Janice MacLeod's Blog, page 15

What have I been up to beyond making a human? Painting, bien sur! Here is a roundup of the latest hand-painted letters… now, finally, listed in the shop. All are personalized with the name of the recipient.

Les Passages: A letter about the magical covered streets of Paris. Created for chilly January.

Bon Marché : This one is about the hypnotic wonderland that is the Paris department store. It was created for festive December.

Les Crêpes: A French version of Mardi Gras/Pancake Tuesday… as if you need an excuse to eat a crêpe. Created for February.

And a few Travel Letters as well…

Verona, Italy: A new perspective on balconies and the secrets behind them, plus an ode to Romeo and Juliet’s famed perch.

Flanders, Belgium: A letter about the toughest train ride I ever took.

Las Vegas, USA: Sometimes you love it, sometimes you hate it. There is nothing neutral about Vegas. It’s the black licorice of towns.

In this month’s letter for March, I turned toward one of my most beloved pastimes… cheese:

I was so very smitten with painting cheese (and thereafter eating it… the cheese, not the painting), that I made a poster of it. It’s in the shop… sent flat for framing:

Sometimes you just don’t want words, so I’ll be posting more of these Paris watercolours in the future. Until then, I’ll be indulging in my latest pursuit of getting smiles out of our new travel companion:

The grinning hath begun. Weeeeeee!

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The lovely Amélie arrived a few weeks ago. The delivery, recovery and first few days went all as expected. It’s true what all those mommy bloggers say:

You’ll know when it’s a contraction. It’s not pleasant.

You’ll be tired.

You’ll feel like a super hero afterward.

There will be a lot of photos.

Sometimes you’ll question your decisions.

Ultimately you’ll decide it was all worth it.

 

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That would be our baby reading the galleys of the new book A Paris Year.

Look at that gorgeous skull. Evidence that my cravings for glasses of milk is warranted.

Another close up of the book:

If you look closely between this and the book Paris Letters, you’ll notice something quirky.

That Eiffel Tower is the same drawing. In both cases I quite literally cut and paste it into place, not realizing they would both show up on the covers of books in about the same place. That Eiffel Tower… you don’t want to draw that monument too many times. Geesh. It’s the angle of the curve from top to bottom that is problematic. Speaking of curves from top to bottom…

Due at the top of 2017. I do enjoy starting the year with a new project. I didn’t realize seven months ago that this would be the project.

I haven’t shouted it to the rooftops until now, but people are starting to catch on so I suppose I should tell everyone I’m not just eating lots of cookies. Instead I’ve been completing the new book and whipping up the latest Paris Letters. All these are now avails at my Etsy shop.

This one is about Dublin and the feisty Irish:

This one is about Praiano, Italy and the romantic Italians:

This one is about a short stroll along the long Trans Canada Trail:

In keeping with the autumn theme, I did another about finding the best apples in autumn. It’s not easy in this modern age of mealy, tasteless pommes.

Now back to Paris. Here we are on Ile Saint-Louis, sitting in a café and soaking up the wave of new-project energy that happens after the long vacation of August

And a few weeks later, autumn in Paris preforms its annual costume change.

Now I’m gonna get me a glass of milk and cookies.

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In this Paris memoir, Lisa Anselmo, who is reeling from her mother’s death, decides to run away from her life in New York and move to Paris. Of course, to afford this option, she needs to still keep her job in New York. So she buys an apartment in Paris and adopts a Part-Time Here, Part-Time There lifestyle.

Which is good if you’d like to avoid the challenges of work visas.

In Canada and the USA, you can go to France (and the rest Schengen zone) for three months, twice a year without a visa. So you can go for three, return home for three, go back for three, return home for three… and you never have to visit the prefecture and suffer their wrath. It’s a challenge to be legally living in France, even when you qualify, even when you know exactly what you’re doing, even when you can (mostly) speak the language.

I can’t speak for the fallout of Brexit and what UK visa issues that mess will bring.

(Anselmo doesn’t get into this visa business in her book. I’m just telling you because you outta know how to get thee to Paris and avoid the wrath of the prefecture.)

In her book, she talks about the good and not so good aspects of having a part-time life in a part-time apartment in Paris. There are the new friends, the food, the beauty around every corner. But in an old city like Paris, things leak, black mold is an issue, impossible neighbors can make renovations nearly impossible and certainly lengthy, and the administration is astoundingly unhelpful. She describes a real Paris: the dark side and the light.

“I used to wonder about that myself. Thought it was a bunch of mumbo-jumbo. A magical power holding together good and evil, the dark side and the light. Crazy thing is… it’s true. The Force. The Jedi… All of it… It’s all true.”

–Han Solo, Star Wars: The Force Awakens

So I’m sitting at a book signing for my book, Paris Letters, and the usual question finally comes up. A lady raises her hand and says:

“I could never drop everything and move to Paris. How can I relate to this book?”

An excellent question. People do have social, financial and emotional ties to the lives they’ve built. Though they would love to spend days walking around Paris and buying baguettes, they can’t and won’t drop everything to make it happen.

I usually answer with the practical life skills you can take away from Paris Letters, like the list I included of a 100 ways I saved money in order to quit my job and do my own thing. Sort of a financial health book with Paris as a backdrop and a hot romance thrown in for flavor. I also remind them that my move to Paris was born out of the hopelessness that happened when so many aspects of life weren’t working out. If everything I wanted would have worked out, it’s likely that I would have been that woman in the audience with my hand up.

Life is funny that way.

Anselmo’s book opens with this line: Who do you think you are?

And this question is the hidden question behind that lady’s question to me at the book signing. Who do you think you are? Taking off and leaving everything behind? Who do you think you are to not have to slug it out like the rest of us? Who do you think you are? So often the bully in our own head is the one asking this question. Who do you think you are? To spend your extra cash on a flat in Paris? To dare spend time outside our corporate cubicle confines. Who do you think you are to dare to make the dreams in your heart a reality? Who do you think you are?!

Usually, by the time we have enough strength to answer this question, we stop listening to this voice and just do it anyway. For Anselmo, it was the death of her mother that gave her the permission to go. For me, the permission came when my car broke down on a freeway in LA and I nearly had a car crash. I said, “DONE. I will be so mad if I die on the freeway coming home from work.” I gave notice the next day.

I gave it all up and went. You may be surprised to learn that one of the things I like about Anselmo’s book is that she didn’t give it all up to go. She added rather than took away. She kept her New York life but added a Paris life. It doesn’t have to be this or that. It can be this AND that. Who do you think you are? You can be an AND person, not just an OR person.

Even if you’ve got the kids, the mortgage, the tenure or health insurance that keeps you 9 to 5-ing, there are ways to augment your life to make a few of those dreams more achy dreams come true. You don’t have to disrupt everything, but chances are, you will need cash to fund the start up of your dreams, so now is always the best time to Frugal Up.

Borrowed from Anselmo’s Instagram page.

I’m going to tell you what I told Amazon about this book:

“Charming. This book feels as if Lisa Anselmo is telling you her Paris story over coffee at a café. An intimate account of learning to grieve the loss of a parent while, at the same time, striving to live your dreams.”

Anselmo’s book launched today. Buy the book and start dreaming up your own version of a part-time Paris life.

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Today, September 24th, is F. Scott Fitzgerald’s birthday in 1896.

He fell in love with Zelda when he was in a training camp in Alabama. She wouldn’t marry him because he couldn’t support them on his meager writer’s salary. Eventually he signed a book deal and she accepted his proposal. You can see how The Great Gatsby story line came along when you look at the true history of the Fitzgeralds.

Imagine Zelda (Daisy Buchanan) says no to his proposal. She goes on to marry some rich guy (Tom Buchanan) while F. Scott (Jay Gatsby) becomes a larger than life wonder child of the world… decorated soldier and super rich… with Leonardo DiCaprio good looks.

Then Zelda falls in love with him, wants to leave her husband, but tragedy strikes and our beloved main character is killed off, mostly because F. Scott is still miffed about her turning down his proposal in the first place. In the end, she doesn’t get him when he’s all that and a bag of chips. Take THAT Zelda, in a round about subtle-but-not-so-subtle way of writing about it in a book and calling it fiction. End of story. Cue credits.

And Hemingway (Nick Carraway) narrates the tale by the sidelines, because Scott secretly wished he could write like his pal Hemingway, so he has Nick Carraway narrate The Great Gatsby in a Hemingway-esque voice.

The Fitzgeralds and Hemingways lived in Paris in the 1920s. Many American artists and writers lived in Paris during those days simply because it was cheaper to live there. And these fellas weren’t legends yet so they needed to stretch their hefty American bucks.

Zelda never had the same level of success, which was a knotted tassel in her flapper dress, but I think it’s because of her gratuitous use of dashes. Just look at this letter:

Spring 1919

Dear Scott,

Please, please don’t be so depressed—We’ll be married soon, and then these lonesome nights will be over forever–and until we are, I am loving, loving every tiny minute of the day and night—

Maybe you won’t understand this, but sometimes when I miss you most, it’s hardest to write—and you always know when I make myself—Just the ache of it all—and I can’t tell you.

If we were together, you’d feel how strong it is–you’re so sweet when you’re melancholy. I love your sad tenderness—when I’ve hurt you—That’s one of the reasons I could never be sorry for our quarrels—and they bothered you so—Those dear, dear little fusses, when I always tried so hard to make you kiss and forget—

Scott—there’s nothing in all the world I want but you—and your precious love—All the materials things are nothing.

I’d just hate to live a sordid, colorless existence—because you’d soon love me less—and less—and I’d do anything—anything—to keep your heart for my own—I don’t want to live—I want to love first, and live incidentally…

Don’t—don’t ever think of the things you can’t give me—You’ve trusted me with the dearest heart of all—and it’s so damn much more than anybody else in all the world has ever had—

How can you think deliberately of life without me—If you should die—O Darling—darling Scott—It’d be like going blind…I’d have no purpose in life—just a pretty—decoration.

Don’t you think I was made for you? I feel like you had me ordered—and I was delivered to you—to be worn—I want you to wear me, like a watch—charm or a button hole bouquet—to the world.

And then, when we’re alone, I want to help—to know that you can’t do anything without me…

All my heart—

I love you.

Zelda

No proofreader alive would let me get away with all those dashes.

This captivating couple made their way into one of my Paris Letters, which made it’s way into the book:

You can get it for literary aficionados in your life over at my shop.

“He told me how he had first met her during the war and then lost her and won her back . . . This first version that he told me of Zelda and a French naval aviator falling in love was a truly sad story and I believe it was a true story. Later he told me other versions of it as though trying them for use in a novel, but none was as sad as this first one and I always believed the first one. . . . They were better told each time; but they never hurt you the same way the first one did.” —Hemingway, A Moveable Feast

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August’s Paris Letter is in the shop. It’s about all the fancy keys you’ll find in an old broad of a town like Paris.

A few keys I found at the flea market…

And a few key chains for those keys from the souvenir shop…

This is a recent key I received for an apartment stay in Paris…

Featured alongside the famed Uni-Ball Vision Micro pen in black for scale. This pen is my main pal during most of my writing sessions. I like its grip, its flow, its nib and its wide availability. In the USA, one pen is about $1.50, in Canada it’s about $2, and in Paris, one pen is about $5, so stock up before you head to Paris.

If you’re on a colouring kick, here’s the original sketch of the key… sketched with a pencil, then outlined with the aforementioned Uni-Ball Vision Micro.

Click it or drag it or do whatever your computer or device does to grab the image, then colour at will.

There is a book about Paris’ keys, aptly called THE PARIS KEY.

A nice quote from the book:

Blackwell also has a book coming out this autumn called LETTERS FROM PARIS. I’m not sure how I feel about that, but hey, the key is to stay ahead of the rest. Pun intended.

I had Letters from Paris as one of my title options, but I just loathed the word “from.” Writers are odd about words. Well, some writers anyway. I found that the word from didn’t feel good to say. It’s a mouthful of a word. From. Try it. From. fr-auh-m. I had this discussion with my sister, who thought I was nuts for thinking  from was an issue. So she said, “Then just get rid of it, gawd!” So that’s what happened, along with a slight word shuffle:

Much better.

Recently, I had a similar issue with my new book, which I was calling PARIS YEAR. Two words. Doesn’t muck up the layout, easy to say, goes with the first, but the editor bristled. She thought it needed more, and suggested A PARIS YEAR.

Mulling ensued. Meetings were booked. Emails were lobbied back and forth.

Over a one letter word: A.

In the end, I came around and began to like how A PARIS YEAR rolled off the tongue. And it’s much better than another option, THE PARIS YEAR, which might sound good to some, but THE sounds like ZE when Christophe says it and I cannot hear ZE PARIS YEAR in my house until the end of time. It makes me bristle for a myriad of reasons. ZE isn’t as bad as FROM but it’s also not as good as A.

See how the writer’s mind works? It’s madness living with this noggin. So in the end, the final title is:

A PARIS YEAR

My day to day adventures in the most romantic city in the world

Rather exiting, non? A few pages:

The book moves from January to December, taking the reader though the seasons and the discoveries I made in my strolls around Paris.

Inspired by the wealth of positive feedback from this post back in January. Thanks!

And one piece of negative feedback from Mme Nasty, who has always nipped at my heels. Her feedback helped me decide to fully go for it. Thanks!

The book also includes details about my ghostly meetings with Hemingway:

Everyone has a ghost in Paris.

The  catalog copy reads:

“An illustrated love letter to the City of Light. Part memoir, and part visual journey through the streets of modern-day Paris, A Paris Year chronicles, day by day, one woman’s sojourn in the world’s most beautiful city. Beginning on her first day in Paris, Janice MacLeod, the author of the best-selling book, Paris Letters, began a journal recording in illustrations and words, nearly every sight, smell, taste, and thought she experienced in the City of Light. The end result is more than a diary: it’s a detailed and colorful love letter to one of the most romantic and historically rich cities on earth. Combining personal observations and anecdotes with stories and facts about famous figures in Parisian history, this visual tale of discovery, through the eyes of an artist, is sure to delight, inspire and charm.”

And the bio reads:

“JANICE MacLEOD, the illustrator and author of the New York Times best-selling book Paris Letters, was born in Canada and worked in advertising for many years until she decided to slip away from corporate drudgery and spend time abroad. During her time in Paris, she painted letters about her travels and mailed them to friends, who encouraged her to sell the personalized illustrated letters on Etsy. Since then, MacLeod has sent out thousands of letters to fans worldwide.”

I love how it seems like I just slipped away from the daily grind. If only it were that easy.

So the new book is done and delivered. I’m now going back and forth with the publishing house, and once we agree on the title, I’ll shout it from all four corners of this little acre of cyberspace.

After the book was due, I had two sets of guests. I spent a couple weeks dining in and dining out, laughing it up, arranging and yapping. All that gorgeous guest stuff.

I’m not great at living just anywhere, but I’m great at being a tourist wherever I am. So, we went to the Calgary Stampede, Banff, and Lake Louise like the good tourists we were.

Then the guests left.

I slept and ate weird things for lunch. A myriad of leftovers from the fridge. One can dine well on cold rice, half a peach, hard boiled egg, dribble of juice, brie, crackers, and grapes.

Then the scary thing happened.

I had nothing to do. For months I’ve been obsessed with finishing this book. I was racing to finish, largely because I knew it would ALMOST be complete AROUND when the guests arrived. And when they arrived I’d get no traction on the page.

Each day I would calculate “10 pages a day, 5 days this week, 50 pages…. done June 28” and if I didn’t get 10 pages done each day I’d recalculate, “8 pages a day, 5 days a week, 48 pages… done June 29” and on and on it went until I submitted that manuscript. The contract was still being vetted by the due date so that bought me a week. The mercy of projects sitting on other people’s desks.

The scary thing about having nothing to do…

The mind is blank, like when you realize you are truly 100% lost in the woods, have lost all sense of direction and believe that the best course of action is to curl up and stay quiet.

But, the mind isn’t so interested in having nothing to do, so it forms plans. After a few days of curling up and staying quiet, the list of unfinished business began to pour forth. I have basically abandoned listing my archive of Paris Letters, Travel Letters, and Painted Letters on my shop since… well I’ve been meaning to do it but never got to it. So, listing the archive was a top priority on my list of unfinished business.

It took me a week, but now every letter is up there… except for a few that I just never liked. Go ahead, check it out… five years of Paris Letters in glorious technicolor. I also added some fun digital downloads for all your Paris-inspired scrapbooking needs. I’m a giver.

This was a very big project that haunted me since last September when I started to solidify my new book.

And this morning, the day after the Paris Letters archive is done, the magic of completing unfinished business transpired.

I wrote the full outline of a course I’ve been desperate to create but didn’t know where to start. It was as if “List the Paris Letters archive” was blocking the creativity of the course. Now that the one was done, the other flowed out like, well, like magic.

So if you want to get something done and don’t know how to do it, you may have to turn away from it completely and review your list of unfinished business instead to look for blockers. This may seem counter intuitive but it’s a nice tool in the arsenal titled “Stuck And What To Do About It.”

You might start with writing a list of unfinished business. So often, we don’t write it down and the task just hovers around our head like a black fly. Writing it down is like swatting that fly out of the air and onto the page. Then, when a pocket of space is carved out, you won’t have to wonder what that thing was you wanted to get done. It will be right there, splat on the page. You can devote to done much faster. Then presto… the real work becomes clear.

Now, to get to the rest of my list, which is light in comparison. Big on the list is buying the Rick Steve’s Travel Backpack:

This bag is super light and deceivingly large. Check this out:

Those are giant man running shoes in that top pocket. That’s equal to at least three pairs of my lady shoes. By the way, I’m not an affiliate of Rick Steve’s products, just a fan.

This may seem like a small item on my list of unfinished business, but it’s been on my list for months and I’ll need that bag in a few weeks. Yikes!

And Robin Williams is still slumped by the door.

Prince is leaning in the elevator, hoping to get where he is going before he’s gone.

And David Bowie’s last video still runs through the back of my mind.

Then there are the videos that flutter under eyelids in that moment between awake and asleep.

The amateur Charlie Hebdo video barely faded before the videos of the Paris attacks came along.

I barely had five minute for Orlando before Dallas happened.

Then this business in Nice. Families giving their children a treat of staying up late for fireworks.

How long will I have for this before something else comes along?

It’s a quiet day in France again.

I woke this morning to a lovely surprise, this lovely photo of Paris Letters by runwaychef over at Instagram. She’s a satisfying follow.

With this summer sunshine, I’m noticing the need to have a print book outside. The problem is the reflection of my chin. At the angle I read the ebook, my chin is ginormous. Though most of my books are ebooks these days, so I have to practice self-compassion while I read if I choose to read outside. *pompous predicament*

A word about the glory of the ebook.

A friend asked what I’ve been reading lately. He wanted some recommendations for summer. As you may or may not know, I’m writing another book about Paris (due tomorrow… EEK) so I’ve slunk away from the world.

Or maybe you didn’t notice at all. It’s cool. *sulks*

I told my friend the truth. I’ve been reading samples. The samples have come from Amazon. You can read the first few chapters of a book, then decide if you want to buy it. Some samples have been a joy, and I buy the book. Some are so-so, and I don’t. Recently, a sample that turned into a purchase was The Paris Effect by K.S.R. Burns.

Another book that turned from sample to purchase was The Paris Architect by Charles Belfoure.

I’ve also been reading highlights of past books. I so enjoy the highlight feature with an ebook. I highlight pleasant passages as I read, then later, when I’ve got a short attention span but still have the desire to read, I scroll through my treasured highlights. All the shine, none of the dull. I had a print book in my hand the other day and I actually touched the page to highlight a passage with my finger. If I were enrolled at Hogwarts, this would not be a problem. But I’m not, so it is.

The book that wins the prize for most highlights goes to A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway.

In fact, I’ve spent so much time with this book that Hemingway became a character in my new book, which I’ll tell you all about once I’m done writing.

And now back to the manuscript.

I’ll leave you with a very satisfying quote by Hemingway back when he was just Ernest:

“But Paris was a very old city and we were young and nothing was simple there, not even poverty, nor sudden money, nor the moonlight, nor right and wrong nor the breathing of someone who lay beside you in the moonlight.”

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I woke this morning to two surprises. One, this lovely photo of Paris Letters by runwaychef over at Instagram. She’s a satisfying follow.

Two, Paris Letters is a Kindle Daily Deal today, which means it’s a mere $1.99 for the whole entire day. The link is to the USA Amazon, but you can get the ebook wherever you happen to shop for ebooks.

A word about the glory of the ebook.

A friend asked what I’ve been reading lately. He wanted some recommendations for summer. As you may or may not know, I’m writing another book about Paris (due tomorrow… EEK) so I’ve slunk away from the world.

Or maybe you didn’t notice at all. It’s cool. Sure. *sulks*

I told my friend the truth. I’ve been reading samples. The samples have come from Amazon. You can read the first few chapters of a book, then decide if you want to buy it. Some samples have been a joy, and I buy the book. Some are so-so, and I don’t. Recently, a sample that turned into a purchase was The Paris Effect by K.S.R. Burns.

Another book that turned from sample to purchase was The Paris Architect by Charles Belfoure.

I’ve also been reading highlights of past books. I so enjoy the highlight feature with an ebook. I highlight pleasant passages as I read, then later, when I’ve got a short attention span but still have the desire to read, I scroll through my treasured highlights. All the shine, none of the dull. The book that wins the prize for most highlights goes to A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway.

In fact, I’ve spent so much time with this book that Hemingway became a character in my new book, which I’ll tell you all about tomorrow. But for today, let’s focus on Paris Letters… 2 buckaroonies today only.

And now back to the manuscript.

I’ll leave you with a very satisfying quote by Hemingway back when he was just Ernest:

“But Paris was a very old city and we were young and nothing was simple there, not even poverty, nor sudden money, nor the moonlight, nor right and wrong nor the breathing of someone who lay beside you in the moonlight.”

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