When you move house, you'll be faced with moving many, many pieces of furniture, appliances, suitcases of clothes and boxes. And some of these boxes (a fair few, in my case) will be full of books. Novels, non-fiction, recipe books, the odd bit of poetry... It's all in there, and you know you'll end up taking them all to your new pad. 




5 Reasons To Leave Your Books Behind When You Move House

1. They're heavy - lifting a box of books can threaten to pull muscles you didn't know you had. 
2. You know you won't read them all any time soon. 
3. They're dusty.
4. You're down-sizing and need the precious shelf space. 
5. They're shabby and won't match the modern interior of the new house. 

JUST KIDDING. 

1. I'll get El Husbandio to lift the boxes. 
2. I will read them all!!!
3. Love the smell of dusty books - achoo!
4. Put up more shelves, instead of using a bookcase.
5. Well-loved and second hand rough-looking books are all the more intriguing. 

So I've taken them all with me. Every single one. 

Before you chastise me for not using the opportunity to have a clear-out, I'd already had a culling session six months ago when we moved previously. I decided if I wasn't going to read them again, or had only half read them and abandoned them, they were given to the local hospice charity shop.

El Husbandio is not impressed. He, unfortunately, grew up in a house devoid of books; he doesn't 'get it'. He cannot see why I need to keep my books. Well, I grew up surrounded by them. Both my parents are readers, and have double stacked bookcases I love to browse. And I'd love our kids to have the same influence. However, I'm not 'with child' and won't be for a while hopefully, so let's ignore that point. 

So why have I humped my books into a van, across Bristol, and out into our new house?

First of all, these books have cost me money. The price I paid ranges from 20p - £15, but that's my hard-earned cash. Some were free (gifts) - always welcome! - but most of them I picked up in a charity shop somewhere. 

Another reason I'm hanging onto my books is the view of my bookshelf inspires me. I believe, rightly or wrongly, being surrounded by great books written by a variety of writers I enjoy helps me with my own writing. I feel like I'm in good company. 

Bookcases are for books. The clue is in the name. If you have a bookcase without books, you're doing it an injustice. Yes, this one to the left looks very pretty but it's not displaying what it was intended to. 

Some of my books remind me of a person or a memory. I have an old copy of 'A House For Mr Biswas' (V.S. Naipaul). When I learned, at her funeral in 2009, this was my grandma's favourite book, I had to get a copy. I hated it all the way through, but I can't get rid of it. 

Keep your books purely because books furnish a room. El Husbandio is dead organised and tidied away our DVD collection into a sleeved folder, but this is even more reason why books should be proudly displayed in a living room or bedroom. Both, in our case.

Don't feel guilty about not getting rid of your books. Society is too much about consumerism and disposable items nowadays, so hang on to your books as long as you want to. People keep crockery they never use, so why not do the same for books? They can stay on your growing 'to read' list indefinitely. 

Some of my books have got to be on their eighth or ninth journey into a new place, and no doubt will go on more journeys in the future. 

Keep your books for no other reason than you love them. 

Lou x

Find me on Facebook
...and on Twitter
Born to be a Tourist

I love a good literary festival, and most of my dear blog readers hail from the USA, so here's my unmissable list of upcoming lit fests in the USA. 

Enjoy - let me know if you go to any, but be careful not to let the literary festivals ruin your social life!






National Book Festival, Washington DC, USA, August

Miami Book Fair, USA, November

Brooklyn Book Festival, USA, September

19th Annual F. Scott Fitzgerald Literary Festival October 10, 2015 Rockville, MD, USA

National Book Festival – Library of Congress

National Mall, Washington DC

Wisconsin Book Festival, Madison, WI (October)

Texas Book Festival, Austin, TX (October)

Louisiana Book Festival, Baton Rouge, LA (November)

Decatur Book Festival, Decatur, GA (September)

------

Check out more great America book festivals via @travelleisure. 


Lou x


Find me on Facebook
...and on Twitter
Born to be a Tourist

A year ago today, I married El Husbandio, as he's become known as on my blog. Thank you, yes, we're doing great and loving being married!

We woke up this morning after a good (first!) night's sleep in our new house. Yes, on sofa and floor, pending furniture, but still, very comfy and warm. Exactly how we feel in being married after a year. 

Today couldn't pass me by without a bit of reflection. Memories, love and special treats are all wrapped into today's special date, but I wanted to think about how marriage is different to being boyfriend and girlfriend. Yes, all these things can come with non-married couples, any sex, age and culture, but these changes are what I have seen come around in the 12 months since our ceremony on the beach. 




We represent each other when the other cannot. We rarely can't make things, but if for example, a family event came up and one couldn't make it, the other would go in their place, where possible. I remember having a chat with my mum a few years back when my cousin died; had my sister or I been married, we would have expected our husbands (just boyfriends at the time) to have gone to the funeral in our place. We were both abroad at the time and couldn't make it back. It's a step up from being a couple, representing each other in absence - you're a recognised unit. 

Living together came to El Husbandio and me only after we were married. As he's from Costa Rica and I'm British, visa requirements wouldn't allow us to live together for longer than three months - and that meant three long months of not working for El Husbandio. He was essentially a tourist. Great as that sounds, there were lots of days when he was a bit lost, at a loose end - it's so much better now we've both got a focus and motivation in our jobs! Living together has been a lot of fun, with some trials and bumps in the road, but we wouldn't have it any other way. I feel more at 'home' than ever, even having moved four times since we've been married. Our first night in our first house last night felt... right. 

Of course, we have plans, but since graduating from being a couple to a married couple, our plans have taken a step up too. We're now talking about kids. About bringing his family over to the UK to visit. About DIY projects on our new house. About when and how we might buy an upgrade on our little Toyota. None of this would have been on our radar a year ago. We're more settled and are beginning to grow roots here in Bristol - we're thinking more long-term and bigger. How exciting! Planning has gone to a whole new level when we have our own and some shared dreams and ideas. 

Another way marriage makes our union different is the relationships we have with our and each others parents. I feel more than ever that I have a home in Costa Rica with his family and have learned a lot about how their family unit functions, but I've also learned more about my family in this time. I know El Husbandio feels the same way in reverse. It's a good feeling - it's always better to find ways of understanding your family. Everyone gets disappointed with situations here and there, everyone has arguments... Families are notorious for being difficult sometimes. Getting to know what drives them and how they feel is important and builds links further for the future and can bring a family closer. I thought I knew what marriage was about, having watched my mum and dad over the last 30 years, but never more than now. 

How else has life changed since this time last year? Our finances are more intertwined now we're married. Partly as we now live together, but also because we have plans, a shared bank account, and a limited income. That sounded quite scary at first, but it's wonderful to be able to plan and share together. We've worked out a way to share responsibility of bills and to cope with less money than we expected, and it's working. Share and support: keystones in a successful first year!

I don't know if this is all guff to you; maybe you do all this with your other half and you're not married. Maybe you're married and don't do these things. However, for us, they're important in ways they haven't been before. I've always been an independent person, and I've learned how great it can be to have your best friend, cheerleader and lover on your team, officially. It's taken a lot of work, time, stress and money to get us in the same country and married, and we try every day not to take it for granted. Despite some barneys, some differences and challenges, we're one blessed couple.

Happy anniversary, mi amor xxx

Lou x

Find me on Facebook
...and on Twitter
Born to be a Tourist

I couldn't love Google more. I use it for maps & directions, images, and research. Music, new clothes, special offers at restaurants or supermarkets, ideas for gifts and where to find them, currency conversions, holiday itinerary ideas and travel plans, household utilities contact numbers, new blogs I fancy following, films, and recipes - all found on Google. 

I Google everything. 

Google is in fact, my homepage. Makes sense - aside from my Gmail (Google mail!), it's probably the website I use the most. That's pretty normal in this 21st century world, to search on the internet for answers to everything from niggling questions or large scale info gathering, but is this progressing beyond being 'a good thing' and into 'harmful' categories?

Although I am pretty sure I am not losing my mind, I am sure my memory is getting worse, even at the age I am. I believe Google is partly to blame, or rather, my constant reliance on it. I am relying on my diary to make sure appointments and deadlines are not missed, and I do not know anyone's number off by heart - bar my close family, probably. That's quite normal, but I never remember directions until I've done the trip several times, and I fail to remember where I can find info all the time, other than from Google's data. Yes, your memory gets worse as you get older, but I shouldn't be this bad just yet. (I just googled for that link.)

Related to that, my general knowledge is pitiful. Gone are the days I can reel off capital cities. I just Google it. And because my computer or phone can tell me the answer instantly, my brain's realised I don't need to remember it. Same goes for the appointments mentioned above, in a way: it's written down, therefore I don't need to remember it.  

I've noticed further cognitive changes over the last couple of years. I have met a lot more people in the last couple of years (compared to the rest of my life) and it sometimes takes a while for me to remember faces and names. As Cracked says, there's almost a 'first come, first served' process going on in your brain for registering and remembering your friends. 

The worse thing is the lowering of my concentration levels and attention span. When I was a teenager, albeit with not many local friends, no pocket money left after I'd blown it on CDs, and my only transport being my bike, I spent hours reading. I'd come in from school, do my homework, mess about a bit, but then read all evening (when Friends wasn't on). I've even missed dinner before, from being engrossed. Nowadays, I'm lucky if I get a few pages in before my concentration ebbs and sleep advances. Work has knackered me out sometimes, sure, and there's more to my life than I had when I was 14, but I don't have the stamina for hours, even days, of reading that I used to. The internet, social media, and increased computer screen use has no doubt affected this. I now read more blogs per week than I do books in a year, sometime even skim reading, and Twitter and texts make my ability to read longer pieces even worse. The skill of reading is not an instinctive one, like speech is, so I worry one day there will be no need for 120,000 word novels.  

What's also sad about this is the loss of hours as a child exploring Encarta 96 on CD Rom or poring over pages of the Encyclopedia. My future kids probably won't be able to spell the E word as they won't have a need for it. Big old reference books provided hours of curious fact-filled fun (yes, I was a geek), but also, a bond between siblings. Sure, you can share links or photos on social media with your family, but there was nothing like fighting over which section of Encarta to play sounds or hunt for images in. To this day, I can recite the opening poem/song to Encarta. Ok, shouldn't have admitted that... Incidentally, Encarta was discontinued in 2009, and even the replacement Microsoft online dictionary closed in 2011. I guess the unstoppable rise of Google and Wikipedia put pay to that. 

I haven't even touched on how Google is making us lazy and unsociable. Remember the days of 'word of mouth'? I just do a quick online search for a new dentist or a zumba class when I move into a new area. 

Google has become almost an extension of my intelligence. It's a side-effect of this age of convenience. I don't need to remember or even know things anymore; I just need a weak internet connection for instant access to the world's knowledge. Dial-up sufficed, in years gone by! (Remember this comforting noise?)

To an extent, this is fine. I have enough to remember and know about life: taking my lunchbox to work, house things, special dates, appointments El Husbandio is likely to forget, the day job etc. etc. Why should I fill my (extremely!) limited brain capacity with remembering which city is the capital of Peru when Google can tell me in 0.37 seconds?

Do you think our brains will ever be replaced with a form of a search engine?!

However, there I've been experiencing further symptoms of Google induced thick-ness. It's a step further than simply not bothering to think or remember. 

I'll give you an example. A while back, I had an issue with my digital camera. I couldn't reset it. What did I do? I put a call out on Facebook for help, tagging my techie mates in to the post. One astute friend came back to me in seconds: she said "Google it". 

Duh. No idea why I hadn't done that in the first place. Google is making me so thick I have, at times, not considered even using it. Argh!

So what am I doing to try and combat 'Google Brain'? (Damn, I thought I had that term coined, but no, it's a project on AI Google are working on.) 

   - - Before I Google something, I take a few seconds to properly think - do I know this already?
   - - I'm going to try to cut back on unnecessary multi-tasking to increase focus
   - - I plan to try to read on my lunch break - practice!
   - - Some non-fiction books will be added to my 'to read' list on GoodReads. 
   - - I will try to read more news and news-type magazine articles/blogs to stretch my comfort zone in online reading

Have you noticed how much you rely on google? Leave me a comment so I know I'm not alone!

Read about Google's history here, if that's your kinda thing. 

Lou x

Find me on Facebook
...and on Twitter
Born to be a Tourist

Over on my travel blog earlier this week, I posted a piece on Parisien literature tours - you guys might be interested as readers and writers, so I thought of cross-posting it here. Let me know if you head over to Paris on a literature tour - would love to hear your feedback!

Read the article here.

Lou x

Find me on Facebook
...and on Twitter
Born to be a Tourist

We had an early apple harvest in Gibney Towers this week. El; Husbandio has been feeding the fish in the neighbour's garden while they're away, and on Saturday we noticed the cooking apples in their enormous tree were starting to fall. Waste not, want not! 

What better way to use the shiny green fruits than to bake with them? Have a look to see how I got on over a course of two days, making and baking. 

Day One - Saturday

With a mountain of apples to use, I googled for apple recipes. Then I realised I had just one egg - disaster! So, the googling became "apple cake no egg". And there were so many to choose from?

I settled with these two in the end...

Chocolate and Apple Muffins

Find the recipe here - you NEED to try these!!!!

Apple and Raisin Cake

The recipe for this cake is here. This cake was the first time I'd used a ring tin... definitely let it cool completely before trying to get it out the tin - my cake's a little delicate, but very tasty. Love a bit of cinnamon! I didn't have any cloves but it didn't make any difference. I love the fact there's apple juice in this recipe. S

And finally, stewed apples. The third 'bake' wasn't actually a bake... I stewed a huge saucepan of apples for breakfast. And dessert for dinner. Probably breakfast again! 

They're so tasty eaten with yoghurt, so good. All you have to do is gentle boil them down with some sugar and a little water. Make sure the mixture doesn't dry out. 

Day Two - Sunday

Today's challenge was to make an apple cheesecake. 

I found a recipe for a cheesecake (online, of course!), which needs to be baked. I've only ever done cheesecakes which need chilling to set before, so this would be something new, and would make our meager fishcake Sunday dinner a bit more beefed up. Well, apple'd up! 

This recipe is called 'Easiest' Apple Cheesecake, but watch out - there's three portions of sugar required, don't just take a quick look and think you only need the first 100g. 

It is a little dark on top, I'd like it a bit lighter ideally, but nibbling a crumble or two which dropped off when I release the bottom of the tin, it tastes amazing. Success!

I am totally sick of peeling apples now - thank goodness some friends live nearby. I dropped off 30 apples for them to bake with. The washing up bowl mountain was too much of a challenge for me!

Still got five apples left.... 

Thanks to the unwitting donors of our apples!!!!A

See you next time, 


Lou x


Find me on Facebook
...and on Twitter
Born to be a Tourist

Confession time: I haven't worked on my novel, ‘Scrabble Pieces’, since around August two years ago. I remember taking the day off work in the summer sunshine and smashing my word count target of 2,000 words… and then stopping.


























Why did I stop writing?

I made an extra effort to focus on my monthly column with MK Pulse (I’m no longer with them but I wrote for them for five or so years), and as my blogs continued to grow, I threw myself into my travel blog and this Miss Write website. My writing definitely took a new direction of platform and style away from the novel.

And then life got complicated – an engagement, a wedding abroad, a visa and legal arrangements for El Husbandio, bouncing back and forth between Costa Rica and the UK as a result, job changes (2), moving house (3), a house purchase on-going, all the stress that comes with such life events… and all while working hard in my day job and having a full social life. This all happened in the last 20 months alone. And that’s not counting 2013 – a mega year of travel for me as Costa Rican relations hotted up.

Still, that’s no excuse. I shouldn’t have stopped working on my novel. Just 15-20 mins a ay would have kept things ticking over. When I paused in writing, I had 85-90% of a great plot laid out in my head and I was still determined to make a full-length work out of it. I loved the storyline, and loved it even more for showing how my writing’s come along since ‘Girl Meets Boys’ (a novella, 2009, now out of print). I love the feeling of "I can write better than this, and I will write better than this!!!"

How am I going to restart the motors on my half-finished draft?

From memory, I currently have 30,000 words or so stored in chapters on my external hard drive. The thought of re-reading (cringing?) my way through the incomplete first draft attempt doesn’t appeal too much, but I need a refresher. I need to get to know my characters again, remember their stories, refocus on their journeys and the aim of the story. Part of writing ‘Scrabble Pieces’ requires me to forget what I know to write the story as well as possible, so I need to remind myself how to remember to forget. It works, honest! I need to remember the reader knows less than I do about how the book ends…

And I don’t fancy re-reading all this on-screen. I spend enough of my waking hours looking at a screen for my day job, so my eyes will welcome the rest and it’ll be a totally different writing method for me to try. I’ve never been much of a handwriter since I got my first laptop (12 years ago).

So what’s the plan?

I plan to rewrite via handwrite. I am going to scribe what I’ve produced so far in an A4 notepad from the computer screen. All 30,000 words of it – and beyond! My 2005 undergraduate self, struggling over a 5,000 word “dissertation” (I know, it was tiny as far as dissertations go!) would have a heart attack thinking of it, but why not? I have the time, I have the inclination, and I feel like I’ll really get to understand and remember the scenes, storyline, characters and their dilemmas, becoming that much closer to the essence of the writing. I hope to become re-absorbed into the story, like a reader would hopefully be, page-turning. I intend to use this resulting boost to finish the thing.

Another benefit I hope handwriting will bring is it’s easier to make notes as I go along. I can scribble all I like, insert extra pages and mess around easier than a tidy typed page. Yes, I could cut and paste my way through a novel creation on a laptop, but I feel like making notes is more organic, allowing the ideas to flow. Perhaps this is because it’s more natural to hand write than to type? You don’t see great works from centuries passed being typed, and look at their staying power.

It’s been good taking a break – you know I love my blogging – but it’s time to test myself again. Who knows, the break might give my book a new lease of life. I’ve developed my style, become more confident, and I’m ready for a new challenge. I don’t especially enjoy challenging myself in reading, but writing is a totally different story. Bring it on!

Whether this new tactic works or not, we shall have to see. If it does work, fantastic. I can’t wait to get onto the editing stage and have a shiny new book of mine in my hand. If it doesn’t work, I’ve tried something new, reminded myself of how great ‘Scrabble Pieces’ is and will be, and, what I’m most excited about, undoubtedly I’ll discovered more parts to the story my previous scribblings on the keyboard didn’t think of.

I think my hands will be aching in pen-holding shortly!

Wish me luck.

Check out Chuck Wendig's fab blog 25 Ways To Get Your Creative Groove Back As A Writer if you're planning to get back into writing too; it was a big help to me.

Lou x

Find me on Facebook
...and on Twitter
Born to be a Tourist

This bake looks boring as hell, but it has a secret dimension... It's vegan!

This last weekend, El Husbandio and I were invited to a birthday BBQ. It promised to be an interesting event, since the birthday boy and his girlfriend are vegan. We took our own sausages!

Anyway, I baked our host a cake - vegan coconut loaf cake. It was the simplest cake I've ever made, just four ingredients and no topping... a bit plain, but I think it looks like a nice bake. 

Another reason not to be vegan: boring looking birthday cakes! Sorry Evo - he liked it though!

Lou x

Find me on Facebook
...and on Twitter
Born to be a Tourist

Chris Boardman, Olympic gold medalist, multiple Tour de France prologue winner and British Cycling’s policy advisor, is an encouraging man:

"Failure is a subjective term: is it a fail if you have to get off and walk up a hill? Or a win because you’ve bitten off more than you can chew and are doing it anyway? I tend to lean heavily towards the latter."     (source)

Catching up on The Guardian's Bike Blog earlier today, I spotted this quote, and I tend to agree. Of course, I thought about my epic ride into Wales when I struggled with some hills (and flats!) - but never walked! - but funnily enough, the writing, sometimes as strenuous as cycling uphill, popped into my head too. 

How many of us have started something with great enthusiasm and then 'got off and walked' - or indeed, stopped all together - when the going got tough? 

I have, for sure. I have started blogs and left them in draft (often just to get the idea down for later, ,but yes, sometimes as I run out of steam writing it). I've also written half a novel and abandoned it for lack of endurance. I was only saying last week that I feel the stirrings of return-to-my-novel-writing. I hit about 30,000 words almost exactly two years ago, and suddenly stopped. I was stuck at the 30k mark, not quite sure how to pass that check-point. That was why my first book (no longer in print)) was just over 30,000 words - I didn't have the stamina to get any further. Saying that, when I wrote my 5,000 word dissertation at university, 30k would have been impossible! The book was complete, don't get me wrong; I know it wasn't a 100,000 word tome in the making, but this second book had more miles in it than my first effort. We all have our comfort zone, and mine seems to be about 30,000 words. 

However, I want to push my boundaries. Build my strength and stamina as a writer. Prove it to myself. Why not embrace the challenge and scribble harder?

Hopefully I haven't bitten off more than I can chew. Hopefully my writing muscles can get me to the finish line, up and over the hills. I've never been good at starting the pedals on a slope, but maybe this is where the cycling analogy ends. I'm a pro at hill-starts in the car!

Wish me luck - I'm planning on returning to 'Scrabble Pieces', my 'next big thing', this month. 

Lou x

Find me on Facebook
...and on Twitter
Born to be a Tourist

A colleague of mine brought some coconut haystacks into work last week and I asked him if his wife (the baker) would scribble the recipe down for me. They were so good! Marilyn's haystacks were chocolate dipped, but mine looked pretty good without the choc, so I left them 'au naturel'. Delicious!

Here's the recipe - thanks Marilyn!

This recipe made more like 14-15 haystacks. 

Lou x

Find me on Facebook
...and on Twitter
Born to be a Tourist