitter what the topic for this week would be :D)

Cape Cod and Isaiah Jones B&B would be a great writing retreat. I´d bring my hubby along and all of you. We could rent out the B&B and have writing sessions, talk about books, have a drink or two, or simply enjoy our surroundings. Anybody in for poker too? or scrabble? And the breakfasts would just help us power through anything!

If you have a significant other, you should bring him/her too.  They could hang out altogether while we do the writing thing. And everybody can also spend some alone time in their quiet, cozy room or walk on the beach.  Maybe one day?

I´ve gushed about this Bed and Breakfast before. This is where Chemical Engineer and I stayed for a night in 2007 and where we decided to come back to in order to spend a few relaxing days in Cape Cod after driving around for so long.

We were not disappointed at all. Not by Sandwich, not by Cape Cod and definitely not by this wonderful Bed and Breakfast. Donnie and Katherine are not only warm and friendly, they have plenty of tips to discover the area. And the breakfasts are delicious!

  • Some of my favorite pictures from Cape Cod
 
  • Our favorite restaurant in Sandwich, MA
 

  • And the lovely details of Isaiah Jones Homestead Bed and Breakfast (you can click below to see a slideshow of some of the pictures I took of this charming place)
 
Is there one place you really love going on vacation to?
Or have you already gone on any writing retreats? 
 
 
Books

Second Chance Summer by Morgan Matson…

Elodie

You know when emotions run wild while you´re reading and you´re feeling ALL the feelings?

That was me on Saturday night at 2am. I was supposed to be sleeping. Really, I was supposed to try to beat jetlag but that was impossible to do once I got into that story. I even thought of hiding under the covers with a flashlight or in another room if hubby happened to wake up to tell me I really should sleep because of that jetlag thing. Hubby just doesn´t understand when I cannot put a book down…

Summary from Goodreads: Taylor Edwards’ family might not be the closest-knit—everyone is a little too busy and overscheduled—but for the most part, they get along just fine. Then Taylor’s dad gets devastating news, and her parents decide that the family will spend one last summer all together at their old lake house in the Pocono Mountains.
Crammed into a place much smaller and more rustic than they are used to, they begin to get to know each other again. And Taylor discovers that the people she thought she had left behind haven’t actually gone anywhere. Her former best friend is still around, as is her first boyfriend…and he’s much cuter at seventeen than he was at twelve.
As the summer progresses and the Edwards become more of a family, they’re more aware than ever that they’re battling a ticking clock. Sometimes, though, there is just enough time to get a second chance—with family, with friends, and with love.

I really really enjoyed Morgan´s debut (yes she doesn´t know we´re on first name basis :D) AMY AND ROGER´s EPIC DETOUR but I loved this one.

Maybe it was because of the family dynamics which were much more present into this book or because Taylor is trying to deal with the illness of her father without really knowing how to or because I came to love the secondary characters so much I wanted to hug them through the pages.

The book includes flashbacks into past summers. Getting a glimpse into Taylor´s life as she was younger such as how her first kiss unfolded was so adorable, cute and at the same time so sad and so hopeful.

Source: favim.com via Emi on Pinterest

The relationship of Taylor and her dad felt real to me, just like the relationship she had with her mother and her siblings. I could hear them and see them. Taylor and her dad made me laugh and made my heart squeeze. So many times in that book, I tried to detach myself but couldn´t because the raw emotions running through me were too real. The gestures Taylor and her dad have for each other, their struggle to find a balance, his reminders to her throughout the book about how much he loves her, the hints she gives him are very powerful.

Taylor and her mom appear to not be as close but she recognizes it is also a result of all the walls she built around herself. I choked up at one thing Taylor says because it just felt so real. Taylor and her siblings pretty much discover each other during the summer and there are parts of this discovery that had me laughing (not too loud because of the sleeping hubby). But at the same time, you wonder just like Taylor if it´s ok to laugh in these moments. And then, there are Henry and Lucy….yes you should dicover yourself about Henry and Lucy. I think we all have a friend like Lucy, the childhood friend who knows you inside and out. And Henry, well…You´ll have to see for yourself.

This book is indeed about family, love, loss, friendship, growing up and about love. After all just like Taylor´s dad explains:

“And I’ve realized that the Beatles got it wrong. Love isn’t all we need—love is all there is.”

So tell me what is the latest book which made you feel ALL the feelings?