Tag: happy friday

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Happy Friday!

Elodie

Happy Friday

  • I received an email from someone saying they loved my books. I am always so grateful knowing people take a chance on my stories and this email made me smile oh so much!
  • Teaching German again.
  • Coming home super tired and cuddling with Plato The Dog and Peter The Cat and then watching Jane The Virgin with the hubby.

  • This tweet 🙂

https://twitter.com/LauraBeege/status/694822108224962561

  • Participating in #AuthorLifeMonth (brainchild of Dahlia Adler) on Instagram and sharing this quote from LOVE IN B MINOR (available for pre-order now for only $0.99) There are so many authors participating in this Instagram challenge, so much talent, it’s incredible! I’m looking forward to catching up on other people’s pictures this weekend.

So tell me, what made you smile this week?

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Happy Friday – so many reasons to smile

Elodie

Happy Friday

 

  • So we had the snow storm and we didn’t lose electricity and I definitely got a workout shoveling the snow 🙂 We made yummy brunches, watched TV and even though the hubby had to go to work, we still spent a lot of fun times together. Plus, I got to take lots of pictures. Here’s one of my favorites.

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  • My husband is a big X Files fan and I had watched a few episodes throughout the years and I’m loving the new ones. So that calls for some nice evenings. TV-wise we also started watching Jane The Virgin and we’re enjoying it so far 🙂
  • I’ve made great progress in LOVE IN B MINOR :), formatted an Italian/English version of One Dream Only, and a Portuguese/English version of One Dream Only.
  • This mash-up of  Games of Thrones and The Bachelor…
  • My brother-in-law just sent me his corrected version of my French translation of One Dream Only and I am so excited about it!
  • As always, the support I receive from friends, family, former students, readers. So many reasons to be grateful!

So tell me, what made you smile this week?

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Happy Friday – It’s back!

Elodie

I am back for Happy Friday. My goal is to do it as often as possible.

Happy Friday

  • The momentum I gained during the wonderful writing retreat hasn’t disappeared. Yay! I am so grateful for the encouraging words and fun and inspiring moments spent at the beach with amazing friends/writers. Thanks to them, I got back on track with LOVE IN B MINOR…Here’s a small excerpt I shared on Tuesday with my cozy nook on Facebook.
SECOND TEASER
You can pre-order LOVE IN B MINOR for only $0.99 (Amazon, iTunes, B&N, Kobo)
  • Cuddling with Peter The Cat and Plato The Dog…Plato hid underneath the blanket next to me when I took a nap on Monday afternoon after coming back from the retreat.

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  • Going to walk Plato The Dog with The Chemical Engineer almost every single night. Always laugh a lot for some reason during those walks 🙂
  • Making one of my best Chicken Marsala to date…
  • Watching the last season of Parks & Rec…That show made me laugh so much. Can’t thank Katy Upperman enough for the rec 🙂 The trailer below is for season 2…

So, tell me, what made you happy this week?

 

 

Happy Friday

Happy Friday – The “I finished my manuscript” edition…

Elodie

Happy Friday

I am back for Happy Friday. It’s been quite a long time since my last “Happy Friday” post but I thought it was time to bring it back to my blog.

Here are five reasons why I smiled this past week:

I finished revising Always Second Best. And sent it off.

I did. And I’m super nervous about it but also oh so happy that this little manuscript is now in the capable hands of Riley Edgewood.

Oh and I’m revealing the cover of Always Second Best on Tuesday. You can sign up here:

***

I got a bad review.

Why is that making me smile? Because of the awesome support I receive when I do. I don’t always check but sometimes I can’t help it. And no I do not engage but…I do reach out to my support system And I had to smile because my husband quoted Taylor Swift. (which is the same reaction I got from a lovely friend). Being in any business is tough. And having people understanding you and cheering you on really is priceless. And a reason to smile.

***

The enthusiasm from my FB group about Always Second Best

Knowing readers are excited to read this novel is an amazing feeling. Thank you! Crossing my fingers I don’t disappoint anyone.

***

Seeing the pictures of our nieces and nephew going back to school

Living far from home isn’t always easy so I’m definitely grateful to technology on that one. Getting to see them go off to school on their first day back was great!

  ***

Going back to jog with the hubby.

Goig back to run

It had been more than a month. And it was hard but definitely felt pretty good. Plus, even though, I sometimes complain, I do love jogging with my husband. (yes, husband of mine, if you’re reading this, I will admit to it now, but don’t use that against me when you’re pushing me to do intervals and I’m not a happy camper).

***

Tell me, what made you smile this week? 🙂

Happy Friday

Happy Friday – Can’t stop smiling

Elodie

Yay, it´s time for Happy Friday 😀 I know, I know, it’s been FOREVER…

Looking forward to know what made you smile this week!

What made me smile this week?

…I finished incorporating the comments and changes from my wonderful copy editors (Double Vision Editorial). And I re-read the entire book again to make sure it was e-ARC and paperback ARC ready. And it is!

…so I sent my book to my formatter (Catilin Greer) today. I should have the e-ARC ready on Tuesday…can you believe it?

….and I shared my ENTIRE first chapter on my blog (you can still read it here).

…and last week my hubby ran his first half-marathon. So proud of him.

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…and I got to spend time with my parents, my hubby and my MIL.

….and YA Highway featured little me on their website in their Field Trip Friday last week.  Still cannot believe it. That’s what they wrote: “Love a book but don’t know how to promote it? Elodie Nowodazkij has a guide to helping your favorite authors.”

…and I’m going to put up ONE TWO THREE on NetGalley for a month in June (if everything works out)

…and I did an exclusive giveaway for my newsletter subscribers, sharing an avant-première of Chapter 2 (see below and don’t hesitate to share it :-))

…and…and…I’m just happy.

So, tell me what made you smile this week?

Happy Friday, personal, writing

Happy Friday #38 – The return of Happy Friday…

Elodie

I know I know it´s been FOREVER since my last Happy Friday post. My last Happy Friday post was on January 18th. WOW! But Happy Friday is back 😀 My goal is to have one Happy Friday per month at least because let´s face it, there´s always plenty to smile about on a Friday and it´s always nice to look for the good things that happened during a week.  Looking forward to know what made you smile this week! 

Over on YA Confidential: The Teen Spies of YA Confidential critique my first page of GUILTY and I´m very very grateful for their feedback! Not only are their comments SUPER helpful, it´s simply great to have the views of my target audience 🙂  (even though it´s also super duper nerve-wracking).

Vacation: I´m on on holidays since Wednesday evening and we landed safely in Washington DC yesterday. We´re now back in our Maryland home. It´s funny how being back feels normal. We have our marks, our spots, our friends and the ones we consider as close as family. We´re looking forward to catch up and just hang out. (and going to Target, yes I confess, I am a Target addict)

Reading: I finished beta reading a wonderful YA contemporary this week (by the lovely Katy Upperman). You guys, this is another manuscript that really touched me and got me by the heart. Plus, the male main character is a mix of Etienne St Clair and Jonah Griggs…and adds his own layers to the batter making him really a great character to know. The entire cast reminded me a bit of MY LIFE NEXT DOOR. Crossing my fingers it gets picked up soon so you get to read it too!

Movies: A long plane ride overseas means I get to watch plenty of movies. And I finally got to see LES MISERABLES! I´m officially in love with that movie. I don´t know how many times I had to wipe my tears…or how many times I was simply in awe of the way the emotions really came through both the acting and the singing. Loved it! And while watching, I couldn´t stop thinking about another MS I had the honor to beta read (the Star Wars/Les Miserables mashup by Alex Brown) 🙂

So, tell me what made you smile this week?

Happy Friday, writing

Happy Friday #31 – Cupid´s Literary Connection BSD, the journey and YOU <3

Elodie


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

One of my words for 2013 is “appreciate”  and looking back at what happened this week, I want to sit back and truly appreciate the journey. You all made me feel so happy and cheered on and simply just wonderful about my writing and my dreams!

At the beginning of the week, I talked about contests and entering Cupid’s Literary Connection Blind Speed Dating Contest and….I made it into the agents’ round! I’m so grateful also to those organizing these contests because it must eat up so much of their time!

Getting the words “you’re in” on my entry  in itself is AMAZING and definitely made me grin so much my face hurt! But…the journey to get there, both the writing of ONE TWO THREE and the input it received over the months by some truly wonderful people and the journey into the contest are things I need to sit back and appreciate. I know it’s not the end of the journey, it’s actually still the beginning…And maybe no agents will fall in love enough with this story to offer rep. But…I WILL enjoy the journey, I WILL pause and smile and think how lucky I am to have you all in my corner…(including my dear husband who gets used of waking up to me checking my emails, turning to him and saying “OMG, I can’t believe!)

Writing this post is making me smile …Anyways….let me tell you a story in Twitter format.

Before the contest

CLCBSD The before story

While I was sleeping

CLCBSD - the sleeping story

And when I woke up

CLCBSD

And then…. 

CLCBSD After

(I probably missed some but know that all of your messages, comments and tweets really touched me!)

And Kip even wrote a blog post about it…. 

Thank you! Thank you so much for your encouraging words and your support and simply for understanding what it means to have this crazy dream!

Something else that made me smile is seeing Rebecca’s book “When Audrey met Alice” on Goodreads.com…it sounds amazing and I’m so happy for her!!!!

So, tell me, what made YOU smile this week?

Happy Friday, revising, writing

Happy Friday #30 – Getting lost in good books and revising…

Elodie

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

So I’ve been quite the bad blogger lately. I still need to put up my list of Debuts I’m going to read this year for the Debut Author Challenge. I haven’t done any Road Trip Wednesday and I haven’t been responding to recent comments. Though I read them and love them and am very thankful for them! So what have I been doing? Well first work started again which means less time.

But really, I have been doing this *little* think called REVISING…waking up early on weekends to work on ONE TWO THREE, making my characters even more fleshed out, giving them more meaning and also more to struggle with.  I think it’s going in the right direction even though I did have a moment last week where I wondered, where I doubt myself (but that’s for another post :-)). Right now, I am simply excited to get in the train this evening and turn on my laptop, to put my alarm clock early Saturday to revise before my husband gets up.

And I’m also very grateful for Dahlia. She really takes the time to help us, going far beyond to answer our questions and help us make our manuscripts shine for PitchWars. And I cannot wait to read my team’s manuscripts!

And when it comes to reading? This week I got lost into two wonderful books! Both YA contemporary. Both amazing. Both giving me all the feelings. I will review them properly closer to their publication date but just know they both made me SMILE 😀

IF YOU FIND ME

IF YOU FIND ME, by Emily Murdoch

Publication date: March 26th, 2013

THERE ARE SOME THINGS YOU CAN’T LEAVE BEHIND …

A broken-down camper hidden deep in a national forest is the only home fifteen-year-old Carey can remember. The trees keep guard over her threadbare existence, with the one bright spot being Carey’s younger sister, Jenessa, who depends on Carey for her very survival. All they have is each other, as their mentally ill mother comes and goes with greater frequency. Until that one fateful day their mother disappears for good, and the girls are found by their father, a stranger, and taken to re-enter the “normal” life of school, clothes and boys.

Now, Carey must come to terms with the truth of why their mother spirited them away ten years ago, while haunted by a past that won’t let her go … a dark past that hides many a secret, including the reason Jenessa hasn’t spoken a word in over a year. Carey knows she must keep her sister close, and her secrets even closer, or risk watching her new life come crashing down.

DARE YOU TO

DARE YOU TO by Katie McGarry

Publication date: June 7th 2013

“I dare you…”

If anyone knew the truth about Beth Risk’s home life, they’d send her mother to jail and seventeen-year-old Beth who knows where. So she protects her mom at all costs. Until the day her uncle swoops in and forces Beth to choose between her mom’s freedom and her own happiness. That’s how Beth finds herself living with an aunt who doesn’t want her and going to a school that doesn’t understand her. At all. Except for the one guy who shouldn’t get her, but does….

Ryan Stone is the town golden boy, a popular baseball star jock-with secrets he can’t tell anyone. Not even the friends he shares everything with, including the constant dares to do crazy things. The craziest? Asking out the Skater girl who couldn’t be less interested in him.

But what begins as a dare becomes an intense attraction neither Ryan nor Beth expected. Suddenly, the boy with the flawless image risks his dreams-and his life-for the girl he loves, and the girl who won’t let anyone get too close is daring herself to want it all….

So tell me what made you SMILE this week?

Happy Friday, personal, writing

Happy Friday #35: Sometimes words don´t seem to be enough…and reasons to smile.

Elodie

Writing my happy friday posts is always a way to remind myself that even if I thought the week sucked, there were still moments to make me smile. Last week, I scheduled my post and it went up before the tragedy in Connecticut.

On that day, I came home and cried my eyes out. I also teared up every time the story came on TV. Thinking about the lives lost, the little children, the teachers, the families, the community broke my heart.

Jess explained in her reading wrap-up of the week: I’ll be enjoying the holiday season, but I have a hunch the children and teachers of Sandy Hook won’t be far from my mind during any of it.

And I think that´s what´s important: remembering, keeping them in our mind and heart, and thinking of all the ways to prevent such a tragedy to happen yet again.

My dad told me once, after an event that still brings tears to my eyes. “Life goes on, we don´t think it will but it does.”   That accompanied  me for a long time. It doesn´t prevent the pain,  or the tears. It doesn´t prevent any of this, but the memories stay, and what we do with them is important. Everybody grieves in different manners, there are no right or wrong ways to do this.

And despite the overwhelming sadness I still feel for a lot of different things, including Newtown, I did smile, and laughed this week.

Life did go on.

That doesn´t mean I forget. Hug your loved one a bit closer, tell them you love them. Every moment counts.

Here´s my round-up of what made me smile this week.

Going to the Christmas Market with the hubby

Christmas Market with Hubby

Warm spicy wine, waffle, walking around the little houses…and simply spending time with my husband.

My new tree ornament

New Tree Ornament

Do you see how cute this ornament is? Well it´s not only beautiful, it´s perfect to represent my novel ONE TWO THREE. Thanks again, Jess for this wonderful gift! It´s really so thoughtful, and brings a smile to my face every single time I look at it. I´m very lucky, indeed!

Writing

I passed 5k on my new WiP! And I love my characters, and the story is unfolding in my mind quite nicely…Exciting. Plus getting back to writing is definitely fun!

A friend receiving good news!

Alex announces winning award

In case you missed it, she is one of the winners of the On-The-Verge Emerging voices award!!!! Her story is awesome…and I was lucky enough to read it. And Alex is made of wins! She´s really sweet and talented and fun. So, if you´re going to the SCBWI NY conference, and if you see her, make sure you go and congratulate her 😀 Oh, and on her blog, she reminds us of something important, take chances! I love the quote she uses from Eleanor Roosevelt  “Do one thing every day that scares you.“

A new blog to follow and enjoy…

Another of my lovely Litreactor classmate just started her blog. Come on, you know you want to check it out 😀

A wonderful blogfest organized by these amazing ladies: Katy, Tracey, Alison and Jessica

Class of 2012 Banner

It was lots of fun! Thanks again….oh and my TBR now has more than 230 books in it 😛

Now, please tell me what made you smile or laugh this week?

Happy Friday, reading

Happy Friday #34 – My hubby, my writer friends, PitchWars and other stories…

Elodie

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

A lot of things to make me smile this week….So excuse this SUPER DUPER long post!

My husband is back!

Dear Hubby had to travel to Brazil (I know poor poor him) for 3 weeks for business. And he came back yesterday. Three weeks is long! I think I pretty much danced around for a few minutes and was totally like a kid on Christmas day…

My writer friends

 Really ❤ them! Several of them received an email full of confusing thoughts and questions from me on Wednesday, and as always, I´m amazed at their support, their encouragement and just the fact that they “get” me. I really wish we could all hang out one day.

PitchWars!…

Alternate - PitchWars

See? See? I know, right!!! Being chosen as an alternate is amazing, and I met a lot of wonderful people through this contest. Plus I received interesting feedback, which I now need to reflect on before deciding on my next move. On top of that…the alternates will also get some exposure. Our pitches will be online as well, and even though the agents don´t have to check them out, it´s still exciting. And? Have you seen who´s teamed up with the wonderful Dahlia? The lovely GHENET 😀 😀 😀 Again, congrats!!! So happy for you!

Reading

GILT

GILT…Kip reviewed that book not too long ago, and I´ve been wanting to read a historical YA for awhile now. I picked it up and WOW, I loved it! I might even do a proper review at some point soon.Really, I fell for the characters, the setting was vivid, and the story itself breathtaking!

Happy for Juliana: Have you seen that Juliana´s novella  Her Heart´s Secret Wish was released on Wednesday? No?  Do you want to read something cute and steamy and perfect for the holidays? You should check out Juliana´s post about her first book here.

So, tell me, what made YOU smile this week?