Countdown to NanoWriMo 2021 begins!

Yes, it's that time again - National Novel Writing Month - and it's an exciting time for writers of all levels of experience.  So my congratulations to all who are participating this year!  However, this can be a somewhat grueling time as well.  To write 50,000 words within 30 days is no easy feat.  There'll be pitfalls and backtracking, the gnashing of teeth and the aching cramps in fingers and back, the eyes that feel like they're on fire.

So join me for weekly survival tips which I'll be posting on Tuesdays here on the main page of the blog; older posts will be compiled on my NanoWriMo page (see tab above).

Good Luck & Happy Writing!

Claire H.

Summer Stress Relief

It's coming up on mid-summer, and you'd think that would be enough to keep me happy.  Alas, that's not so.  Not only have I hit a writing / revising slump for my new series, but life has sent another curve ball whizzing past my head.  Although my children are adults, you never stop worrying, caring -- and when you throw a hospital and doctors into the mix, the strain and anxiety ratchets up 100-fold.  So where does one escape, if only for a half-hour or so? 

Oddly enough, for me it's been cookbooks. 

Now you have to understand something about how I was brought up.  My own mother's idea of a gourmet meal was a TV dinner in front of the television.  The only time of the year when she outdid herself was Thanksgiving, but that's because my grandmother was there by her side, guiding her and sometimes taking over, especially for making the gravy. 

I've always joked around that my favorite recipe was my American Express card, but within the past year I've found so many beautiful cookbooks, memoirs and foodie fiction that it's become my morning routine to sit with my first cups of coffee and read about food, cooking, international cuisine and more.  And for those few hours, I am relatively stress-free. 

I've also found the joy -- the adventure -- of food shopping.  Walk into Trader Joe's or Whole Foods in the middle of winter and your senses are assailed with myriad scents and colors.  Who knew that a simple lemon could smell so wonderful when there's two feet of snow outside? 

Often the writing is wonderful -- sensuous (we romance writers appreciate that aspect), colorful and chock full of good humor.  And the photography is simply amazing.  If I could choose another career, I'd try food styling, I think.  So far, I've accrued about twenty cookbooks and memoirs, plus a few novels over the past ten months or so.

Maybe while I was working full-time and commuting 2.5 hours each day, all this escaped me because I was too damned tired.  Even now with the worry and stress of my child's health, to whip up a green smoothie or sip on an exotic tea blend for a few minutes is enough to take the edge off.

I hope to return to my writing soon, but that may have to wait a bit more.  In the meantime, a refreshing bowl of pasta with lemon and basil pesto is just the thing to bring a momentary smile to my face.  Now if I could only figure out a way to sneak it into the hospital, I'm sure recovery would follow shortly thereafter! 

Here's a partial list of books, mostly the memoirs and novels because I found that these, especially Marlena DeBlasi's A Thousand Days in Venice, eased me into this "final frontier":

Memoirs with recipes:

My Kitchen Year by Ruth Reichl
A Thousand Days in Venice by Marlena DeBlasi
A Thousand Days in Tuscany by M. DeBlasi
Mastering the Art of French Eating by Ann Mah
My Life in France by Julia Child
Keeping the Feast by Paula Butturini
My Table in Venice by Skye McAlpine


Novels about Cooking, Chefs and Food in general:

Pasta Wars by Elisa Lorello
The Coincidence of Coconut Cake by Amy Reichert
The Love Goddess' Cooking School by Melissa Senate
The School of Essential Ingredients by Erica Bauermeister
Bread Alone by Judith Hendricks

 

“One cannot think well, love well, sleep well,

if one has not dined well.” 

Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own

Take a hint from Mr. Bradbury:

Don’t start out writing novels. They take too long. Begin your writing life instead by cranking out “a hell of a lot of short stories,” as many as one per week. Take a year to do it; he claims that it simply isn’t possible to write 52 bad short stories in a row. He waited until the age of 30 to write his first novel, Fahrenheit 451.

 

Stuff your head. To accumulate the intellectual building blocks of these metaphors, he suggests a course of bedtime reading: one short story, one poem and one essay. These essays should come from a diversity of fields, including archaeology, zoology, biology, philosophy, politics, and literature. “At the end of a thousand nights,” so he sums it up, “you’ll be full of stuff!”

I'm going to try some of these tips -- write swift, write short; diverse reading
to expand the old gray cells.  Works for me!
 

Ray Bradbury, recipient of the 2000 National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, the 2004 National Medal of Arts, and the 2007 Pulitzer Prize Special Citation, died on June 5, 2012, at the age of 91 after a long illness. He lived in Los Angeles.  A prolific author of hundreds of short stories and close to fifty books, as well as numerous poems, essays, operas, plays, teleplays, and screenplays, Bradbury was one of the most celebrated writers of our time. His groundbreaking works include Fahrenheit 451, The Martian Chronicles, The Illustrated Man, Dandelion Wine, and Something Wicked This Way Comes. He wrote the screen play for John Huston's classic film adaptation of Moby Dick, and was nominated for an Academy Award.