All posts by vica

Mid-month news: September 2015

September 15, 2015A mother's diary, Newsletters, Stories in developmentvica

My job as a mother

As any mother, with the birth of my first child I have signed up for the twenty-four seven on-call service. Now with two children, this service doubled within the same time-frame.

Although my fulltime day job as a mother, which I do for the second time in my life, is coming slowly to an end. I can hardly believe that my sweet little Emma will go to a nursery school in a bit over two weeks time. And a few weeks after that I will have another title during the daytime.

But as long as I am a full-time mother, I thought I will share the latest news from my sweet employer’s life.

It is simply amazing to watch Emma grow. When she tries to crawl, pulling all her body with the strength of her arms, when among other words she tries to say “schön” (nice, beautiful in German) by pronouncing it in a sweetest possible way as t-s-c-h-I, when she waves enthusiastically while seeing our two reflections in a mirror.

It is amazing how she takes care of me by allowing me to take a power-nap near her on the play rug in her room, while she plays with the toys spread all around us and without attacking my glasses, as she does when I am awake.

She is an amazing girl and I am so happy to have her, her brother and their father in my life. I am truly blessed.

Seeing my stories develop here in my blog

I am so glad there are words and writing to help me share my life and my imagination with you.

Writing is for me a reliable vehicle to tell you about my life as a mother, and my guess would be that the category “A mother’s diary” is one of the most crowded in this blog.

Time to time I share fictional stories with you here, and I have a news about it as well. Ever since I heard of sites, communities and groups, where books are written in real-time and shared bit-by-bit, I was intrigued to do the same here.

My dear friend and writing teacher Menna van Praag has graciously agreed for me to continue the story prompted by the first paragraph from “The House at the End of Hope Street”. You can read this post here.

So on the next week’s post you will be able to read the continuation of this story, both in a blog post and in one piece from the beginning to the last available sentence. And you will find this on the page “Free Online Books”.

Wishing you all wonderful second half of September.

Picture: Just before I took this picture I tried to distract Emma from our storage room and get her let go of the hand-broom. I’ve have put one of her favourite toys about half a meter away from her in order to elicit her out of the doorway to the storage. A few seconds later I found Emma like this: her beloved cow close to her and the hand-broom in her hands. Why not having it all?

An ode to my friends

September 8, 2015A mother's diary, Callouts and thanks, Contemplations, Favorite quotesvica

This week’s post is a very short one. A wonderful and inspiring quote about friendship and a great thanks to all who support me and reach out to me. I love and cherish our friendship! Hugs to all of you from Denmark.

Here is the quote as I found it in German:

“Der beste Weg, einen Freund zu haben, ist der, selbst einer zu sein.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Interpretation:

“The best way to make a friend is to be one for others.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Pictures: selfies with two of my truest and most honest best friends — my children, Emma and Niklas. They are like my little mirrors. Most beautiful mirrors. If there is an upset to see in them, most probably there is one in me. And if I smile, they smile too. My family and my friends are the best motivators and reasons to smile and enjoy life as much as possible.

Why do I need to write?

August 31, 2015Books I write, Contemplations, Crazy ideas, Discoveries, Favorite quotesvica

In one of the posts on The Kill Zone blog, when asked for the reason to write, I answered in the comments that I write because I need to release the stories looming in my head.

This is true.

But there are also more straightforward, simpler reasons for this.

One of them is that I just simply need this.

I need to write.

I liked how J.K. Rowling has put it in her interview with Oprah Winfrey. She said that writing kept her sane. In a similar way, Lady Gaga described how her creativity in songwriting and costume design didn’t let her go completely crazy.

I quote both of them from memory, but I guess this applies to everyone. We all need a bit of creativity every day. Whether it is a drawing with one circle two dots and four lines symbolizing ourselves, when we are young, or when a programmer composes a new and simple algorithm for a complex problem.

We all need something to keep us sane. We need that glimpse of light that appears inside us when we have just created or discovered something beautiful and exciting. This pulse of light comes much earlier than the appreciation by others we all strive for, even if we are not doing art professionally.

There is this genuine self-appreciation, completely lacking arrogance. It might be a sigh with a smile, it might be a nod. It might be completely invisible to someone else watching. But it is there.

We often ignore it, because we don’t think it is important. We think the others, whether family, friends or strangers, can evaluate us and what we do best.

But do we really need external evaluation to live our lives to the full? We do strive for the positive one. But do we need it?

I don’t know. I am not quite sure we do. In spite of all the striving.

Sometimes we think we need something, like a new peace of furniture, a new scarf, a new note-book for writing, a new book to read, another cup of espresso with dark chocolate on the side to savor.

You guessed correctly, all of these and many more do appear in my thoughts lately, some of them regularly and with exponentially ascending intensity, where the last three share the second top position on my “What do I need to survive?” list after my family.

But today I had an epiphany. I might have had it before or I might have even read it somewhere written by someone else (probably many times in many different ways) and forgot afterwards. I will probably forget it and have it appear as an experience again, when I most need it. Just like today.

So here it goes.

We all need to create or discover something new every day.

Even freshly cleaned house can be set into this category. Because when you unclutter your home, find new ways to arrange things, dust and vacuum or wipe the floors inside and then look around, you might think that it looks like a new place. This happened to me on Saturday, when after four hours work I finished laundry and cleaning our house. Our new house looked even newer and cosier then.

There are many possible ways to be creative. And there are many new to discover. Writing is still my favourite.

I am sure you have also experienced such glimpses of creativity and the pleasant feeling inside during the process and right upon completion of a creative activity.

Such a feeling of appreciation to be able to create something new is sparkling for me also right now, in this moment, as I am finishing this post.

Wishing you many creative, sparkling moments! Every day!

Picture: There are many necessary ingredients to feed our creativity. Beauty is one of them. Here you can see our orchids — glamorous but unpretentious beauties in our living room.

Summer impressions

August 25, 2015A mother's diary, Contemplations, Memories, True Storyvica

You might not have noticed but I was away for two weeks with my family. We visited my parents- and my grandparents-in-law in Germany. We all had a wonderful time.

It makes me smile as I see reactions on most people’s faces when I mention my parents-in-law. It is amazing how the prejudices against in-laws are ingrained into the cultures we grew up in. All those fairy tales and jokes about the awful mother-in-law.

I love seeing how the faces relax when I tell them how much I like my in-laws and that my mother-in-law is one of my best friends.

My family and I try to spend Christmas every year with my parents-in-law as well as the whole of my husband’s family. And we love spending our summer holidays with them. Every time we spend time with them we tank energy and good mood.

Also this summer we had very colourful and wonderful holidays including three celebrations on my Mom’s-in-law birthday.

Here are some impressions from our vacation.

We …

hiked on a motor-cross test track close to were my in-laws live:

enjoyed my grandparents’-in-law garden, some of us awake and aware of the blooming and ripening beauties:

some of us asleep:

inspected damages after a summer storm:

made selfies:

enjoyed the world and ourselves from the top of a rock called Grandfather:

went for a walk:

enjoyed natural and human creations:

verified quality of Mama’s writing:

and finally unpacked our bags today:

Mid-month news: August 2015

August 16, 2015Books I write, Newslettersvica

What happened since the last Newsletter in July:

I finished the self-edit of the “A Spy’s Daughter” and sent it to my beta-readers.

My dear friend and reader of this blog Marcy (A call-out and a hug to you here, dearest Marcy!) has read the book several chapters at a time and put some eye-opening questions to the end of the story. I was so happy to hear that she liked the protagonist. Marcy’s questions about a secondary character made me go deeper into the Hannah’s world set up in the sequel “A Life Upside Down”, of which “A Spy’s Daughter” is the first book. I discovered at least one more intriguing story during this exercise. You can read about the work on this new story below. I am sure I will discover many more interesting stories there. I’ll keep you updated.

Now, two other beta-readers are reading the book in its whole. And I play a game with myself, in which I am the forth beta-reader. It is challenging not to be too critical and to imagine the book being written by another writer and not by myself. It works when I read it for short periods of time and then change to another activity. If I do then longer than what feels like half an hour, a fight starts in my head, where the critic and the defender try to prove who is right in their opinion of almost each sentence and in some cases even words. The fun part comes when I notice and smile or laugh at this normal brain behaviour and switch to something else.

The work on the cover of the “Spy’s Daughter” has started. I purchased two great images and Alice Jago made a wonderful first draft of the cover for paperback, the front cover of which will also be the cover for the e-book. I showed this draft to my husband and his parents and got their encouraging nods and smiles. We all liked it. So, now the cover will have a break until after Alice’s edit of the book. Then, we will see if any changes to the cover are necessary.

What is happening now:

I’ve got now a working title for the story on language learning in Moldova: “Does Anyone Speak English in This Country?” The story is taking place in Kishinev, Moldova’s capital in the second half of 1990s.

But right now this project is set to rest, because the sequel “The Life Upside Down” occupies most of the attention during my writing time. Thanks to the feedback from Marcy, I realized that I have to find out more about a secondary character, who bears in her the original cause to the chaos in my protagonist’s life. Hannah’s mother. Her life is surely full of secrets.

As I dig deeper into her secrets I rediscovered the following truth: the ideals, which seemingly drive human behavior, are often just a cover to some deep and secret reasons arising from the pieces of our past, which we refuse to let go or which we resent.

The same is with Hannah’s mother. She runs away and resents her past so much, that she needs a hemisphere to stop finally and find her place and somewhat peace, which is of course another illusion.

What are the next steps:

The story about Hannah’s mother is too short to become a whole novel but too long for a prologue. So I am writing a prequel, which will be a short story or a very short novella. I am finishing the fifth chapter right now.

I am not sure how and when exactly I will publish it. But so far the plans are to publish it whether at the same time or shortly after the first book in the sequel.

The two beta readers, I mentioned above, have agreed to send me their comments in the beginning of September. I promised myself to have my own beta-reader comments at the same time. So the next time I write the newsletter I will let you know what surprises came out of this very first collective read.

One more step is planned. To turn marketing of my books and my platform as a writer into a daily habit. Writing turned from a wish into a dear and very pleasant habit, deeply ingrained into the rhythm of my day. And marketing is becoming one as well. I love speaking about my books to my family in friends. Going global with this sharing is somewhat scary but also exciting, as well as fascinating. I’ve read and am reading several sources on the topic right now. If you are interested in these references, then let me know in the comments and I will share the sources I found and find very helpful.

Have a wonderful third part of the summer 2015, dear friends!

Picture: this August’s gifts.