When the Snow Won't Come to You...

You go to the snow! Or at least, that’s what I told myself when the family and I began our trek out to the Vosges Mountains, in eastern France last week. While the United States has gotten their fair share of snowfall this season, we poor folk over here in middle Europe haven’t had diddlysquat. Not a single flake!

So we decided to take a ski *ahem* vacation.

To be honest, very little skiing was actually done. Besides my husband, none of us have ever skied. The girls, however, had their first lesson with a professional instructor and we had a great time sledding and snowshoe hiking for the most part.

And yet, after all the non-skiing, my six-year-old Lucy still managed to come home with a cast when she twisted/broke her ankle walking (running) on the cobblestone streets (after the pigeons).

Our visit to Strasbourg was otherwise the highlight of our vacation- what a beautiful, peaceful, pleasant city! I officially want to live there.

And I suppose, in her own way, Lucy enjoyed it, too. She had been pretty high on life all day- running, skipping, and walking into things just for the hell of it (as featured in the photo below). 

And after she snapped her ankle, not only did she continue to walk around as though nothing was wrong, but she also tried to convince her father to climb the 330 steps up to the top of Strasbourg’s Notre Dame Cathedral! (he refused, thank goodness) 

It wasn’t until we were all seated in the car that I saw her ankle had swollen to twice its normal size. #parentfail

So here I am, back after a not-so-bad vacation, but also thankful that school is in session again and I’ll have a routine that involves a little more time to relax and work on my writing. It’s been slow going, with all of the interruptions but I’m hoping to hit the gas pedal and still finish this thing before summer vacation!

Have any of you ever broken a bone? Or had the trying task of keeping a crazy kid from hurting themselves?

Yer Crampin’ My Style, Kid

I can’t help but feel a little jipped this morning. It’s a Monday. And I’d usually have plenty of time to sit down and blog and work on my current manuscript on a day like today.

But I can kiss that ‘me’ time goodbye because my little angels are on another two-week vacation thanks to France’s six-weeks-on, two-weeks-off school schedule.

I said 'au revoir' to my peaceful morning the moment I awoke to blood-curdling screams because ‘Lucy’s bugging me!’ – this was the only real explanation I was given.

My middle child, Julie, then came in and informed me the baby had peed through her diaper and her crib was wet. Great. With eyes still closed, I grabbed a diaper and new onesie and pj’s and headed into their room. After stripping the baby down and changing her diaper and onesie, I realized everything was perfectly dry and I just changed her clothes for no goddam reason. Thank you, Julie.

I grabbed a much-needed cup of coffee and sat down to relax when Lucy, my six-year-old, came bounding up to me, hands, mouth and pants covered in white-out (which I told her about 2.5 seconds ago not to play with, all while needlessly changing the baby’s clothes).

“I don’t know what happened!”

Yes.

Her words.

She was really upset. So, naturally, I took a picture with my phone before rubbing her down with olive oil to help remove the white out. I finally sat back down to my (now cold) cup of coffee, looked out the window only to realize my oldest daughter, Lily, left her brand new coat outside in the back yard yesterday. And it had rained. Son of a…!

Out I went, bare foot, with barely a half cup of coffee in my system, to recuperate her soaking mess of a jacket and hang it up to dry, thinking there must be military camps out there with less physically and mentally stressful wake-up calls. And maybe I’ll go there. In any case, this is starting out to be another lovely, long vacation.

What irks me most isn’t even all the calamities that can happen within the first 15 minutes of any given morning. It’s that my writing was actually going really well pre-vacation. I’m nearing the 15k mark and becoming more and more addicted to the story and characters. So taking time out at this crucial point is hard.

But, hey. Guess this is one of those times where I have to remind myself ‘they’re only kids once!’ so best to try and enjoy our time together while I can:)

What’s been keeping you from your writing lately?

The Birthday Party

It has been decided by the fates that Wednesday blogposts just ain’t go’ happen. So, I guess Monday is my day! And what do you know? Here I am! On Monday. Writing a blogha. postah!

*ahem*

Okay, I’m more than a little off my game this morning. You see, my oldest daughter turned ten this weekend. Which marks a decade of parenting for the hubs and me. So, like any normal mother, I spent most of Saturday looking at photos of her (and our) evolution and sporadically bursting into tears.

There was no time to dwell on Sunday, however, because my big 10-year-old decided this year she wanted a party with all of her friends. And not one hosted at school, or our local indoor park, or a restaurant, or anything involving a couple of giant golden arches.

Nope.

She wanted a themed makeover party done the old fashion way.

At our house.

*insert the sigh that never ends*

There is a reason why I’ve never thrown a class birthday party at our personal dwelling before and some of you who have thrown such a party and lived to tell the tale may know exactly what I’m talking about.

It takes about 80x the preparation, brain power, physical energy, and clean-up that a public-place party does. There are decorations to buy and hang and blow up and hang and roll out and hang. There’s food, cupcake baking, activity planning, and gift bags to prepare. There are awkward phone calls and emails clarifying the theme, and appropriate gifts, and directions to the house. And let’s not forget the eventuality of jubilant, dancing, candy-crazed children doing the cancan while stomping chips into your living room carpet. Yes it was worth it. No, I won’t be repeating the experience for a long long while.

The way I feel this morning, it might as well have been an all-night keger. Emotional milestones + class party = one drained mama.

*yawn* I think it’s time for me to curl up on the couch with some coffee and zone out on guilty-pleasure CW shows...

How was your weekend everybody?

Blogger's Block

I love sitting down to write a blogpost whenever the inspiration strikes. When the inspiration doesn’t strike, however, it can get downright painful. Like this morning.

I knew Monday was coming for awhile. Because…well, yesterday was Sunday and the day before that was, well, you get the idea. *ahem*

So, anyways, I knew I had nothing new to blog about. But I still thought I’d give it a shot. To try and keep up with newly-set goals and all.

9:15 a.m. Paris time: *Katie sits down in front of the computer* I really need to write something for today. Now’s a good a time as any. Baby’s fed and playing peacefully. I’ve got coffee. Wait, no I don’t. Finished that cup. Should I have a second? Wait, that was my second. Would a third give me heart palpitations? Maybe I should Google it…

9:32 a.m.: *sits back down in front of computer. With coffee. And an egg, cheese and ham English muffin* Okay. It’s time to blog. Right! Good!

Huh.

Blog.

That’s a funny word. Blog.

Blooooog.

Blog.

You know what? I don’t like the way my mouth feels when I say it.

Blog. *shudders* Ew.

Blog. *shudders* Ew!

*sigh*

There aren’t a lot of words that start with ‘Bl’, are there? Let me think…Bleep. Bloated. Blasphemous. Blooper. Okay, I guess there are a lot, kind of.

Blight.

Wait, is blight a word? Or am I confusing it with ‘smite’? Maybe I should Google it…

9:45 a.m.: *sits back down in front of computer with newfound knowledge of what the word ‘blight’ means* Oh, look at that! The baby needs to be put down for a nap. I’ll just think of a blog topic while I’m in the shower. My imagination always perks up in the shower…

10:15 a.m.: *sits back down in front of computer* I’m ready! Wait. No. I still don’t have a topic. Geez! What the hell happened to all that shower-induced imagination? I guess I must have blown it all on my audition for the imaginary judges of The Voice.

Again.

*cringes*

Okay. I’m a writer. And as a writer, all I really need to do to write for this writer’s blog is to share what’s on my mind. As a writer. About writing.

...what is on. my. mind!

What is on my mind...

What the hell IS on my mind?!

Oh my god, this is hopeless!

Tell me, how do you guys find something relevant to blog about on a regular basis? After four years of covering everything from writing and querying to itchy noses and smelling melon butt, I think I’m just about plum out of ideas.

Awkward Reunion

Me : Oh, hey !

Blog: *blinks groggily* Who the hell are you?

Me: It’s me! You know…the one who started this blog.

Blog: Oh. Yeah. You. *swats away fly*

Me: You don’t look so good.

Blog: Yeah, well, that’s what happens when someone’s been abandoned for four months.

Me: I never noticed how blindingly hypnotizing your background was before. It’s giving me a headache and toothache simultaneously.

Blog: Imagine living here…

Me: Okay, well, I know it’s been awhile…

Blog: Four. Months. FOUR MONTHS! You didn’t even say goodbye!

Me: I know, I’m sorry! But I didn’t know I was leaving. It was one of those sporadic spiritual leave-of-absences that people just up and take sometimes when a higher power calls. You know, like Jesus in the dessert. Or Forrest Gump. Or that crazy guy that just up and decided to walk across Australia one day.

Blog: I see. So tell me, Forrest, what did you accomplish during this impromptu journey? Any writing to speak of? Did you discover the truths to the universe? Get nominated for a nobel prize? Orchestrate the next technological revolution?

Me: Uh...*wrings hands*. Well, I did a little writing, yes. And I managed to keep my kids alive and the house from burning down. So there’s that. And, uh…there was some binge watching Gilmore Girls somewhere in there- all seven seasons!

Blog: *arms folded* Color me impressed.

Me: Look, I’m really sorry. But I’m here now and I’d like to make it up to you. You look a little tired and washed out. Let me give you a make-over. Unbraid that pink and beige armpit hair of yours and give your place some fresh air. Maybe even start cleaning out and organizing your content?  And I’ll try to start posting regularly again. What do you say?

Blog: *sniffs* Well, I guess I really could use a bath. And it has been a little lonely around here. *frowns skeptically* Okay. You gotta deal. But you take off on me again and I just might have get jacked up on viruses and kill your computer. 

Me: Note taken.

Sometimes I feel like I went to sleep one day in September, and when I woke up, we were already January 1^st! It’s 2014? Wait, what?! I wish I hadn't neeeded to take so much time away from you all and this blog in order to ‘find myself’ but, it turned out to be a necessary thing. It’s a new year, so if ever there was a time to stand up, brush myself off and start over, it’s now.

So, tell me- who’s still out there fighting the good fight? I’ve missed you all!

Back in the Saddle

Yesterday, I sent out a query letter for the first time in almost a year. Between the baby, and the revision for the agent and awaiting the feedback-that-would-never-come, I just didn’t have the motivation to re-enter the query trenches before now.

A part of me still doesn’t.

But, I’ve been wading in my pity pool long enough. Truth is, I worked damn hard on that manuscript and it deserves another go-around, no matter how draining and life-sucking querying can be. So yesterday I re-twerked (can we still use the word this way or does it officially mean ‘to shake one’s buttocks in the air?’) my old query and began the process of re-composing an agent list. And even though I’m not looking forward to the ups and downs, I have to admit, sending out that first query was like re-lighting an old fire.

On a personal note- the baby weight is finally off. Thanks, in part, to the fact that Phoebe is nearing the 20 lb mark at six months old. #worriedmybabyisagiant. 

And it took a while but I’m finally over the disappointment of what-could-have-been if we’d gone through with the move to Brittany. Life is settling back down into its usual routine and this weekend I found myself scanning old manuscripts and partials, looking for inspiration even though I didn’t think I’d find it.

But one of the stories I’d begun before giving birth snagged my attention. I read through the first three chapters, twerking things here and there (yes, I’m determined to use this word the way God intended). And before I knew it, I was adding to it, just a little bit. No more than 250 words or so. But that’s more than I’ve written in a very long time, so it felt good.

Now, this isn’t a story I think I can get published. It’s too been-there-done-that- the kind of urban fantasy the market is completely saturated with at the moment.

But it’s just where I want to be, right now. (does that make sense?) And it has me writing. So I figure, why not?

Have you ever had a project just for you? Something you’ve never shown someone and isn’t intended for publication of any kind?

Gotta Keep On Movin'

So, the move is off.

My husband changed his mind. Did a complete °180. I’m officially past the point of wanting to strangle him in his sleep, but it’s been a rough couple of weeks, to say the least. Isn’t marriage fun?:)

Anyway, on the bright side (as small and sliver-like as it feels right now)- Now that I don’t have a major move to focus on, and the girls are all back in school I’ve finally got this rare and priceless little thing we call downtime.

Now, if I were a liar, I’d say I can’t wait to get writing.

But the truth is, just the thought of writing and querying again reminds me of what a big fat failure I’ve been up until now.

No. In order to coax my muse out of her cave of misery and get out of my own sad-sack skin for a while, I think the smartest thing to do right now would be to read.

The problem is, being connected to the writing and publishing community can sometimes have its drawbacks.  Like, at the moment, I feel completely inundated when it comes to choosing which books to buy and read. There are just TOO MANY out there. Everywhere I look. Facebook newsfeed, flashing in my sidebars, all over the twitter feed, and don’t even get me started on trying to research books on Amazon or Goodreads. - It’s like those five-minute commercial breaks on t.v. where all they show is food from different restaurants. Sometimes, everything looks good. And other times nothing does. Getting hit with the perfect image at the perfect time and actually going to that restaurant for a fried bean burrito only happens occasionally.

Buying a book is kind of like ordering out at a restaurant for me. Except worse. Because I can’t just go to Amazon and say ‘I’d like something fantastic, addictive and uplifting. You know, the book equivalent of popcorn-covered chocolate cream puffs. Hit me.’

*sigh*

How do you guys go about choosing which books to read? And any recommendations for me? This girl needs an escape big time.

My Time Will Come...

Sorry for being MIA this month of August. Truth be told, as far as writing goes, I simply don’t have much to report.

I discovered last week that the agent I did not one, but two R&R’s for on two different manuscripts has left the agency and maybe even agenting altogether. Some of you might remember me struggling to finish a very in-depth revision for this agent before Christmas, which I sent in and patiently awaited feedback for.

Feedback that will never come.

Strangly enough, I’m not as devastated by this new publishing setback as I may have been in the past. Yes, I did a lot of work on that manuscript. Yes, I would have loved to get her feedback on the finished product, but what can you do?

I think now is simply not my time.

There are some major-big-life-changing events going on in Katieland right now. The biggest being that the creepy family is kicking the dirt of this Parisian suburb off its heals and heading west to a lovely little town in Brittany, France.

This decision has been awhile in the making and since my maternity leave came to an end in July, I’m not ready to rejoin the workforce quite yet, and we need to move into a larger place with four children - we decided to go ahead and find a place we truly loved to make the move.

We chose a small town 20 minutes north of Carnac, Brittany. Carnac is a writers dream with lush, green forests, rocky ocean coasts, white sand beaches, and ancient celtic megaliths. The place is rich in ancient lore and mystique and reminds me more of my native New England than any other region I’ve ever visited in France.

The move will take place in September, so until then I’ve got my work cut out for me.

In other news: Phoebe is bordering on six months old and slowly moving out of her extra-limb phase and into her discovery phase. Basically, she’s got mommy completely figured out and I’m officially boring. Old news. She’s begun to sit up in an attempt to discover more interesting subjects. Last night was her first night sleeping in the girls’ room instead of ours. And we’ve begun some spoon-feeding, which is always fun.

So yes, between all of this and the girls still at home for the interminable summer vacation, I’ve been out of the writing community loop for…*ahem* awhile, and will probably remain that way for at least another couple of months, which stinks. Because I do miss this part of myself.

But I’m confident that eventually, my time will come. My time to write. My time to blog. My time to finally, FINALLY get an agent and get published. Someday. At some point. I’ll be there.

Until then, a big thanks to all of you who have stuck around for my random, sporadic posts. It means a lot!  

Ever feel like you have to put your writing aspirations in a box for a little while, until it's time to take them out again?

How I Lost 6 Pounds on Vacation...

So, technically I’ve been back from our vacation for over a full week. But you know that old adage about needing a vacation to get over your vacation? Yeah, that’s pretty much where I’m at right now.

Pros:

Camping wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it might be. The tent was spacious and well-equipped. We had electricity and were able to rent a camping fridge, have a fan and outlets to charge cell phones or play music. 

The lavatories were clean and well-functioning and only 30 seconds away from our tent site. The campground had an awesome pool, a reasonably-priced snack shack, grocery store and restaurant and it was only 2 minutes from a fantastic kid-friendly beach!

Cons:

Even though it was close by, I must have walked the equivalent of one-hundred miles to and from the lavatories. Yes. The kids made it their mission to need to pee at least once every hour of every day the entire time we were there. Not to mention frequent showers to remove chlorine or beach sand, and trips dedicated to washing dishes, of course.

Communal bathrooms and showers also, regretfully, permit you to know intimate details about your camp-mates hygiene. And it becomes completely normal for everyone to make some sort of announcement whenever they’re headed to the toilettes.  You know, just in case we began wondering where they went.

More Pros: The location was fantastic.

Only 10 minutes from the Port de Cavalaire where we went nearly every night for the best ice cream.

And had our Bastille Day activities like the kids’ lantern-march and fireworks.

The campground  was only 10 minutes from the fair grounds.

5 minutes from the medeival village of Ramatuelle. 

And 10 minutes from the beautiful Mediterranean beach - ‘Gigaro’.

And an hour’s drive to ‘Marineland’- France’s version of Seaworld.

All of this activity, plus the frequent beach, pool, and bathroom trips kept me active pretty much non-stop for two weeks. And even if I was bordering on exhaustion as we packed up to go home, it was totally worth it! 

Missed you all! How was your month of July? Any news to report? Have any of you ever had a vacation that was less-than-leisurely? 

Do You, Do You, Do You Saint-Tropez?

It’s that time of year again! When Creepy flakes out on her blog in preparation for summer vacation. Today is the girls’ last day of school and tonight we are heading down to the south of France for some R&R.  Eh, who am I kidding? My time at the beach goes more or less like the following:

And this will be the first year we go hard-core camping, tent and all. Needless to say, I’m sure I’ll be returning home with plenty of new material for my ‘living in France’ series. 

I'm in serious need of some book recommendations for this trip. My kindle is all charged up and ready to go but I'm pretty sure I'm about to blow through the last of my new material in there. What are you guys reading?

And for those of you who go camping regularly, any tips for me? 

In any case, wish me luck! I'll be back to irregular postings in a couple weeks!:)

Busy Being Superwoman...And Failing. Miserably.

The last ten days I’ve been consumed by two major tasks:

Keeping my house clean enough to receive house guests.

Keeping my fridge stocked for said guests.

School is out in many areas of the U.S. which is great for me because it means people are leaving on vacation and, if I’m lucky, popping over to Paris for a sejour. This week my favorite cousin stayed with us for a couple days. Then my only American expat friend who re-patted herself back to the U.S. with her family two years ago came over for dinner with her kids and hubs. And, of course, yesterday was father’s day so we had the in laws over for a barbecue.

Now, I think you all know how I feel about housecleaning. Keeping even a hygienically normal house when you have four kids is downright exhausting. But I bit the bullet and used our upcoming visits as motivation to deep clean our place, washing drapes and linens, mopping, dusting, cleaning bathrooms etc…until the whole place shined!

Then, two days later, I pretty much had to do it again.

And again, a few days after that.

Trying to keep my damn house clean pretty much almost killed me. Because after about the third clean sweep, and mowing the front and back lawns, I came down with the Bubonic French Throat Virus (this may or may not be the official term).

Saturday my nose started running. Sunday it reached faucet-like proportions and my head stuffed up. Wednesday I thought I might be through the worst. Then Thursday I woke up with a sore throat. Friday the fever set in and it felt like I was gargling glass every time I swallowed. This was followed by a range of symptoms running the gamut from mildly irritating to downright bizarre that kept me on my toes all weekend- including chills, fatigue and hand and face swelling.

Finally, today, the virus seems to be receding back into the hell hole from which it sprung and as much as I love having guests from the U.S., I’m thankful for the opportunity to finally just get some rest and relax before we leave on vacation in July.

What I learned: house cleaning can be hazardous to your physical and mental health. Avoid at all costs.

And do you ever feel like life is out to get you despite your best intentions?

Living in a Musical

First, I want to thank you all for your kind words and advice on last week’s babyblues post. I’m happy to report the postpartum blahs have high-tailed it back to the swampy recesses from which they came (for the time being).

A few things that helped: First off all, the sun finally decided to make its grand debut after six straight months of rain.

Secondly, I was able to get out of the house and run twice this week. I’ll be honest. I’m not good at running. I actually really suck at it (think Phoebe from ‘friends’- I can never seem to get my limbs to work together like they’re supposed to and tend to look like a flailing crazy person the whole time) but the fresh air and time alone, plus the exercise did me a world of good.

And last, and most surprisingly, there’s songwriting.

Yes, I, creepy query girl, have been writing songs. But not the kind of songs where I sit around with a pad of paper and an acoustic guitar, humming lovely little notes and tuning here and there, like those glorious folky singers do in the movies.

My songs are more like an in-promptu soundtrack to my life.

There’s the baby’s bath time song entitled ‘If you keep squirming, you will slip and drown you soapy, squirmy little thing’.

And the spilled milk song. I think the person who invented the ‘don’t cry over spilled milk’ expression could have found a much better analogy.

Spilled milk is a serious pain in the ass, especially when you have children who seem to like to spill it once a week or especially like to let it soak into the kitchen chair cushions before, you know, telling their mother. Milk also makes everything sticky and will start to smell like old cheese if left unattended.  So no, I don’t cry when milk is spilled. But I do go just a little ballistic and start freaking the f#&k out. Thus I decided spilled milk deserves an angry, profanity-strewn black metal song a la iron maiden.

And then there’s my personal favorite, a pop-rock ode to breastfeeding entitled ‘One of these boobs is not like the other’.

It’s a real crowd-pleaser.

If you were writing a song, right now at this moment, what would it be called?