Tag: writing

Blogme MAYbe, Happy Friday, personal, revising, writing

Happy Friday #16: Twitter, In Honor and other stories…

Elodie

Yay! It´s time again for Happy Friday! and it works well with the BlogMe MAYbe prompt for Fridays: May I share something funny? I am very much looking forward to know what made you laugh or smile this week.

A lot of things made me laugh this week, lines from books I do not want to spoil for you, my hubby (but I doubt he’d like me to share his silliness…) My Tweet feed also cracked me up this week because let’s face it those people are awesome! Here are just three from the past two days…

Reading: I read some wonderful books this week and just finished IN HONOR by Jessi Kirby. This book….Honor, Rusty, Finn, the road, the stars, the sea…Sad, funny, emotional, adorable, hopeful…If you do not have it on your TBR yet and you enjoy YA contemporary that may kick you in the gut but help to put back the pieces, then you definitely should add it. I added MOONGLASS to mine after reading this  novel to dive again into Jessi’s writing.

Writing & Revising: I had to tackle some revisions concerning the part of my story which takes place in 16th century France. I am not  100% done but it’s getting there. When it comes to my YA contemporary romance, I am making slow but steady progress (I have reached 6000 words this week :D) and I’m loving it…Talking about loving, reading Jaime’s work totally rocks…If you do not have a CP yet, really go grab one!

Yummy food: You know how much I love food, really, food is good! 😀 Well this week I got spoiled in that area. Not only did my hubby take me to a very nice restaurant last Saturday, he also cooked one of my favorite dishes on Monday. Yes, he is wonderful!

Hmmm chocolate
Hmm Hubby can cook

Honeymoon update: I am very excited because not only are we going to go see EVITA in NYC, we also got some tickets to see THE DAILY SHOW! Yay!

Wow, that’s a long Happy Friday post but before I ask you my usual Friday question, I’d like to share something else which made me smile and that is The Kindness Project, you should totally check it out 😀

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

Blogme MAYbe, writing

The very first blog post – what was yours?

Elodie

This month (well until my honeymoon :D), I will be participating in Blogme MAYbe. This wonderful idea is the brainchild of SaraMcClung and is a weekly blog format with an easy schedule to follow. For more information and join the fun (you can at any time!), simply click on the banner created by the super-duper-talented Tracey

On Wednesdays, the prompt is: May I ask something about you?

I started blogging less than a year ago (in September)…I wanted to connect somehow and I wanted to practice writing in another setting. However, I wasn´t quite sure at the time what my blog posts would be about. I started thinking I´ll write funny stories about my commuting and I ended up changing along the way, focusing more on my writing/reading and on the little/big events of life. So while I am still “commutinggirl”, I don´t talk a lot about my actual commute. It only pops up from times to times.

My first blog post was entitled: Starting point – The one who likes to sit down but does not want anybody sitting next to her 

What was yours? and when was it? What did you learn along the way?

(I know that´s more than one question but I´m a tad curious)

Blogme MAYbe, Happy Friday, personal

Happy Friday #15: Lost in translation and other stories…

Elodie

Yay! It´s time again for Happy Friday! and it works well with the BlogMe MAYbe prompt for Fridays: May I share something funny?

I would love to know what made YOU smile this week 😀

Lost in translation or A little story to make you laugh (at my expense): About two weeks ago, hubby and I stood at the counter of a car rental place. My French papers do not all have my married name yet on them but I had booked the car under it. So when the very nice lady asks me about it, I tried to explain the situation. However, when I wanted to tell her: “Oh this is my maiden name”, I suddenly translated literary from French to German “Nom de jeune fille” which in English could be translated as “Young girl” and in German as “Jungfrau”….Well a “Jungfrau” is a virgin. So yep I totally told that lady: “This is my virgin name”. My hubby shook his head in disbelief and acted pretty much like when his Russian mother says something wrong in German. I was embarrassed but laughed it off.

Now onto things which made me smile this week:

Reading: INSURGENT…is the only word I will put there so not to spoil anything. It didn’t disappoint and I loved it.

Writing: I incorporated Jaime‘s suggestions in my first two chapters and tried to work on what she mentioned this morning. A critique partner really does make a difference 😀

Blogging: The response to my hubby’s post  made me really happy and the fact that he took the time to write it. He does want to let you know though that he breaks all these rules on a very regular basis

Honeymoon preparations:  We are going to spend one night at the Niagara Falls on our way from Detroit to Cape Cod! 😀 We’re so excited about this! and we bought a new camera…Can’t believe that we’re flying away in less than 2 weeks!!!

So tell me what made YOU smile this week?

Happy Friday, Observations, reading, revising, writing

Happy Friday #14: Popping the question, Pelmeni and other stories…

Elodie

Yay! It´s time again for Happy Friday!

I would love to know what made YOU smile this week 😀

Popped the question: Since I started this new WiP, currently very wisely called UNTITLED, I have been thinking that I probably should snag one of those wonderful Critique Partners everybody is talking about. I have great beta readers for my work PLAYING THE FIRE but who wouldn´t want someone along the way? And I thought about Jaime right away. We have the same taste in books, we both haven’t started the querying process, I really enjoy her blog (she’s funny, insightful and inspirational) and the interaction we’ve been having and I knew that she didn’t have a CP. So, after typing several drafts of an email, I finally sent one with this title:

And she said yes 😀 My hubby made fun of me but I don’t think he understands how nervous we can get when it comes to our writing! I’m so very excited to start this process (and quite lucky because what I’ve read so far makes me want to read more, more, more!)

Writing: This week, I’ve been quite productive when it comes to this new WiP. I love being in Natalja’s head even though she’s dealing with a lot and I’ve managed to write almost 1000 words per day during my commute!

Reading: I finished reading COLD KISS and let me tell you, Erin Bowman was RIGHT! Danny is quite a wonderful boy to have a crush on…he’s dead but the way Wren describes the moments spent with him are enough to have him alive in our minds. There are many times, I wanted to reach out and give Wren a big hug! Plus, Erin mentioned to me yesterday on Twitter that there will be a Sequel! Yay!

Revising: Last weekend, I finished the second round of revisions on PLAYING WITH FIRE and I have one more segment to revise before I go through an editing round.

Cooking: So, my hubby is originally from the Ukraine…his family is Russian/Ukrainian and his mom makes the best pelmeni…plus there is that book I really love taking place in Russia where food plays a big role and I had gotten the cooking book based on it for Christmas last year. So, I finally tried (again) to make pelmeni. And while it does take forever, the result was quite good! Yummy! 😀

 So tell me, what made YOU smile this week?

 

personal, writing

We all deserve a pat on the back…

Elodie

Writing is fun, writing is difficult, writing is challenging, writing is amazing…

Yes, writing is all of this but sometimes we have those moments where we think:

  • “Is it good enough?”
  • “Why don´t I write more?”
  • “I´m never going to find an agent”
  • “my agent will not like this idea”
  • “I´m never going to get published”
  • “Ì´m never going to get published again”
  • “People hate my book”
  • “It sucks” “I suck” “The plot sucks”…
  • “It may be great but my query will suck”

                                                                                                                                     Source: happythings.tumblr.com via Lori on Pinterest

We´re all hard on ourselves. We´re much harder on ourselves than on others.

If one of your friends came over and told you: “I´m writing a book, I finished the first draft but I have the feeling that I can´t do it all, that I don´t spend enough time with other things. Plus, some of the subplot is just not where it´s supposed to be and my characters don´t make sense. I feel so tired.”

Your friend would reply: “You wrote a book! It´s amazing! I don´t know how you do it all.”

Yes. most people would turn to any of us, impressed by our creativity, impressed by our dedication…Not everybody but most people.

Some may even tell us we´re a tad insane to write when we have so much uncertainty about being published for us, writing is just a thing we have to do because, most of the times, it makes us happy.

However, we do need to take a moment to sit back, to realize how much we´ve accomplished and to give ourselves a pat on the back.

Feel yourself hugged!

Book Review, Books, Happy Friday, revising, writing

Happy Friday #13 – Jellicoe steals my heart and other stories

Elodie

Yay! It´s time again for Happy Friday!

I would love to know what made YOU smile this week 😀

Friday the thirteeners rock my world: Another of my question has been answered on their website and again, I got to listen to a wonderful reply by Sara Walsh. You should totally check it out here…And I received my copy of COLD KISS which I ordered thanks to the generosity of Erin Bowman (and due to her recommendation). Yep, they rock! and if you haven´t already, you should really add to their truth or dare…

JELLICOE ROAD: I am not done with that book but..I…am…in….love….with…it already. While many warned me that the first 100 pages could be slow, I thoroughly enjoyed them. Maybe cos´ I was prepared for super-slow-what-the-heck-is-going-on? x 100 but nope I got in the story within the first chapter…The plot is layered, the characters are layered. It´s like you read one page and you discover a new string, a new element which you didn´t see coming or which makes you understand the full meaning of what you have read a few pages earlier.

The writing is…beautiful. And Jonah is living up to the high expectations set by the lovely Katy Upperman in this post 😀

Already before reaching page 100, those sentences got me:

“We were playing Rock, Paper, Scissors,” she told him once. “I was paper and she was rock so I lived and she died.” (page 30)

“Not just a name but a state of mind I never want to revisit, although I do keep him at the back of my mind for those times I get my hopes raised about something.” (page 54)

“I´m standing between these two intellectuals while the local photographer snaps away, asking us to say words like holidays and pornography” (page 91)

So yep, I´m about half way through and I missed my bedtime yesterday because I couldn´t put it down.  I suspect the same will happen tonight.

Revising: So I´m still working on the revisions for PLAYING WITH FIRE and it´s really getting somewhere which is super duper cool 😀 It´s definitely not in the final stages yet since I know certain areas still need work but it´s moving forward! My goal is to be done with it before going on honeymoon so that I can send it off to my beta readers before we leave. You know so that I can try not to obsess over their opinions or fight the urge to tweet them constantly 😀 What better way to resist than when you´re on holidays outside of the country?

Writing: I need to organize my schedule to continue working on my new WiP on top of revising. UNTITLED (do you like that title? :D) scares me. It really does. It must be what skydiving is like, jumping in the unknown but I am also very excited about it (so excited I already shared an excerpt here and re-read the comments several times while pinching myself, thank YOU!)

Tell me, what made YOU smile this week? 

Road Trip Wednesday, writing

I didn´t go to prom but I still got lucky.

Elodie

Today is Road Trip Wednesday 🙂 RTW 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: It’s almost prom season, and since we love to read and write about teenagers, we want to hear your prom stories!

Well, in France, we didn´t have proms so I cannot tell you my prom experience from High school. I promise to tell you more about High school in France soon though 😀 I dreamed about the experience though as a teenager.

I could have talked about the prom I didn´t go to while I was an au pair in the USA and my then-boyfriend (kinda – complicated story) took his ex-girlfriend with him, well you know, he promised her…but let´s face it, not the greatest memory to revisit.

I did go to a wonderful dance: The Navy Ball in Annapolis where all au pairs of the area were invited to attend. I had a beautiful dress on and had a blast shopping with my girlfriends for cheap out of season prom dresses. We got very lucky.  I also did go to a so-called prom at the university but it didn´t feel like a real prom…You know, the one I will be able to read about in your posts or in your comments 😀

Even though I didn´t go to prom, I still got lucky…well I got the lucky meme (did you like the transition :D). The lovely and talened Tracey tagged me in the Lucky Seven (really you should totally check out her excerpt here). The rules are as follow:

  • Go to page 77 of your current MS.
  • Go to line 7.
  • Copy down the next 7 lines/sentences, and post the as they’re written. No cheating.
  • Tag 7 other writers.

I wanted to share something from my new WiP, the one which doesn´t have a lot of pages yet, so I thought I´ll go to page 7 of my new WiP and share the 7 lines:

If I´m not shedding tears in front of you, please don´t cry for me. 

Cry for him and away from my gaze.

My chest tightens. My mother and I didn´t let tears out at his funeral. She didn´t hold my hand, I didn´t go into her embrace like when I was little and had a nightmare.

My mother and I had become strangers before my dad decided he didn´t want to live with us anymore. Not only he didn´t want to live with us, I remind myself. He didn´t want to live at all.

Natalja is going through quite a lot. She failed as ballerina, she lost her dad and she went back to her hometown after a stint in NYC. She has the attitude and hides away her pain…

If you want to join in and share an excerpt of your WiP, YOU are tagged! 😀

Observations, reading, writing

The Balancing Act

Elodie

We all juggle. We all have responsibilities. No matter what they are and while sometimes I wonder why I didn´t decide I wanted to take writing seriously when I had less on my plate, I do find time to write now. We all do. More or less but we still do. We also find the time to read. We go through the balancing act.

My time is my commute. However, my commute does take a toll on me. The train gets late, cancelled. I also have to take the bus to the to the train so I rush between the bus and the train. I run. I curse. I get annoyed. I don´t always find the silver lining. So this week I am renting a car to see how long it would actually take me to drive to work instead of taking public transportation, to see if I can gain time. According to my friend Google Map which includes Traffic estimation, I could gain 30 to 45 minutes each way. Crazy.

My day currently looks like this:

  • 5am: Wake up
  • 5am-5.30am: work out in front of Friends (this gets me going and makes me laugh – always a plus)
  • 5.30-6.42: get ready (breakfast, shower, coffee, get snacks, kindle, ipod, netbook ready) and leave the house
  • 6.42am: walk to bus station (or be driven by hubby – if he´s not already gone working out)
  • 6.52am: Bus
  • 7.06am: Train (aka writing + reading time)
  • 7.47am: Metro
  • 8.00am: At my desk at work
  • 5.30pm or 6pm (sometimes later): leave office – train – bus (writing and reading in the train again)
  • Get home between 6.45pm and 7.45pm and then dinner, time with hubby and sleep…

Yes, it is busy but on most days, the train time gets me about 1 hour of writing/revising or undivided reading time. Soon, I may decide that driving does get me more time at home, aka more time with the hubby…I can rearrange my schedule to write more in the morning before leaving, or during my lunch break or I could write in bed.

But I know that I will find the time to write because, really, I just don´t see myself not writing or revising…Writing/Revising/Reading is part of my balancing act. It´s part of who I am.

How do you balance everything? Anybody else tried to write in bed?

Books, Happy Friday, reading, SCBWI

Happy Friday #12: A magical number and other stories…

Elodie

Yay! It´s time again for Happy Friday!

Looking forward to knowing what made YOU smile this week!

100 blog followers: WOW! 😀 Thank YOU all so much for following my blog, your comments and your support. You, ladies and gentlemen, are WONDERFUL! I’d like to throw a proper party, you know one where we can chit chat about books, YA lit crushes, Stephen King’s ON WRITING  around a glas of red wine but I’m already really thankful for the fact that we can share those moments in the virtual world!

A little something something:  I’ve received a small package  from the Society of Children´s Book Writers and Illustrators. And before continuing, please tell me I´m not the only one who just thought about this movie/scene when reading (or in my case writing) the word “package”.


GIFSoup (Legally Blonde, Bend and Snap)

I´m really the only one? ok then 😀 moving on….I joined SCBWI last month and already had a fantastic lunch with other writers in the area and yesterday, I received my official membership card and some other goodies.

I am so excited about being part of this and I promise myself that I will go to the next SCBWI conference in NYC – anybody already thinking about it for 2013?

ACROSS THE UNIVERSE: I finished this book this week and luckily I could dive right away into A MILLION SUNS because I just could not wait to know more about Elder and Amy. I love the story, the concept and I can´t believe I´m saying this but the way Beth Revis can make me feel claustrophobic as if I was on the ship with them is incredible!

Blog comments: I am trying a new way to respond to comments on my blog – by replying directly to the email notification I receive when somebody adds their thoughts to one of my posts and I add the email of that person if he/she doesn´t have a wordpress blog since if she/he does have one, he/she gets a little notification when coming onto wordpress.com. If you´ve been receiving these emails from me, hope it´s ok 😀 I just enjoy being able to answer and knowing the person actually can see what I wrote back to them

A to Z challenge: I am not doing it this round but can I just say I am loving the fact that a lot of you are? Lots of great posts to read!

Rock the drop: I haven´t done it either…but I really think it’s an AMAZING way to spread “book love” and your stories are very funny/inspiring! YA Confidential will feature some of them on Saturday… Can’t wait to see the pictures 😀

So tell me, what made YOU smile this week?

Road Trip Wednesday, writing

Say Hello to Balzac…

Elodie

Today is Road Trip Wednesday 🙂 RTW 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:   What images inspire/ represent your WIP or favorite book?

Pinterest is great for creating visual boards of novels, shiny new ideas, WiPs. It´s not just another way to spend time on the internet, I promise 😀

I´ve already shared some of my inspiration before, including some pictures (moonlight, my male MC…) but today I want to introduce you to somebody who came into my WiP PLAYING WITH FIRE late in the game: Say hello to Balzac!

 
 
 

Balzac can be annoying. He´s always hanging around Erin and she trips on him from times to times. But he´s cuddly. He´s always there when Erin needs him and while he may be a tad afraid of those spirits hanging out around her, he really does want to protect her. He wasn´t part of the WiP at the beginning but the more I wrote, the more I thought that Erin not only liked dogs but that she needed one…And have you seen those eyes?

And here is a little snippet of my WiP which shows you a tad more of Balzac:

I smile as I hear the familiar barking of Balzac. His welcoming bark. Not that I ever heard a difference between any of his barks. That dog would lick an intruder if he thought he could get some food out of him. His tail whips my legs as I enter and I mentally give him treats. I kneel and put my head on his.

Do you enjoy stories where pets play a role?

Or any favorite pictures which represent a book you love or your WiP?