Is "Talent" A Dirty Word?

Shortly after I read the report card of my 14 year old daughter, I was breathing fire.

Her art teacher commented for a paragraph about how my daughter was an interested student who took enthusiastic participation in her classes. Then she wrote, "Camille has some talent at art"...

...and that's the exact moment when flames spontaneously shot out of my esophagus.

"What is that supposed to mean?" I demanded the ambient air. "Some talent? Is that the level between "ripe with talent" and "no talent"?

I've never met this art teacher but I was appalled. Who appointed her the judge of "talent" for a group of Grade 8s? God? Herself? The ghost of Leondardo da Vinci?

I'm perfectly fine with an art teacher commenting on my child's output, her paying attention (or not) in class, her creative evolution, etc. etc. but I take exception with a teacher commenting on a student's "talent", or perceived lack thereof.

Once I had calmed down (roughly two days and three tablets of chocolate later) I asked myself, is talent truly such a dirty word?

Yes, I concluded. It is.

One thing that annoys the hell out of me about "talent" is that it is such a passive notion. There is a perception that if you have talent, you don't need to work hard, and that if you don't have talent, there is no point in working anyway.

Few people lack the requisite modesty (Kanye West being a vastly entertaining exception to his rule) to declare themselves talented. That means the huge majority of people are waiting around for someone else - an agent, a gallery owner, a reviewer, or a theatre critic art - to decree how much talent they possess.

From what I have seen, one thing all successful creatives have in common is fricking hard work. Their success comes from an epic amount of time and energy invested in front of a canvas, or their French Horn, or a Word document, or a loom, or on a stage, or wherever their chosen creative outlet may be. They do not waste time contemplating their god-given degree of talent, or listening to others' judgements on the issue. They are too busy developing their craft.

From the writing workshops I have attended and led, I have noticed that the word "talent" is probably the biggest single roadblock to aspiring writers living the creative lives their souls yearn for.

I'm always amazed that one little word has the power to prevent so many dreams from coming to fruition.

The notion of having their talent judged breeds visceral fear - fear that if they expose themselves by creating and sharing work it will lead them to be judged "untalented". Many aspiring writers would equate this with the end of their creative road. What is the point of working, after all, when untalented?

My last beef with talent is that it is such a static notion. It doesn't have any space to accommodate the true nature of art. Creatives get better from working hard. They improve. They innovate. Their art evolves. Their craft interacts in a dynamic way with their self and life which, as we all need to accept, is ever-changing. Creativity at its very core is unpredictable movement.

A small, cramped word like talent has no role to play in the magical lighting storm that is creativity.

In my mind, talent is an ill-adapted, damaging notion. Anyone who uses it in relation to my children may find me stalking them with a bar of soap to wash their mouths out.

Follow

The Isle of Loathing

Right now I don't just mildly dislike my current WIP, I loathe it with every fibre of my being. I'm about two-thirds through the second (big) round of edits on My Grape Wedding. Every word I have written sounds trite. The dialogue is lifeless. The scenes are pointless. The description (even my beloved food porn) is repetitive. Why did I ever think I could write a book?

My inner critic tells me a million times a day that I should save myself and my readers the agony and just bin the entire project. I have so many other things I want to write besides this tired old WIP. I hear their siren's song...More brilliant things. Easier things. Effortless things.

My writing ship has run aground the Isle of Loathing.

I've been here before. In fact, in the past three and a half years I've been here THREE TIMES before. When I begin a new writing project I always think I can avoid this place, but in fact I had to do my penance here with every book I wrote and published.

I can almost set my watch by it now. I always end up here between half and two thirds of my way through the second edit.

For a decade before I published my first book I never explored what was on or beyond the Isle of Loathing. In those ten years I began eight manuscripts and shortly after being shipwrecked on this ghastly place, I would always alight to a new, shiny story idea, only to be surprised and dismayed when I hit I inevitably hit the Isle of Loathing once again. As a result, despite a regular writing practice I didn't finish or publish anything for ten long years.

Then, I decided to become a finisher.

Being a finisher, as it turns out, means getting out and exploring the Island and figuring out how to get off.

Surviving and escaping the Isle of Loathing isn't complicated. It is comprised of two steps:

1. Embracing the Suck
2. Finishing your current project

Embracing the Suck means that you accept the Isle of Loathing as part of your writing journey, and almost learn to relish its fetid air and polluted beaches. This is the point in your writing when you get up close and personal with one of a writer's most valuable assets - grit. You will have to dig deep, but you will also begin to take a perverse pleasure in knowing that you can dig deep. The Isle of Loathing is going to suck, but it is not going to stop you from writing. No sir.

Finishing your current project is also pretty simple. It means you continue writing, but do not jump ship to another project until you have completely finished (for me this means hitting that "publish" button) your current WIP.

If you just keep doing this every day you will find eventually a kind tide will wash in and free your boat. You will escape (at least until your next WIP). Then, you'll begin to find some bits in your MS that make you laugh out loud. You'll discover that you actually handled a scene quite effectively. Readers will thank you for writing your book.

All of that will make your temporary purgatory on the Isle of Loathing worth it. Feel the loathing, but finish anyway.

Creativity Therapy

One of the main reasons I began writing my Grape books was because there were stories I wanted my daughters to know and I didn't know if I would be around to tell them.

Many of you know how the morning after I was diagnosed with PSC I began writing My Grape Escape and didn't finish until I self-published it about nine months later. A simple Google search (FYI: NEVER a good idea with health stuff) will tell you that PSC kills off its victims in a myriad of inventive and heartless ways. Early on, a specialist in Vancouver said to me, "You have to accept that you have a life-threatening disease. You could die of sepsis tomorrow, or be diagnosed with liver or bile duct cancer next week. That is your reality now."

Blunt, to be sure, yet effective.

No doctor, however, could ever tell me exactly how one goes about "accepting" such a reality. Probably because such an existential question of reconciling life and death strikes at the heart of the mystery of our human journey - a mystery that people have been grappling with ever since they made handprints of their own hands on the wall of a cave in Chauvet, France 32,000 years ago.

I wrote feverishly, telling the stories of how I decided to leave behind an Oxford degree and prestigious career legal career path to throw myself into the unknown, how I struggled with panic attacks and anxiety, how it slowly dawned on me that life didn't need to be perfect to be wonderful, how it was wiser to collect les petits bonheurs than to harbour unrealistic expectations of life, how sometimes it was impossible to make yourself happy and to make others happy too...

These were things my three girls needed to know. I had no desire for them to read my books immediately - once they were published my stories would be there when they needed them. That is the magic of art, and writing, and books. They give us a sliver of immortality in a finite world.

However, an unexpected thing happened on the path of telling my stories. It was only when I was about half way through my latest book, My Grape Year, that I realized how creating - in my case writing - was the best course of therapy I had ever embarked upon.

Immediately after I was diagnosed with PSC I called in the cavalry. I set up appointments with acupuncturists, spiritual healers, RMTs, therapists, as well as bought a juicer and eliminated sugar, grains, dairy products, and caffeine from my diet. My whole life became about curing myself from this bizarre, rare, and unpredictable disease.

It didn't work. Not only did eliminating every pleasurable form of sustenance and living off juiced kale started to make death seem like a not entirely unappealing option, but my days were so full of appointments that my battle to stay alive left me no time to actually live.

I am generally a big fan of therapy, but in this case once we had talked for a few sessions about my health situation, the therapist (and there were a few) and me would inevitably end up staring at each other with nothing more to say. The whole PSC situation was certainly not the worst thing in the world, but sucketh, it did. It was one of those types of burdens that cannot be eliminated. It had to be carried, and nobody could tell me how. I had to figure it out for myself.

So blindly, compulsively, I kept writing. I wrote my Grape books out of order. At first this made no sense to me, but one day it finally dawned on me that, on the contrary, it made perfect sense.

My Grape Escape is all about faith, huge life changes, and trying to build a whole-hearted, authentic life even when things are far from perfect. I wrote it during that first year post diagnosis when my life had been turned on its head and I needed to find a new way of living with and in the face of my PSC.

My Grape Village is about the challenges of adapting to a new life with a family - finding community, balancing your needs with those of the people you love the most, finding happiness via les petit bonheur du jour despite the challenges life throws at one's head, and the humbling realization that life never stops providing us lessons, especially at those very moments when we believe we know it all.

My Grape Year was written at a time when my PSC had started to become extremely symptomatic, forcing me to embark on uncharted territory. I was terrified and needed to find courage. I found it in my bold 17 year old self - that girl with her head full of romance and dreams who left Canada and flew almost half way around the world to seek out love and a different way of living. I cannot tell you how many times I woke up during my writing of My Grape Year, either in the hospital or home, paralyzed by visceral terror. My body was slowly, irrevocably getting sicker, I was learning how the transplant system in Canada was both political and ineffective, especially for us PSCers, and my disease was stripping away every part of me that made me me. It was only going back to the manuscript of My Grape Year that made me remember that I was strong and that I was bold and that I had done scary things before and that doing those scary things had transformed my life.

I wept over my keyboard countless times. I laughed over it too. Initially when people asked me why I was writing my Grape Books out of order I would just laugh and say that my mind wasn't linear. This is completely true, but now I look back on the order and it makes perfect sense. The story I wrote always dealt with issues that I needed to work through the most at that time.

Right now I am finishing up edits on My Grape Wedding and I am realizing that this books deals with a time of crisis in my life too, when my panic attacks were probably at their debilitating. Paradoxically, it also deals with one of the most joyful times in my life - the summer when Franck and I got married in Burgundy, France. This rite of passage not only marked a new beginning, but a time when I was surrounded and lifted up by the love and support of friends and family from all over the world.

Could it be a metaphor for my approaching transplant? I certainly hope so.

Death Threats, Blockages, and Crowning Yourself a Writer: "Meet The Maker" Interview with Moi & Moonrise

MOONRISE MAKER Q & WITH AUTHOR LAURA BRADBURY

Writers hold a passion to communicate through the written word, and they use words eloquently and thoughtfully to convey emotion that grasp readers in the stories they write. This passion to communicate lies at the core of their being, and the diversity of the words and stories they tell come forward in the pages they write. The diversity of the story and their unique vision lies in their artistic expression. For some of us its hard to properly convey a message or feeling, to use words in a context that best defines our point of view. Then there is Laura Bradbury, not only is she able to use words to create sentences, paragraphs and chapters beautifully but she draws us into the story with such force that its hard to let go.

An award winning best-selling author, an astute business woman, a loving mother and wife, an attentive friend and inspiration to so many people only scratches the surface in describing Laura. She is a deeply driven, extremely kind and generous, vastly supportive, and an exceptionally humble being. A chat with Laura Bradbury is fascinating, motivating and truly inspiring. As a friend, she encourages us to live life fully and motivates us to be creative —she prompts us to be strong and take on challenges. As an author, she is able through the written word challenge us to take risks, to be adventurous, take new paths and discover new things.

We had the opportunity to host a writers workshop with Laura last year, and currently are in the process of organizing another one for this spring— her story is motivating, inspiring, authentic and full—we are so thrilled that she was willing to share her inspirations, challenges and the route that led her to self publishing.

You truly are an inspiration to us at Moonrise Creative. Tells us a little about who or what inspires you? Where do you get your inspiration to write?

Writers who write books which allow me to escape into another reality – to me they have always been the most powerful sort of magician. Reading is an endless source of inspiration.

My three daughters – Charlotte, Camille, and Clémentine. They are all so different from one another and so unapologetically themselves. They inspire me to continue to become the most honest version of myself.

My husband Franck – if you read any of my “Grape” books you’ll know why.

My amazing friends who paint, weave, start kick-ass companies, move to the other side of the world, or just steadily beat as the living heart of their families…also, my writer tribe who keep me sane, are always there to cheer me on and give me good advice, and who love me enough not to block me on twitter even when I keep posting my daily word counts.

Your background and journey is rich and textured, tells us a little about your background and the journey that led you to writing?

I always wanted to write but was terrified of being a failure at this one thing that I cared so much about. Writing wasn’t just something I wanted to do. It was, in the deepest depths of my soul, what I wanted to be.

I am a perfect study in how to use achievement as an avoidance / procrastination tactic. I graduated from high school, did an undergrad degree in English and French Literature at McGill, a law degree at Oxford, then I renovated four houses in Burgundy, France with my husband to turn into vacation rentals.

I finally began writing when I was thirty, shortly after having my second daughter Camille who basically gave both Franck and I nervous breakdowns because she screamed non-stop for the first two years of her life. My timing for starting my writing career was less than stellar (two children under two) but more and more I am convinced that there is no such thing as the “perfect time” for anything. Thus began a decade of starting and bringing several novels to about 75% completion before abandoning them to jump ship to a shiny, new, seemingly “better” writing project.

It wasn’t until I was diagnosed with a life-threatening auto-immune liver and bile duct disease (PSC) in May 2012 that I made the decision I was going to be a finisher. I started writing My Grape Escape the morning after I received my diagnosis, finished after nine months (while still working full time), and self-published it despite the fact I had zero experience self-publishing. The day after I hit the “ publish” button I began writing the second book in my “Grape” series, My Grape Village.

You have written and published 3 books in 3 years- what an amazing accomplishment! How did you get started? What motivates you?

Frankly, the sword of my own mortality that is constantly hanging over my head because I live with a life-threatening disease is a huge motivator. From the moment I was diagnosed, all of a sudden the fear of being a failure at writing was replaced by a much more powerful fear – the fear of dying with my words still inside me.

The thing is I’ve realized is that in fact we are ALL in the same boat. We are all going to die, and none of us knows how much time we have left on this earth – one more day? One more year? Fifty more years? It’s just that for me and the many other people I know with serious health challenges we no longer entertain the illusion that we have infinite time.

The day after I was diagnosed I could hardly get out of bed. My entire life had been turned on its head and all of a sudden I was in a fight for my life. Without fully realizing what I was doing I managed to get up and stagger down the stairs. I flipped open my laptop, grabbed a pad of post-it notes, scribbled “FUCK YOU. I”M NOT DEAD YET” on one, stuck it on the side of my computer screen and began writing My Grape Escape. I didn’t stop until I hit “publish.”

My love for stories, books, and the craft of writing is another one of my creative engines. I realize now that I can immerse myself for the rest of my life in the writing world and never get bored or run out of things I thirst to do and learn. This is how I define a passion.

Lastly, my three daughters are a huge motivator. My books so far are stories that I really wanted them to know. Ironically, none of them have actually read any of my “Grape” books yet, but the books are there should they ever feel the inclination. I also want to set an example for them of diving deep into my passions. I love Cheryl Strayed’s quote “I truly believe that one of the greatest gifts I have given my children is the example of a mother who pursues her passions like a motherfucker.”

What are some sacrifices you have made as a writer?

Some people around me didn’t understand why I would expend so much time and effort with my writing when I was also needing to take the best care of myself as possible in light of my health issues. What they didn’t understand was how writing saved me again, and again, and again and continues to do so on a regular basis. I couldn’t make them see how writing was truly a lifeline for me and how without it I would be sitting on my couch with all sort of destructive thoughts churning around my brain. This created some misunderstandings, but at a certain point I just had to accept that not everybody was going to understand and approve.

Making a commitment to creativity can destabilize the very people you care about, especially in the initial stages. A lot of people are prone to making snap judgements based on partial or misinterpreted information. I think creating can make other people uncomfortable for many reasons – it can put them face to face with their own unfulfilled creative urges, they have other ideas about how you should be spending your time, or they are worried they’ll end up in your book, to name a few…I think we so often wait for someone else to give us the “green light” to create but ultimately that “green light” can come from only one person – ourselves.

Have you had any failures? If so, what insights have you gained?

I would definitely say my decade of not finishing any writing projects was a failure. However, like all failures that experience taught me a lot of important lessons. Perfectionism is the enemy. Teach yourself to care less about other people’s opinions and more about the intrinsic value of your own creative journey. Honour your work by finishing it – crappy but finished is far preferable to brilliant but incomplete. We all have a limited amount of time on this earth – don’t waste it. If you yearn to create, go out and create. Start today.

Any advice for someone starting out as a writer? Any advice for someone wanting to get published?

First of all, I would start calling yourself a writer and thinking of yourself as a writer. Stop waiting around for anyone else to crown you as a “writer” – you have to crown yourself (I highly recommend plastic tiaras from the dollar store or a homemade twig crown for this purpose).

Reading about writing and taking courses about writing is great, but the one thing that distinguishes writers from non-writers is that they…well…WRITE. There is no way around that. Make getting words on paper your first priority in regards to your writing – everything else comes after that.

Give yourself a realistic word goal per day – mine is 2000 words Monday to Friday– either new ones or rewritten / edited words if that is the stage of a book I am at. I usually fall short of this goal – instead of 10,000 words a week I usually clock around 8000 because sick kids, Pro-D days, my grumpy liver, and other stuff happens. Be disciplined but flexible. I don’t have a word goal on the weekends but if I have a window to get some words in I grab it.

For publishing the first thing is DO NOT worry about publishing until you have actually finished your book-fretting about publishing before you have a finished book often be the Wolf of Procrastination in Sheep’s Clothing. Find other writers who are approachable and have been published and ask them how they did it….I could go on about tips like this forever, and will in my Moonrise workshop on March 6th.

You self published-why did you chose to this route? Would you say that the business of authorship and publishing are changing?

I consider myself extremely lucky to be living in a day and age when us writers have so many options for sharing our work. I believe that some books and authors are better suited to traditional publishing, and others are better suited to self -publishing. There is also a third category that is growing rapidly- this is authors who use a mix of both traditional and self-publishing and are starting to be known as “hybrid authors” (there are also “hybrid agents” emerging these days, but that is a whole separate topic).

For me, self-publishing was the best fit because I am:

• entrepreneurial by nature
• independent-minded (some would say stubborn as a mule- this would not be entirely inaccurate)
• Impatient
• I had enough on my plate dealing with health challenges, I did not need the added stress of working to anyone else’s expectations or timelines. The idea of working for myself was extremely appealing to me.

Also, my books deal frankly with my anxiety and panic disorders. I had several agents interested in My Grape Escape but who wanted me to remove any mention of this aspect of my journey. They reasoned that “Peter Mayle”s readers didn’t want to hear about all the mental health stuff.” I thought about this and concluded that removing all mention of my panic attacks, which were a big obstacle in my life at that time, would be inauthentic, not to mention to disservice to the large chunk of the population who also struggles with mental illness. Self-publishing meant I had total editorial freedom. Many, many readers have written to thank me for being open about my anxiety and showing them through my story that it is entirely possible to have depression or anxiety and still live a rich, fulfilling, adventurous life.

What would you say is your proudest moment?

Hitting #1 on Amazon always gives me a thrill, but probably the proudest moments are holding each of my books in paperback for the first time after they have been published. Never gets old.

You have accomplished so much in the last three years. What do you see for yourself in the next two years?

I would love to have a successful liver transplant and a new, healthy liver version 2.0 so that I can write more, beachcomb more, travel more, and above all, spend more time with the people I love. As much as I am grateful for every day, I am fed up with this Russian Roulette of waiting to get sick enough to qualify for a transplant (but not so sick that I become ineligible or die). I want to campaign to have Canada adopt a better organ donation system – the current one is completely dysfunctional.

I have a goal of getting on the New York Times bestseller list (either for e-books or print, or pourquoi pas, both!) and I would also love to see my stories adapted to either movie or TV (currently at the early stages of working on this at the moment). As far as writing projects I have a few lined up; finishing My Grape Wedding (currently almost ready to hand over to my content editor), finishing my paranormal romance I began writing 13 years ago, write My Grape Paris, write a series of essays to be compiled in a book about transcending life’s challenges via creativity (I already have the title for this one – The Grit in the Oyster)…I don’t think I’ll ever run out of potential writing projects.

Do you go through periods of feeling uninspired or get creative block? Periods where you may not want to pick up a pen or pencil and write? If so, how do you overcome this?

Yes! About 75% through my first rewrite I always develop an intense aversion to my book. I can almost set my watch by this pattern. This is where, in the past, I gave up and jumped ship to a shiny new project. Going through the various rounds of edits can honestly be a slog – it is damn hard work – although it is punctuated with the occasional glimmer of joy when you find the right word or sharpen up some snappy dialogue or add a scene that makes the whole book work better.

I have a few tricks to get past these blah / uninspired periods. I find myself a gift that I’m going to reward myself with when I publish the book (in the past, a pair of Frye boots, a Laura Harris painting, and a pair of moonstone earrings…). I dangle that carrot in front of myself frequently. I visualize how it will feel when I hold the finished book in my hands. I dig deep and try to revel in the grit that is required to bring a big creative project to completion and actually try to cultivate a grim appreciation for the creative pain. Also, taking a gander at my most recent mortgage statement never fails to light a fire under my derrière.

What are some of your favourite things, a few items that describe who you are?

Besides my family and friends, I would say:

1. My beach glass collection. I try to spend time at the beach every day and the tide tables are one of the first things I check every morning. Beach glass is a metaphor for so many things in life…actually, I need to write a series of essay about this too….
2. My collection of Georgette Heyer novels. Whenever I am feeling particularly stressed, scared, or overwhelmed I pick up one of these books and it is like spending time with most brilliant, hilarious, comfortable friend. My sister Suzanne introduced me to “Georgette” and I will be forever grateful.
3. My scarves-I feel naked without a scarf- the result, I think, of my many years spent in France. I have an incredible collection- so many beautiful colours and textures.
4. My silver bracelet from France with a charm for each one of my girls with their name and birthdates inscribed. This is traditional in France and called a gourmette. It is my way of carrying them with me wherever I go.

What are 3 things you can’t live without?

Again, besides family and friends, who I truly could live without:

• Coffee- it gives me superpowers and thankfully they are discovering it is extremely good for liver health. I don’t think I could get out of bed in the morning if it weren’t for the promise of coffee.
• The beach and the ocean-it is a therapist, my meditation, my inspiration, and my friend
• Writing- When I don’t write I miss it terribly. It is hard work but at the most random moments you have these moments of transcendence where you feel like you tapped into some greater force. It can be magical. I could never give that up.

What’s your Mantra?

I have two actually: “Done is Better than Perfect” and Winston Churchill’s “Never, Never, Never give up.

***

Dear Moonrise community,

I was so looking forward to joining you for the day on March 6th at the “The World Needs Your Book” workshop. I truly believe in my heart of hearts that if I can learn how to create and self-publish bestselling books, anybody can. I also know for a fact that the world truly does need the books that you have percolating in your mind, whether it be a space romance, a memoir, a cookbook, a poetry or photography collection, or a completely unique mix of things. I wanted everyone to leave on March 6th with an idea of what they were going to create and publish as well as the confidence and tools to do so. I felt honoured to collaborate again with Moonrise Creative because I knew with them the workshop would be completely confidential, beautiful, and soul-nourishing.

Unfortunately, I had a nasty surprise two weeks ago when my auto-immune liver disease (PSC) took a large leap forward and landed me in the hospital with a new host of complications. I’m still grappling with the ramifications and ongoing management of these new symptoms, and they could very likely accelerate my journey towards a (please god!) life saving liver transplant.

As much as I hate this current state of affairs, my health is so precarious at the moment that I never know from one day to the next if I will have to make an emergency trip to the hospital or not. Along with Pam and Metka we decided to cancel the workshop sooner rather than later, as we couldn’t bear the idea of having to cancel at the last minute when everything was all set up and good to go.

I’m going to be honest with you – I’m struggling mightily with how my disease is robbing me of things, such as the workshop, that I care about deeply. I feel like it has won this round, and that is a particularly difficult truth to swallow. I did have a comforting thought the other day though – maybe the universe is telling me that right now is the time for me to learn rather than teach. I hope this means that when I do regain my health I can impart the lessons I have learned with even more power and wisdom.

In the meantime I am still writing like a fiend – it keeps me sane and engaged in life. Creativity has been a lifeline for me and I encourage everyone who has the desire to create to go out and do so. Moonrise Creative workshops are a wonderful place to start! I’m hoping book #4 (My Grape Wedding) in the Grape Series will be out by early Spring, I’ve also started on a small cookbook to accompany my Grape series. Next up, a paranormal romance…I also hope to be attending some Moonrise workshops, as they always teach me new things and provide treasured moments of exploration and connection.

In the meantime, you can always email me with any questions you have about writing or self-publishing at [email protected] . I’m a huge believer in collaboration rather than competition and I am always delighted to help others strive for their creative dreams.

Bises,

Laura

***

How to Win a Stay in Burgundy...Sans Blague

I haven't actually received that many entries into my Noel Grape Giveaway - running a giveaway in December when everyone is so insanely busy with the Holidays probably wasn't that strategic on my part. As most of you know, my marketing "plan" tends to go something like this: me becoming overcome by the spirit of generosity and the need to thank my readers for their amazingness and consequently putting one of our vacation rentals up for grabs. Yep. That's about all the forethought that goes into marketing decisions for me. Ready. Aim. Fire.

But...what does my utter lack of marketing savvy mean for you? It means your chances of winning a free week stay at La Maison des Chaumes are tres, tres bien.

Also, I expanded the rules slightly beyond those written in my first post about the giveaway. You can review any or all of my three grape books, My Grape Year, My Grape Escape, and My Grape Village. For each review you post to BOTH Amazon and Goodreads you earn an entry (one for each, I mean).

So, for someone who has read all of my Grape books, they could potentially earn SIX entries by writing reviews for each book on both Amazon and Goodreads.

Also, if you are outside of the US you can earn additional entries by posting both a review on Amazon.com and then another one on your country's Amazon site (i.e. Amazon.ca, Amazon.co.uk, etc.). It is just a matter of cutting and pasting the review...

All you have to do after that is send me a quick email to [email protected] to let me know where you have posted reviews and I will add your entries in the draw. There is nothing I love more than helping my readers actually experience the magic of Burgundy for themselves.

I'm telling you right now that your chances are GOOD. I mean, sans blague.

Also, a huge merci to everyone who has already posted thoughtful and lovely reviews (although I appreciate ALL reviews, even the two star ones). I am a lucky, lucky writer indeed.

5 Tips to Squeeze Writing in over the Holidays

For most of us, December gives a whole new meaning to the expression "time crunch". Sugar cookies to decorate, kids' performances to attend, trees to decorate, menorahs to light, presents to wrap, eggnog to drink...

Yet I have a manuscript (My Grape Wedding) I want to finish rewriting by mid-January and another (my paranormal romance) than I need to completely revamp...how by all that is Holy do I get that done at this time of year?

Here are my top five tricks:

1. Cozy it Up - Make writing a holiday tradition in and of itself. Set the stage. Turn on the fireplace. Flick on the fairy lights. Pour yourself a mug of something warm and delicious, choose a festive playlist on Songza, then hunker down with your manuscript. You will feel cozy and accomplished all at once!
2. Barter for Time - i.e. I will wrap these presents if you take the kids figure skating. Everyone has a ton to do this month, so figure out the things that you don't mind doing and do those in exchange for blocks of uninterrupted writing time.
3. Ease Up on Yourself - This is the one I always struggle with the most. Let's face it - December is probably not the month of the year when you are going to accomplish the most writing-wise. Take five minutes and consciously rewrite your writing goals and benchmarks to make them less ambitious.
4. Treat Any Writing As a Win - I truly believe that ANY writing you get accomplished in December deserves a round of applause, so don't wait for anyone else - give this round of applause to yourself every time you, say, chalk up 100 new words or rewrite a page. Big projects are accomplished by hundreds of tiny steps and the important thing is that you are doing SOME writing and keeping your momentum going. Reward yourself with a candy cane.
5. Enjoy The Holidays - Sometimes us writers (*ahem* me) get so wrapped up in our parallel imaginary worlds and writing goals that we forget the thing that actually fuels our writing - LIFE. Without taking time away from our manuscripts to actually enjoy our lives and time with our loved ones, our gas tanks are going to run dry pretty darn quick. Time away from our writing can benefit our writing. This means, my fellow writers, that we need to go out and get our Fa La La La La on!

On Panic Attacks and Creativity...

I had a humdinger of a panic attack last Wednesday. Many readers ask me after reading My Grape Escape and My Grape Village whether I still get them. Short and honest answer - yes, as last Wednesday proves, I certainly do.

I no longer waste precious time and energy trying to eliminate panic attacks from my life. I have been having them, after all, at random intervals since my mid-teens. They come. They go. They are always epically unpleasant and unwelcome.

I no longer believe they happen for a reason. I have come to the conclusion that searching for triggers or reasons for my panic attacks is a colossal waste of time.

On Wednesday, I was just sitting on the couch talking to a friend on the phone when my heart started beating faster than usual. The anxious part of my brain seized on this and started going, "Why is your heart beating faster? Something must be wrong! Redalertredalertredalert!!!"

Within three minutes my hands were shaking and my mind was spinning in that hellish anxiety vortex, making note of every uncomfortable physical sensation, amplifying it by approximately a million, and creating a logical case for my imminent demise (or worse yet, being trapped in a situation I can't control aka Just Kill Me Now).

Even though I consider myself a writer, I find myself at a loss for words when I try to describe the intensity and sheer terror of a panic attack to anyone who has not experienced one before. Conversely, when I talk about panic attacks with people who have experienced them, words are not necessary. I can just tell by looking in their eyes that they get it.

Even though I hate them I have come to a place of acceptance that they stem from a glitch in the way my brain is wired. I think we ALL have glitches in how our brain is wired. Some people have the depression glitch, some people have the jealousy glitch, some people have the fear-of-intimacy glitch...as for my brain, I suspect my panic attack glitch is the same or closely related to the part of my brain that allows me to imagine and write.

I am no longer ashamed of my anxiety. Indeed I think the stigma around mental health is one of the most corrosive forces in existence. However, I certainly don't want to feed my anxiety by treating it like the most exotic, fascinating animal in my own personal zoo either. I think my creativity, love for Star Wars, and humour are all vastly more interesting than my anxiety. Still, panic attacks are part of my emotional hard-wiring and chances are I will most likely have to co-exist with them for the rest of my life.

Something interesting, though, has been happening in the midst of my panic attacks since I began taking my writing and creativity seriously. In the middle of my Wednesday anxiety roller coaster ride, in the midst of my shaking hands and my pounding heart and my spinning head full of thoughts of certain and imminent doom, another little voice popped up. I like to think of this particular voice as the voice of my creative self.

"Remember Tillly?" it whispered to me (Tilly is the protagonist in my paranormal romance - she doesn't suffer from anxiety disorder but she does experience plenty of well-warranted fear). "You have to remember how you are feeling right now. How exactly is your heart pounding? What muscles are contracting in your chest so it feels like you cannot take a full breath? What is making you so viscerally uncomfortable right now? You have to make note and remember so that you can depict Tilly's fear more effectively."

One of the things that I am trying to learn through my mediation practice is to create some distance between myself and my thoughts and physical sensations that are always, even though they never feel like it at the time, transitory. Meditation encourages us to be curious about our thoughts and feelings without judging them.

Creativity does the same thing. By looking at my panic attack-y feelings and thoughts as a potential writer hoping to harvest them for future use, I create some much-needed space between myself and the deeply uncomfortable sensations my crocodile brain is creating for me.

The sensations are still wretched, but having curiosity about them brings a glimmer of transcendence. And then, when I actually use the material, which I always do sooner or later, the circle is complete. I have used my own misery to do a better job of writing and to hopefully make others who have felt profound visceral fear (and who hasn't?) feel less alone.

In other words, for people who have managed to carve out a creative outlet for themselves, even the really, really bad stuff is useful. Through our creativity we make even the unwanted and the uninvited serve a purpose. As I have said before, IT'S ALL MATERIAL.

I am not a subscriber to the belief that bad things happen for a reason, but I DO believe that we can choose to give even the yuckiest things meaning. This ability, in fact, is one of the things that makes us uniquely human.

Creativity won't make my panic attacks disappear for good (godammit), but it does make them slightly easier to cope with, and remains one of the most best ways for me to render useful something that is inherently useless.

A Noel Grape Books Giveaway

Regardez-donc!

How did we find ourselves in December already?

No matter. December is the month for giving things away and I LOVE giving things away to my readers. I especially love giving them the opportunity to travel to Burgundy and experience for themselves its special magic that I try to convey in my Grape books.

So, my Noel Grape Books Giveaway will have the prize of a free week at La Maison des Chaumes - our home in Villers-la-Faye, Burgundy, France. This three bedroom house with a huge deck and garden is located in the same village where Franck's family live, where he grew up, and where we fell in love, as I write about in My Grape Year.

My Grape Year has hit #1 on the Amazon "France" bestseller list several times since I self-published it in late September. I have all of you to thank for that and I am so grateful to have such an amazing community of Francophiles and book loving people who support my writing.

Without further ado, here are the rules & regs:

• the week at La Maison des Chaumes can be redeemed whenever, subject only to availability, and can also be gifted to another person if you wish
• all you need to do to enter is write a review for My Grape Year  on either Amazon.com (or any of its affiliate websites (Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.ca, etc.) or Goodreads and then email me at [email protected] to let me know where the review has been posted (I need this because I often can't contact people via their Amazon or Goodreads screen names). If you post on Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, and Goodreads, for example, you'll receive three entries.
• if you have already written one or more review(s) for My Grape Year just let me know via email as above - that counts too (and MERCI for posting a review so promptly)
• it doesn't matter if your review is one star or five stars - they all count and I am grateful for them all. The only thing is that you do have to have read the book in order to write a valid review - just common sense and good ethics
• entries will be accepted until midnight on December 25th and the draw will happen and the winner will be announced the day after Boxing Day (December 27th)

Bonne chance to tout le monde! I hope you all have a merry, sparkling, and joyous December filled with lost of delicious cheese.

What's With the STAR WARS Nerdgasm?

5a17973344c712c00f1296a4cb3288ef

Many of my friends, even those close to me, confess from time to time that they find it odd I get so geeky about Star Wars.

I never fail to be surprised by this question because: a) duh. It's STAR WARS! and, b) do I come across as some sort of high brow intellectual or something?

The latter concept makes chuckle because it has always been clear to me that I am a nerd at heart. I get unaccountably excited by odd, random things, I spend so much time in my own head that I usually walk around with demented hair and stains on my clothes, and there is nothing that bores me more than being stranded in the middle of an intellectual circle-jerk discussion about cutting edge literary fiction or cryptic films.

Anyway, suffice to say my love for Star Wars goes very, very deep. My first encounter with Han, Leia, and Luke was one of the most profound spiritual awakenings of my life.

It was 1977. I was five years old. My Dad, who was never one for going to the movies, decreed that he was going to take my older sister Suzanne and me to see this new film that everyone was raving about. It was called "Star Something".

I was immediately suspicious. "Is it a cartoon?" I demanded.

"No. It's a real grown-up movie," he said, as if this was a good thing.

No thanks. Anything that wasn't a cartoon held zero interest for me. Besides, by the wise old age of five I’d already figured out that grown-ups found boring things riveting, such as conversations about mortgages and the optimal shade for shag carpeting.

How exactly my father managed to drag me to the Odeon movie theater in downtown Victoria is now lost in the mists of time, but I do remember feeling put-upon as I flipped down my movie seat. My Dad reached in his coat pockets and pulled out three full size Mars bars, one for each of us.

"Isn't it funny?" he said. "We're going to watch a movie about space and and we're eating MARS bars!"

I knew the chocolate bars were a peace offering, but I was still dreading the movie. Also, it was about space. I hated watching the documentaries about space on PBS with my parents. They never failed to leave me fretful about a meteor falling out of the sky and squashing me. Space. No cartoons. A grown-up movie? I chomped resentfully on my galactic-sized Mars bar.

The lights dimmed and the screen filled with a weird sort of writing that slid backwards instead of side to side the way writing was supposed to. Besides, I couldn't read yet. What if the whole movie was just words on a screen? That would be the kind of useless thing that grown-ups would enjoy, I thought bitterly to myself.

Then the writing disappeared and the screen filled with a battle on a star ship, and R2-D2, and C3-PO, and Princess Leia. Hey...was that beautiful lady really talking back to those evil men dressed in black? Was that a lazer gun she was shooting?

And I was gone.

Me as I knew myself up until that point vanished like the planet of Alderaan. I wasn't just watching this movie, I was living it. I sat motionless, plastered against the back of my seat with the centrifugal force of the story, the half-eaten Mars bar dropped, forgotten, on my lap.

Good vs. Evil. A trio of heroes who were funny, brave, and eventually, friends. Darth Vader who made me want to pee my pants every time he breathed...

I had not know this was possible. I had not known that through a story I could actually live a different life for a while - a life that was more vivid and more real than my own. By the time the Millennium Falcon swooped in with Han at the helm to shoot away Darth Vadar so Luke could take his bull's eye aim at the Death Star exhaust vent, I thought my heart was going to explode.

What was this magic that could transport me to another time and place more effectively than a time machine and a tele-transporter all wrapped up into one?

When the medal award ceremony was over and the movie's credits rolled I stayed glued to my chair, as did Suzanne and my Dad.

Finally the lights came back on. My Dad turned to me. "So? What did you think?"

I shook my head, mute. No words. There were no words.

He looked down at my lap. "You didn't finish your Mars bar."

I hadn't. I actually threw it in the garbage can on our way out of the theater as I was still too deep in my walking Star Wars daydream to do anything as pedestrian as eating.

Up until then I hadn't known such a magic existed, but I knew it was something I wanted and, more than that, needed in my life. 

It wasn't until I was older that I learned the name for The Force that inspires me just as much at age forty-six as it did when I was a five year old sitting in a darkened movie theatre.

That Force is storytelling. Also, I bought myself a laser-gun.

Faith and Paris

I've been struggling a lot with the notion of faith (again) this month.

The attacks in Paris happened right in the middle of a two-week long treatment for me at the local hospital. This involved going every morning to get pumped full of IV antibiotics to try to beat back the infection that has taken up permanent residence in my sick liver and bile ducts.

Every time my liver infection rears its head the physical effects are wretched, but worse still is the mental anguish of not knowing what is going on inside my body and what will happen next. Crippling uncertainty and fear become my constant companions.

Having faith that everything will be OK is one of the hardest things in the world for me, as it turns out. How do I put my faith in a power (call it God, Buddha, Allah, Fate, or the Great Manitou) that has let many of my friends with PSC die despite the fact they had unrelentingly positive outlooks and everything that I don't seem capable of maintaining throughout this journey?

In the midst of my struggles with that conundrum, the attacks in Paris happened. As the news began filtering in I spent several hours feverishly checking in with friends and family to make sure they were safe. I discovered with horror all these innocent people who had thought they were going out to a concert, or for a drink with friends, or for a casual meal, only to be gunned down or blown up in the most cowardly and brutal manner.

How was I supposed to have faith that I would be taken care of by the same power that neglected to protect the victims in Paris and of other attacks over the globe?

Paris has felt like my backyard for all of my adult life. It is a place where I feel safe and nurtured. At the end of August, Franck, myself, and the Bevy were careening around the city in the wee hours of a sultry summer night with our friend Joelle, leaping out of the car to enjoy ice cream cones and an impromptu musical performance by some street musicians on a bridge over the Seine. It was one of those glorious moments when my whole soul throbbed with the joy of being alive. I seem to experience such joie de vivre frequently in Paris.

The day after the Paris attacks Camille said to me, "Mom, is Paris going to be changed forever now? Will it never be the same?"

"No way," I said. "Paris has been through much worse. Paris is resilient. Paris will always be Paris."

I realized after I answered that I had complete faith that this was true.

The day after the attacks my friend Joelle posted on Facebook that she had gone out to a bistro and sat on the terrace for not one, but two drinks. Thousands of other Parisians did the same in the impromptu #jesuisenterrasse movement.

Parisians did not cower in their apartments. They went out and fought terror with joy and wine and fresh croissants.

The Parisian approach gave me a new insight into my struggles. Often, since I got sick, I feel as though the disease is not only destroying my body, but that it is dismantling bit by bit all the things that make me...me.

But now I will remind myself to be like Paris. When things get scary and sad I will fight back by moving ferociously towards LIFE. For me, this means spending time with my family and friends, writing, reading, eating delicious food, beachcombing, creating new things...all the things that remind me that, despite my PSC, there are still so many pleasures to be savoured - so many petits bonheurs du jour as Franck's Aunt Renee always says.

If I could get on a plane right now to join the Paris #jesuisenterrasse movement in person, I would. However, budget and liver are not cooperating so I thought I'd do the next best thing - I could help others travel to France via my Grape Books. Reading is one of my favourite (not to mention most budget-friendly) methods of travel, after all.

I have never discounted my books before because I know better than anyone the work, sweat, and effort that go into creating them for my readers. I don't believe that creatives should get in the habit of undervaluing their efforts. For Paris, though, I have made an exception.

I chose to discount My Grape Year because it recounts how I fell in love with not only France, but Paris. I want everyone to be able to remind themselves of how the French have made an art of enjoying life's small, countless pleasures (which is why, I believe so many of us feel that France is one of our spiritual homes).

So from November 23-30th the Kindle version of My Grape Year will be available on Amazon.com for $0.99 cents instead of the usual $3.99.

Choosing life, again and again and again, is a defiant type of faith. It has allowed Paris to weather hardships over the centuries that would have toppled lesser cities.

In good times and in bad times we should all strive to be like Paris. When things get tough, we can find ourselves again by going #enterrasse.

MY GRAPE YEAR now available in paperback!

I was busy getting in some words for the upcoming My Grape Wedding memoir-ette and before logging off the computer I checked Amazon and - le voila! - the MY GRAPE YEAR paperback is now available!

It is three dollars more than my previous books because it is *ahem* rather large (366 pages to be exact) and consequently production and shipping costs are more. However, it should provide you with a long, lovely, escapist, cozy, and romantic read. Just click here to go and check it out on Amazon.com . 

Also, you should be able to share this blog post with the newly-added buttons below. If someone could test drive those for me I would be extremely appreciative!

Experience Burgundy's Magic Yourself

I received my two paperback proofs for My Grape Year last night, which means I will be able to put the lovely paperback version up for sale on the Amazon website in the next 24 hours.

This also means, however, that there are only 48 hours or less to enter my contest to win a free week at any one of our four Grape Rentals in Burgundy.  Here are all the ways you can earn one (or more - lots more!) entries in the "Race Me to La Fin" contest.

There is also an additional way to enter for those of you wonderful people who have already purchased and downloaded (and even read already, for a lot of you!) a digital copy of My Grape Year. Simply post a review of My Grape Year on Amazon to earn yet another entry.

Here is one of my earlier reviews:

I'm going to blog in the upcoming months about our last-minute trip to Burgundy this summer, but let me just say that Burgundy weaves a spell on me and so many of our guests that come and stay in our vacation rentals. There is an authenticity there, a devotion to the art of pleasure, a measuring of the days that takes place in humble rituals such as opening the shutters, buying bread, and going to the market that never fails to fill up my soul.

Also, my web designer has added some cool buttons at the bottom of all my blog posts so you can easily share them on Facebook, Twitter, and all those other fun places. Check them out and let me know if they work!

Sharing Burgundy's magic with others, both through my books and our vacation rentals, is one of the most rewarding parts of my life. Good luck, or should I say bonne chance!

My Grape Year Has Arrived on Kindle!

 

My Grape Year is available, as of this morning, on Amazon's Kindle. Just click here to check it out. There is nothing quite so satisfying as hitting the "publish" button on a new book and this one particularly so. Here are my top five reasons:

1. It is so far the most downright romantic book I have ever written (all about the year Franck and I met).

2.  I realized how lucky I was to conduct my first real love affair before the age of emails, texts, and cell phones.

3. I got to revisit the first time I tasted snails.

4. I managed to write this book during a year of serious health shitstorms, including hospitalizations and a full week-long work-up at the Toronto Transplant Clinic to see if I was ready for a liver transplant yet (verdict: not yet - still too healthy).

5. My eighteen year old self taught me all over again that the universe has a plan for all of us and that we all have to fight for our own personal fairy tale.

So, for the meagre sum of $3.99 you can purchase and enjoy My Grape Year for yourself. The paperback will be available on Amazon as well and at local bookstores in approximately 2-3 weeks. I'll be sure to announce that on here.

I wrote My Grape Year with my awesome tribe of readers in my mind and close to my heart. You have supported me, made me laugh, and made me think during the writing and editing of this book. More than anything, I cannot wait to hear what you think.