The Bold Soul: A Writer's Life in Paris

The "I Have To's" have it!

I was just wondering... is anyone else out there exceptionally gifted at wasting time? I figure I can't be the ONLY one who can fill my days with busy-ness instead of BUSINESS. Whenever I am in the mood to avoid doing something, I have become frighteningly adept at creating excuses. All "good" ones of course, usually prefaced by "I have to": -- I have to balance my checkbook. -- I have to balance my OTHER checkbook. -- I have to check e-mail in case the writing job of a lifetime has just fallen into my lap (in the 20 minutes since I last checked e-mail for the job of a lifetime). -- And while I'm at it, I have to read and respond to or delete all the OTHER emails that have also come through in the last 20 minutes. -- I have to answer the phone because it's my best friend calling and even though we talk almost daily it would be rude to let voice mail pick up the call. Besides, I love talking with her. -- I have to run down to Walmart... Staples... the supermarket... the bank. The list could go on and on. "I have... Read more →

Here's to "girlfriends"!

When you're 40+ and "still single" and not even presently dating anyone, your lifeline is your relationship with your female friends. And friends are even MORE important when you are self-employed, work from home in isolation, and are temporarily living with your mother while you save money to move to Paris! Today I'm thrilled to have lunch with Ellen, a delightful friend and colleague who is just plain fun to be with and a great support professionally - this week she gave me some great advice that helped me land a lucrative new client, so I'm buying lunch! But even without that, I was looking forward to seeing Ellen for the first time in several months -- and that got me thinking about how my mood is so easily lifted by my connections with my friends. I'm a latecomer "fan" of the HBO series, Sex and the City, but what I like most about it is the relationship between the four lead characters. Even though they are all very different, they have a bond that is unshakable. That's what I love and appreciate about my own friends -- that whatever the reasons we ARE friends, and whatever our differences may... Read more →

Feeling peevish...

In my supermarket today, I picked up a copy of a free magazine. I won't name names, but on the cover of this magazine was a local cosmetic dentist. She is a very attractive person, every hair was in place, her skin looked lovely, her teeth (of course) were perfect, and her makeup was quite nice, except for one thing: she had on so much BLACK EYE MAKEUP that it completely detracted from everything else. She had rimmed her eyes with black pencil along with a lot of black eyeshadow in a very "Debbie Harry as Blondie" way that is now very dated looking. It just wasn't an attractive look - on her as a middled-aged woman, or on ANYONE. At first I wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt, and I thought: what a shame; someone must have told her to put on extra makeup for the photo session and maybe she didn't know any better and put on too much. I thought: she'll probably be horrified when she sees the photo and will want to sue the magazine. Until I started browsing through the magazine and notice that she also had a half-page black and white... Read more →

Why PARIS?

Whenever I confide in someone that my life-long dream is to live in Paris, sometimes I get really fab reactions from people who "get it" and are inspired by the idea of someone packing up their lives and moving to a foreign country. They think it's a great idea, they wish they could do it themselves, and they all promise to come and visit me. And then there's the other, more predictable response which I get about 70% of the time (said with an incredulous sneer): "Why PARIS?" Of course, this reaction usually comes from Americans who simply can't imagine that there is anything interesting to see or do outside the U.S. borders. You know the type I mean: the ones who, even if they do travel outside the country, do nothing but complain about why it's not like things "back home" or who spend their time searching out the nearest McDonald's. (Please, folks, if you aren't excited about going to a foreign country to experience something different than you'd find at home, do us all a favor and STAY home - you're making the rest of us Americans look bad.) I try, really I do, NOT to judge these... Read more →

Mind-bloggling!

As a relatively new blogger, I had no idea how addictive these things can be. I have spent the better part of the past 2 days tweaking my own blog, learning about cool add-ons to count visitors and so forth, and checking out RSS news feed services such as Bloglines.com. Earlier today I had my usually twice-monthly peer-coaching call with my two good coach friends, Carol & Christine. I just got done confessing to them that I am the queen of "finding busy work" to make myself feel productive in my business while accomplishing nothing whatsoever. And ever since I got off that phone call, I've been absorbed with this blog stuff. Long live the Queen! I'd better learn to take my own coaching advice one of these days and kick my own butt into gear. Otherwise I'll continue to be the proverbial "rebel without a clause" full-time writer wannabee. Read more →

Dust off an old creative passion

This weekend, after an absence of perhaps 8 or 9 months, I reacquainted myself with an old friend -- my piano keyboard! It's been in storage since I moved last November, and even prior to that I was busy doing other things and just wasn't playing at all. But over the weekend I decided it was time to bring the keyboard out of the closet and dust off my passion for the piano again. I first learned to play the piano as a little girl, and from all accounts was pretty good at it, though I was no child prodigy and in fact to this day I'm not one of those super-talented folks who can just sit down at a piano and let loose. But through most of my childhood I didn't have regular access to a piano, so I "gave it up" (although as a kid who hated having to practice an hour a day, it didn't seem like much of a sacrifice). In high school I got involved with music again, when I auditioned for the marching band -- not as a musician, but as one of the girls in the short skirts with the tall flags (I... Read more →

Even when you don't feel like it, do something

For the past 3 weeks I have been dealing with some minor but annoying health challenges - first "the head cold from hell" followed by a rather draining upper respiratory infection. Needless to say, what I've primarily wanted to do is sleep and sleep some more. Although I enjoy a good nap as much as the next person, feeling tired so much has been frustrating for someone who much prefers being in action. But being a solopreneur (or should it be "soul o'preneur"?) and therefore being sole-ly responsible for my own finances, it's not ok to be out of commission for too long -- no one will pay me to do nothing but sleep! One of the challenges faced by anyone trying to start a new business, is how to stay productive when you're just not feeling like it. When you work at home, there are so many temptations to lure you away from doing the work that matters... computer games; web surfing; TV; chatting with a friend; e-mail; shopping; taking a nap. Because my writing business is so new, I'm not yet in the position of having more work than I know what to do with -- which means... Read more →