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Just Down the Street, Across the Ocean

The cover, synopsis, and publication date have FINALLY been finalized. Guess what? You get to see it all first! Check it out!

The main character, Katherine, takes a break from her average, boring life; a life that has slowly drained her of the energy and happiness she once knew.  A neighbor’s broken sprinkler inspired community gossip and disapproval, making Katherine question what her life has really come down to and where it is going.  Out of nowhere, she quits her job and travels to Paris to pursue her dream of becoming a writer and to find a part of herself that is missing. Will Paris have the answers she’s looking for or will she further lose herself?

Just Down the Street, Across the Ocean is NOW AVAILABLE on Kindle!

Find it here: Just Down the Street, Across the Ocean

Mondays are Good Days to Talk About Goals

As someone who couldn’t get herself out of bed early enough to go to the gym before work this morning, I thought today would be a good day to talk about goals. Well, my goals specifically. I wouldn’t pretend to know enough information to provide guidance on achieving goals in general (says the girl who took three years to publish her own novella), so my apologies if you clicked this link looking for advice.

Side note: I am terrible at giving advice. I’m one of those people that will say, “Well, I sure as hell wouldn’t put up with it. Oh but, you know, we’re different so….”

I’m actually pretty good at completing goals, believe it or not. It just always takes me longer to complete them than I originally planned. This is just in my personal life, by the way. My professional life is on point, which, honestly, makes it even more frustrating for me. Knowing that I’m capable of completing something quickly and thoroughly when it’s for someone else, but apparently not having enough respect for myself to maintain the same level of performance. Why does procrastination feel so good?

At this point, you know that one of my goals since 2016 is to publish Just Down the Street, Across the Ocean. I’m so close to accomplishing this that I’m literally dealing with nausea-inducing nerves everyday and it’s great! So, why did it take me so long to do it? I’d say for, mostly, arguably good reasons. But definitely also because of procrastination. I’ll own that and quit trying to justify it. I’m learning a lot from this experience of self-publishing and, hopefully, it will prevent me from falling into the same traps when I try to publish my next book.

My next book? Yes, my next book. I’ve started work on another novel and I am both excited and exhausted. It feels incredible to finally have a new project to work on – especially one that has been slowly developing in my mind for the last couple of years. At this point I’ve written maybe, ten pages? But I’ll never get over that magical feeling when a story goes from just existing in your head to coming alive on paper. That is why I write, to see my characters literally come to life right before my eyes. My goal for this story is to finish the first draft this year. It feels somewhat daunting, especially since I haven’t finished something in you know how long. But more than daunting, writing makes me feel alive and, since working on this new story, I have felt happier and more content than I have in some time. Writing is magic.

I have other goals as well. I want to work on my professional growth and I’m exploring options for what that might mean. I also want to maintain my fitness goals. I’ve been steadily going to the gym since April 2018 and the difference it has made in my life is huge. So far I’ve been doing a good job with that (let’s just ignore the incident this morning).

People say to set small goals for yourself to help you accomplish a larger goal. I’ve found this to be true. It helps deal with procrastination. In fact, it’s the only thing I’ve found that helps me stay focused. I can’t do daily goals, but I can do weekly goals. Instead of setting a goal to write a paragraph every day, it might be to write a page every week. Instead of telling myself that today I’m going to the gym, I’ll say just make sure you go four times this week. That gives me room to have a couple days a week to say, “I don’t feel like it,” and plop myself on the couch in front of my TV without feeling guilty about it. This is what I’ve started to incorporate in my life, slowly at first, and then to more and more things that I want to achieve and it has worked wonders for me. But like I said earlier, “Oh, but, you know, we’re different so…” who knows what will work for you.

I’m ready for 2019 and I’m ready for the challenges it will bring. Let’s just hope I don’t look back at this post six months from now, laugh, and say, “Girl, you were one crazy lady.”

Some Things You Should Know About My Book

Making the decision to self-publish my novella, Just Down the Street, Across the Ocean,  has been one of the most freeing decisions of my life.

I finished the first draft of my novella exactly three years ago (January 2016) and it has been nothing but a long, tenuous journey since. I’ve edited and rewritten it so many times in the past three years that I’ve lost count. Back in January 2018 I told myself that enough was enough and I was going to finally self-publish; and here we are, a year later (and a couple more rewrites) and I’m finally doing it. (It doesn’t matter how long it takes do something, right? As long as it eventually gets done? Right? Right?!)

Rather than focus on my writing journey for this first post, I thought I’d share with you just a couple things that I want you to know about Just Down the Street, Across the Ocean.

Inspiration. I wrote this story to have an excuse to go to Paris. Ok, not really, but it sure gave me a great excuse to go back. This may be cliche (oh, it definitely is), but Paris is my favorite city and I knew I needed to write a story to pay homage to the birthplace to so many pieces of art and works of literature. I am well aware that this is not unique. It has been done hundreds of times and probably will continue to be done a hundred times more. But rather than get bogged down by all the different takes of Paris by all the different authors, I find them invigorating. It was a community and a collection I wanted to be a part of. Just Down the Street, Across the Ocean isn’t “just another” story that takes place in Paris, it is an addition to the ever -growing series of love letters that authors have dedicated to that beautiful city.

The prose. Look, I hate being told what to do. I especially hate being told how I’m supposed to imagine the appearance of a character five chapters after the character has been introduced. Too late, man, Becky is short with brown hair now and there’s nothing you can do about it (not even mentioning her golden locks every chapter until the end of the book). One of my biggest annoyances as a reader is when I would come across a book that contained too much description. Unless the exact number of freckles on Becky’s face is a metaphor for the number of months it will take to get her life together, why is it important to me? And I know a lot of people love prose that is full of detail and description, and that’s ok. I’m just not one of those people. So, I approached my story with the question – how can I be as ambiguous as possible and still get my point across? To no one’s surprise (just kidding, I was floored), the first draft was far too vague. After many rewrites, here is some of the ambiguity that remains and why:

  • Character description – there is none. It was important for me for readers to be able to imagine my characters to look however they wanted. No one in the story cares about whether the main character in the story is tall, short, fat, slim, muscular, brunette, or blonde, etc., why should you? In this story, the appearance or build of each character adds nothing. I imagine each character a certain way and you will imagine them your own.
  • Character names – there is one. The main character, Katherine, is the only character who gets a name. Every other character is referred to as the role that they play in her life.This was essential because it hones in the focus even more so on her character development. It was meant as a statement, “this story is about Katherine, what she is going through, and what she would always inevitably go through no matter who the other people in her life were.”    

Let me be clear, this is an experiment. I have no idea whether it will be successful or not. I’ve had many people tell me to add more, but, being my stubborn self, I have argued against it. Will I ever do it again? Probably not. Writing a whole story and only referring to characters by their roles was hard!

That’s it. I don’t want to give too much more away, but this story was a passion project for me. I’m incredibly excited and overly nervous to finally be releasing it out into the world. With the publication of this novella, I’m freeing up headspace for my next story and, I guess also kind of just as importantly, achieving a lifelong dream of becoming a published author.

You can find my book here.