Tag: personal

Happy Friday, reading, writing

Happy Friday: I fell in love with my kindle and other love stories…

Elodie

Welcome to Happy Friday!

Alison spoke about finding the silver lining and it stuck with me…I try to see the positive in life, in people, in little things and while I have been called “sunshine” at work (yes I’m talking to you lovely co-workers), it is not always easy to do so and I do sometimes fail miserably. And that’s where Happy Friday comes in. On most Fridays, from now on I will share some writing/reading/blogging stories that made me smile. Today’s special: love stories. Oh and I’d love to hear in the comments what made YOU happy this week!

My fingertips touched its screen and I knew it was right

Do you remember when I wondered if I should get a kindle? I blogged about it, I asked Twitter about it…Hubby kept on telling me that I should (I think the amount of books in our apartment may have play a role) I decided to get one and guess what? I am in love with it! It’s small, it’s light (a definite plus during my commute), it can hold thousands of books. I am also not the definition of patience…Being able to get a book in a matter of seconds? *happy dance*. I will not give up on paperbacks and hardcovers, I love them dearly but the kindle has now a place in my heart too…

My heart melted a litte: Kreative Award!!! 🙂

Yesterday, I just received the Kreative Blogger Award from Jenny 🙂 I am still so happy about this. Thank you again! I also shared 10 things you might not have known about me and passed on the award to 6 wonderful bloggers.

You had me at hello: Divergent & Catching Jordan

 This book really blew me away and it was hard to catch my breath after reading it. The first words that came to my mind were “WOW” and “AMAZING”. After awhile, I was able to put into more words the magic it created for me and the main reason lays in the raw human emotions Veronica instilled throughout the novel. I felt with the characters, they were close to me as if I could touch them…Cannot wait for the sequel (my full review and summary on Goodreads)

You know the happy feelings you sometimes get after meeting somebody for the first time? Before you start overanalyzing every little word and gestures? Well that’s how I felt about Catching Jordan: the happy butterflies. I never played football, don’t really understand it (and yes I still watched the Superbowl while I lived in the US :-)) However, I was tall in junior high and high school until boys started to get their growth spurt. I reached 5’10 quite fast and maybe I identified with Jordan for that reason or maybe it was just that I enjoyed the interaction she had with the football team or maybe because I developed a crush on Henri and Carter…Seriously, Carter is awesome! (summary and my full-fledged review on  Goodreads)

Bonus smiles:

  • ChangeWriteNow update: I am proud to be the team captain of the wonderful International Women of Mystery, who are great motivators…The first week is almost up, it overall went quite well (apart from some water stories :-))
  • WIP update: A new twist appeared out of nowhere and I reached 54k 🙂 YAY!
  • Upcoming blogfest I will be taking part of: In February, Oasis for YA is organizing That’s YAmore Blogfest 🙂
  • All the comments on my blog!: really it made my week I’ll be replying to each and every one of them over the week-end but in the mean time, feel yourself hugged (if you don’t like hugs a handshake is on its way)

Have a wonderful week-end everybody! I’ll be back on Monday with my To Be Read pile of January 🙂 But before you go, I’d love to hear: what made you happy this week?

personal

OMG OMG OMG: Kreativ Blogger Award!

Elodie

*Throws confetti in the air*

*Does the happy dance*

*Keeps on bothering hubby who is playing the PS3 to tell him* (he is totally not paying attention by the way :-))

Jenny  just gave me a Kreativ Blogger Award today *hugs Jenny* and OMG I am so excited!

As part of receiving this award, I have to (1):  Share 10 things about myself that readers might find interesting, and (2) nominate 6 others for the blog award.  Here we go:

10 things about me:

  1. I already have one non-fiction book published
  2. I love romantic movies, zombie movies, scary movies, horror movies, funny movies, teen movies, serious movies, historic movies, old movies (I do love movies)
  3. I watch too many TV shows (Desperate Housewives, Fringe, How I met your mother, The Simpsons, Friends, Buffy, Dawson´s creek, Beverly Hills – the old school kind, Degrassi – the old school kind, Two and an half men, Cold Case)
  4. I used to write fanfiction
  5. I have a crush on Jon Stewart (so does my hubby)
  6. While living in the US, I did watch Lifetime TV quite often (yes I did :-))
  7. I am an anxious person (even though most people cannot tell)
  8. I speak French, English, German, a tad of Spanish and I know the basics of Russian
  9. I am a fan of the Klitchko brothers (really have you seen them?)
  10. I have two Master´s (one from the US and one from Germany). I loved school! Yes I am a nerd 🙂

And now the 6 bloggers I´d like to pass this award too (and gosh that is the difficult part, you guys are great!) If they are not already published, believe me they will be soon 🙂

  1. Peggy Eddleman: Peggy was one of the first blog I followed. She always has these amazing cookies and in terms of inspiration: wow!
  2. Katy Upperman: Katy is taking a short blog-cation but really you have enough wonderful posts to get you through her well-deserved time off! She has tons of great & honest YA reviews and her posts are just always so…”warm-hearted” (that´s the only word I could come up with here)
  3. Sarah Enni: Sarah has great YA reviews/recommendations. She also has a lot of posts which just make me smile. Plus she loves Nintendo games!
  4. Kate Hart: One of Kate´s latest post was so inspirational and the rest of her blog is well quite amazing as well!
  5. Kerri Maniscalco and her Write Eat Repeat blog: First of all it´s a beautiful blog. She manages to also have beautifully written posts which can lift you up, make you smile, make you think or just give  you lots of useful information on YA books and writing 🙂
  6. Tarah Dunn: Tarah has a lot of original content and features. I find her blog different and very interesting!

Again, there are many more I´d like to nominate, I´ll probably do a blogroll at some point!

Thanks again Jenny. It warms my heart to know people enjoy my posts!

personal, reading, writing

2012 – Goals, resolutions…and shooting for the stars

Elodie

HAPPY NEW YEAR to all of you, your family and loved ones. Wishing you happiness, love, success, health and wonderful moments to come in 2012…

I rolled into 2012 with hubby and his family, champagne, good food and lots of laughs…and as I checked my emails in the early hours, I saw that I won a contest! Yay 🙂 I am going to receive a copy (autographed copy!!!) of Shatter me by Tahereh Mafi! Thank you so much Beth!!!! It has been on my TBR pile and I´m so excited about this…

I like the fresh start feeling of a New Year, not the “everything-is-erased-and-I-am-a-new-person” but “I-learned-a-lot-from-you-2011-and-I-am-ready-for-some-changes-in-2012″…On top of learning from the past, one should also never forget to reach for the stars and to dream. So here are my 2012 goals and resolutions!

Writing-related

  • Finish the first draft of my WIP
  • Edit it and make it ready for submission
  • Query said-WIP and find wonderful agent who had desired my manuscript without knowing it, who falls helplessly in love with it and helps me to take it to yet another level…Wonderful agent then sells it to great publishing house and I become part of the class of 2014.
  • Start working on my second novel
  • Establish regular contact with the wonderful people I might swap manuscripts with in the future 🙂 (yes Tarah, Heather and Hannah, I´m talking about you…:-))

Reading-related

  • I am not setting myself a goal of books to read per year because I know I have my commuting time which allows me to read, a lot.
  • However, I will make better use of Goodreads.com and will write more reviews about the books I read (on there and on here).

Other

I joined the Change, Write, Now challenge. It´s not really about the competition, it´s more about the support we will give each other in reaching our goals. I will update you from times to times on how this is going for me 🙂 Part of these resolutions concern:

  • Stepping away from the computer and my cell phone…from times to times…
  • Spend more quality time with hubby (he also says to be nicer to him but it´s wishful thinking cos I´m already super lovely  :-))
  • Become more organized so that I can give myself the gift of time
  • Cut down on some bad habits and pick up some good ones (including working out more often)

In 2012, I will also continue to update my blog regularly and I look forward to “seeing” you on the blogosphere or on Twitter 🙂 because you are awesome! Cheers to you!

Did you set yourself some goals for 2012?

personal

One day in 2011, a lifetime of memories…

Elodie

2011 will always be special to me: I got married to my best friend. It sounds cliché but imagine the one you can talk to about everything, who pushes you, who supports you, who makes you laugh and who is just smoking hot 🙂 I am quite a lucky girl. This day was also very special to us because my dad officiated the civil ceremony as mayor and because our families, our friends from around the world came together…

Here are a few memories from that special day.

What day from 2011 became your favorite memory of the year?

Observations

A little bit of this…and a lot of Twitter

Elodie

The week-end was very relaxing, we did not do much, enjoyed some good movies, good food and good wine. I started reading and finished The DUFF (hard to put down), took care of some Christmas gifts, joined YAlitchat, I worked on my novel a bit and I…signed up for a Twitter account.
Follow commutinggirl on Twitter

It is a scary but exhilarating dive. I did not realize how much there was going on this little bird, how many aspiring and established writers, avid readers hang out in this alternate universe. There is a lot of interaction (much more than what I thought), interesting, thought-provoking tweets…

It´s an entire new way of communicating which I need to become more familiar with and I am still learning how to actually use it. I feel like a baby elephant in a porcelain shop and I have to ensure I do not spend too much time on it (especially arguing to myself “this is related to my writing so it counts as writing time” :-)). But so far: I´m loving it…

Do you use Twitter? Any tips for a beginner? What is your experience with it?

Follow commutinggirl on Twitter

writing

At the beginning…or how I became a writer

Elodie

It´s Friday night, a long and productive week behind me and while waiting for my tea to heat up, I am trying to remember when I knew I wanted to become a writer…Going down memory lane. Ready? Hop on 🙂

As a child, I loved to read and make up stories. As a teenager in Junior High, one of my favourite assignment was “composition écrite” or a sort of creative writing. I used to tell stories out loud (even practicing my English or German as I went along). I wrote poetry (either love poems or socially engaged ones :-))

In High School, I started what I thought would be my first novel. I cannot remember why I stopped. Here and there, I tried again. I finished one short story (which I was very proud of and am now thinking I could actually use in a future work).

Two years ago, I dipped my toes into my current WIP, then put it on hold when work got too intense or I let things get in the way. I have seriously dived into it in September. I think somebody asked me: “what would you like to achieve in life?” Of course I said “world peace” (love the movie Miss Congeniality *smiles*). One of the answers was to be a writer. It does not mean I am looking for the money and the fame (even though I would not say no 🙂 ) but it really triggered me to realize how much creating stories, plots, characters meant to me. It is part of who I am, one of my passions and one of my goals. I am glad I decided to be more serious about it and making the time for it. I am happy to have already “met” wonderful support and inspiration in the blogosphere and forums on top of the one I have at home (I know, dear husband, that you will be reading this, that is, after you´re done playing with the PS3)

My tea is waiting for me but before I go, I have a question for you: when did you know you wanted to commit to your writing? Looking forward to hear your stories 🙂

Observations

Holiday season in the country of Goethe

Elodie

I just enjoyed a wonderful week-end with my parents and my husband´s family who came to visit us, the weather has gotten a bit colder and the holiday season has officially started…

The Christmas Markets in Germany opened last week which means strolling through little wooden houses, beautiful lights, more yummy food to sample, waffles, crêpes and Gluehwein (hot spiced wine)…

Yes I agree, the holiday should not be the only moment we are all nice to one another but it is still one of my favorite times. Memories from my childhood come back:  making cookies with my sisters or my parents, the entire gang at the table on the 24th with my cousins, my grandparents, my aunts and uncles…the laughs, the stories…Now that I am a *tad* older, I love to reminisce about my happy childhood while I enjoy creating new memories, spending time together, the smiles, the little thoughtful gifts (the ones you spend awhile thinking about, they don´t have to be big but you know the other person will have a little twinkle in their eyes as they unwrap the paper).

Today, my husband and I just started a new tradition. Since we spend the holidays in my family in France, we do not have a tree (I can fight and whine about it but I know deep down he is right), we do have advent candles…

How do YOU feel about the holiday season?

Uncategorized

Dirty Dancing…and a margarita (or two)

Elodie

Sunday will be my random post day where my posts will not be related to my writing nor to my commuting…

I started last week by a little poll on where did you think I was from…and while some thought I was from Canada or from Germany, I am actually French (but I do currently live in Germany). I spent about 7 years in the US and I called Maryland home during that time (but that´s another story).

I love the movie Dirty Dancing, I must have watched it at least 99 times and I love margaritas (on the rocks with salt). Oh and I love my husband. Well this week-end, I had the luck to go see the musical of Dirty Dancing, drink some margaritas and spent time with my wonderful husband…(if he reads this: thanks again baboo).

The musical was great, the added subplots were funny/interesting…

I just had one of those magical times, where the eyes shine a little brighter and where my smile just would not stop 🙂

Hope your week-end is going well too – what are YOU doing?

Uncategorized

Week 44 – A little about me…and a poll

Elodie

This blog is now over a month old…(Hmm I should have made some birthday scones for it).

Thank you to everybody who is reading, commenting, passing by…You all make my day 🙂

I realized though that in the past month, I did not say much about myself (well except the fact that I commute, that I write and that I am a junkie for books) so here is a little tiny bit about who I am:

  •  I am 30 years old
  •  I am happily married to the love of my life and my best friend
  • I have wonderful friends and family
  • I like all sorts of foods (from fast foods to gourmet restaurants) and I do try my hand at cooking
  • I try to work out (here note the emphasizis on try) When I do, I like running, swimming and ballet.
  • I am a big movie and tv fan
  • I love karaoke (it does not mean I am good at it though)
  • I enjoy poker nights with friends (I am much better at poker than at karaoke)
  • My drinks of choice: margarita on the rocks with salt or a glass of red wine
  • I miss playing the piano and volleyball
  • One of my hobbies: photography
  • Little things make me happy (which I consider a gift) even though I am naturally anxious.
  • I speak 3 languages fluently (I can understand another one and have basics in Russian)

And now a little poll – let´s see if you can guess where I am from. You can comment to let me know how you found out and to tell me more about yourself 🙂