The Bold Soul: A Writer's Life in Paris

Which way back home?

I'm confused... WHICH city am I in again? Read more →

And there was much rejoicing

More good reasons to eat chocolate. Like we need a reason. Read more →

One-handed clock

The one-handed clock at Chartres Cathedral. It was about 1:30 in the afternoon. I can't get enough of this architecture! Read more →

Above Chartres

Looking at the south tower and the old medieval part of Chartres from my vantage point on the north tower. I nearly had a heart attack getting here and it was cold and damp up there, but damn, this view was well worth it. Just at the bottom left is the restaurant/tea salon where I had a very nice lunch. Good service, decent food. Read more →

The famous author as a not-so-young blogger

Last night, I got "recognized" in public as an author, for the first time. I was at Carr's with the Expats Paris Meetup.com group, having a glass of chardonnay and, well, meeting up with people. I was having a conversation with Michelle, an American, and mentioned that I was a writing coach. All of a sudden, her eyes got HUGE and she said, very excitedly: "Wait a minute... YOU wrote that BOOK! The one about 'finally writing a book', right?" I stood there for a moment, completely thunderstruck. To date (14 months since launch), I have sold precisely 42 copies of my little 95-page e-book, "The Writing Coach's Guide to FINALLY Writing Your Book!" That's an average of 3 books per month, which is lovely and I'm very proud of selling ANY but it's not exactly paying my rent. The last thing I expected with such modest book sales was to meet a total stranger and have her already know about my book! Turns out that Axel, one of the group's organizer's, whom I'd met about 6 weeks ago at a Meetup lunch outing, was a friend of Michelle's and had told her about having met a writing coach who... Read more →

Oh! Printemps?

It's the first day of spring but you couldn't judge that by Paris. Today while I was walking, shopping cart in tow, to the Monoprix to get some supplies (the Monoprix, by the way, is the farther of the two good supermarkets in my area but I decided I needed the exercise), we had the freakiest weather I've seen yet in this town. First, drizzle. Followed by what I first thought was sleet but then realized was tiny hailstones. Then rain. Then a break from the rain. Then a loud crash of thunder from the black skies. Then more hail. Then a downpour of rain... this, as I round the corner on the final stretch to the store, trying to keep my umbrella from flipping wrong side out with the wind gusts. Another crash of thunder. Then mercifully into the store. Forty-five minutes later as I emerged, the sun was shining the skies beautiful blue, not a cloud in sight. Still cold but better, less windy. Bizarre, non? What happened to that lovely spring weather we had for over a month? Happy Springtime everyone! Read more →

Little Red Dress

Remembering Abbie

I am sitting here crying because I just got a very sad phone call from back home. Abbie, my sister's beautiful 9-year old Golden Retriever had to be put down this morning, very unexpectedly. Abbie was one of those dogs everyone loved. Of course she was a Golden and they're always crowd-pleasers but there was something about her right from the get-go. My niece Beth picked her out of a litter of puppies and both she and her older brother Steve adored her. Both of them are going to be totally devastated because she was such a young dog. Steve was just home from college this weekend and when Beth went to school today she knew her dog was sick but she won't be expecting to come home and find her gone. Apparently Abbie got some kind of stomach problem where the stomach actually knots itself up, it turned bad very quickly and this morning they took her to the vet before opening hours on an emergency basis; by that time she was comatose and her systems were shutting down. They don't do that type of surgery at this vet and she never would have made it to the nearest... Read more →

In France, second only to God

Potential

You know how when you meet someone new and discover there is "something there"? Those early days when you still have so much to learn about each other and nothing is for certain, but where it's exciting and you can't stop thinking about the other person and smiling? Where you have everything ahead of you to be discovered and enjoyed? Where you wonder what he's thinking when you're not with him? Where you're imagining what it will be like next time you see him... where you might go, what you might explore, what kind of fun you'll have? Where, when you're having a quiet moment alone with your thoughts, your thoughts turn to remembering something--maybe something romantic, something funny, or something intensely intimate--that happened the last time you saw him and you get a little shiver up your spine and your breath catches? Where, in the middle of doing something else in your day, he pops into your mind's eye and the next thing you know you've been staring at that same spot on the wall for 10 minutes, daydreaming about the way he held your hand, or kissed you, or looked at you like he just couldn't get enough... Read more →