What makes a Christmas, for me? How do I get into proper Christmas spirit? Here's the essential guide to the best Christmas, Lou style!


(I realise 18 things aren't really 'essential' but they are unmissable to me!)

Best Christmas Prop? Santa hats! Furry ones, ones that light up, they're a must-have!

What's The Best Christmas Preparation Job? Wrapping presents, without a doubt. I love making the gifts look enticing, even with my distinct lack of artistic talent. 

First Drink I'll Taste: Mulled wine. Champagne isn't something I really enjoy and Christmas flavoured coffees are overrated. It's got to be a glass of warm, spiced red. 

No. 1 song to start the festive mood: SLADE - Merry Christmas Everyone (1973)
Pre-dating me by over a decade, it's still the ultimate Christmas tune!

Best Way To Avoid Confrontation: Dispel any brewing arguments by giving someone stressed a hug. They might need it if they've just burned the turkey!

That Reminds Me - Turkey or Ham? Turkey, every time. I hardly eat it the rest of the year, though. 

Best Way To Begin A Festive Feeling: Watching a Christmas movie.

Ok then... Favourite Christmas Movie? Bernard and the Genie (BBC 1991). Hands-down the best ever Christmas movie ever made. I have to indulge in Elf, Love Actually, and Home Alone too, or it's simply not Christmas. 

What should the weather be like? A bright, crisp, cold morning, with a frost on the garden. I don't remember a white Christmas...

Charades: Yes or No? YES!!! I'm game for any ... game! We've done Charades, Bingo, Family Fortunes, Rapido, Pictionnary, and the ol' family fave of "Tip It!" (don't ask...)

Best Ever Present? Maybe my Timberland snowboots, or my iPod. 

Favourite festive food: Brandy butter (for Christmas pudd or mince pies) and bread sauce

All-time Favourite Christmas Carol: Hark! The Herald Angels Sing. What a belter!!!

Favourite tree decoration: This year, it's my owls, nestled in the tree. 

Least Favourite Part About Christmas: The amount of waste which is generated. Rubbish produced over Christmas by UK households would fill Big Ben 1500 times, so try to recycle where you can!

Christmas Cards. Go. I'm not sending any this year for the first time ever. I have taken a stand against waste generation and done my bit to protect our trees. The money could be better spent elsewhere; I have donated the money I would have spent on cards and stamps to my favourite charities. 

How Late Do I Leave The Christmas Gift Shopping? Always done before December, normally during November. That way, it's all done and dusted before the crowds descend on the shops, and I can enjoy my final pay cheque of the year!

Christmas Wouldn't Be The Same Without: My family. Silly hats, singing, eating our weight in stuffing, games.... Love it!

Merry Christmas everyone (in the words of Slade!)

Lou x

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Born to be a Tourist

Writing a CV. We all have to do it, and I know of no one who relishes the thought. 

This chore is time consuming, boring, a memory test, a lesson in writing copy and marketing, and not the 'fun' kind of marketing I normally talk about! No two resumes are the same. so it can be hard to know what exactly to include - or not. 

I've been fine tuning my CV lately, but last weekend presented another element to the job: I helped my Spanish speaking boyfriend turn his CV into something British employers might like to see - if and when he is eligible to work in the UK, and I wanted to blog about the comparison between the two documents. 

This was quite a challenge! Of course, translation was required (made slightly more complicated by the lack of recollection of important dates). You cannot, with any translation, as far as I know, translate every word literally. Sentences just do not compute across languages in the same way. Luckily, his English is great, and my patience and grasp of the English language is improving every day!

Not only that, but the content of a Latino CV was quite different to what I'd become accustomed to here in the UK. The contact details still were present at the top of the page, but Costa Rican (Tico) CVs (or 'resumes' - very American!) also require the applicant to state their date of birth in this 'personal details' section - something I found very odd. This is not recommended for CVs in the UK, and is actively discouraged to protect applicants from possible ageism. 

Another difference I discovered was that CVs in Costa Rica require a lot more detail as to what your education and subsequent qualifications/courses entailed. This, I have been assured by several recruitment agents and friends who work in HR, is not necessary in the UK. It's something to expand on in the interview, but I'm advised to explain briefly in one short sentence or bullet point exactly what the course content contained, if it is particularly applicable to the post you're applying to. 

Expanding on the text can be useful, essential, even. This is relevant if you've been trained by a national body which represent themselves in your professional circles as an acronym (e.g. WRAP: Waste and Resources Action Programme). Charities aside, someone from outside that sector might not know how much of a high standing this organisation has, so give the company its full title and use brackets to house the acronym. This was very relevant to the session we spent on Sunday 'CV bashing'; many of the company/government/education acronyms commonly used in Costa Rica would mean nothing to the average (or more than average) Joe here in the UK.  

The differences between the British and Tico education system made for quite a challenge to make it clear exactly what happened in my man's primary and secondary years. There's no GCSEs or A Levels, of course. If in doubt, I figure it could be good practice to say something like this, if you were translating a CV from English - Spanish:

Spelling this out for a potential employer who may have no concept of exams and education outside of the UK or Europe was a fantastic challenge on writing to the point, clear and precise copy. 

Other things remained the same between our two types of CV; I'm pleased to announce that Word picked up on no more than zero spelling mistakes - result! Both of us have been careful to try to make sure our CVs as short as possible, mindful of the sad fact that many employers will simply skim the text for key ingredients. The Guardian Jobs website advocates this approach. Both of us have kept the sections tidy and well-formatted to make it easy to find, for example, the section on history of employment. We've also both taken the time to include a personal statement of sorts; the top of my CV has a very short paragraph summarising my personal profile (hard working, fast learner, keen professional and willing etc) and the bottom of my boyfriend's has a similar piece of text - albeit a little longer. This is because often covering letters are not used in applications in Costa Rica. 

Finally, neither of us have photos posted on our CV, no beautiful or not so beautiful mugshot to let the employer know just what we look like. I thought this was a total no-no for any CV, but my year I spent living in Canada proved otherwise. The Canadians are keen to see photos - a little over the top, I feel, and too much information to be judged on... positively or negatively! Surely waiting to meet the person for the interview should be enough, without having to ask for a photo - unless of course, it's for a modelling role! 

Top Tip for Translating a CV:

Get your CV up to scratch and find someone who writes well in the language you wish to record your achievements in. 

If the language flows nicely and it's set out in a clear, logical format, you'll be well on your way to a good CV. Remember also that the value of having someone to proofread the document when you're done cannot be overstated. We writers often can't see the wood for the trees when we're writing out own content, be it a CV, a novel or a short story, and having a 'fresh' pair of eyes take a look can be invaluable - as I learned on publishing my first novel with a rude word on the very first page! 

More resources to check out:

Take a look at '44 resume writing tips' from the geniuses at Daily Writing Tips for general and useful info on how to make your CV the one which stands out from the pile.

And if you're translating? Google 'translating CV into XXX' and see what comes up. Here's the French version, for example. 

There are lots of online CV templates too, so (free!) help is at hand. 

Here's hoping for onwards and upwards in professional circles for us both! 

More from me next Friday - enjoy your week!

Lou x

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Born to be a Tourist

Image courtesy of Signet Resources and Arm

Good afternoon everyone again, thanks for stopping by my weekly writing blog! This week I welcome Sarah LaFleur, NaNoWriMo winner for 2013. She's here to share how she (and 311,830 other dedicated writers) conquered the international NaNo challenge and managed to write a novel in one month. I've invited Sarah to tell us what she learned about her skills as a writer, and to see if she'd brave NaNo again! Take it away, Sarah, and thanks again for guest blogging. 

How I Nailed NaNoWriMo

Like many other writers, I accepted the NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) challenge to write a novel (or at least 50K words of one) during the month of November.  This being my first time participating, I wasn’t sure what to expect.  After 30 days of nearly continuous writing (I took 2 days off to work on another project with a pressing deadline) I finished with 50,182 words and a decent first draft of a new science fiction novel!






























Now as most writers know, writing daily can be easy or excruciating depending on the circumstances going into the session.  One of the most difficult parts of this challenge was the feeling that I couldn’t miss a day, even if I wasn’t particularly inspired to write anything.  My initial goal was to get ahead early.  That plan failed miserably!  If you look at my NaNo graph, every time I pulled ahead, something would come up (remember those break days?) to thwart my advance.

Yet, somehow I managed to “win” by getting all my words.  

How did I accomplish this feat?  

Well, I had a great support system of writing buddies to cheer me on and keep me going.  Often we would meet on twitter and complete “writing sprints” together by writing for a set amount of time and then tweet our word count for the duration.  I also had my own motivation in the form of a sticker chart (yes stickers!) where I would earn a small sticker for every 250 words and a big sticker when I hit my daily goal of 1750 words.  There were so many days I would have quit if it weren’t for that big sticker reward.

So, what did I learn from this experience?  

Firstly, I am a very consistent writer.  Whatever word count I achieve in the first thirty minutes of writing typically stays the same for the duration of the session.  I have always been a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants author, but I outlined extensively (meaning I spent an entire hour placing chapter markers and notes for all 30 days) and that helped get me through the dead zones of the book.  I am incapable of writing without editing at the same time, and although it cost me on my daily count, I’m hoping it will also mean when I revisit the story in a few months, I’ll still like it.  

Finally, all this begs the question; will I participate again next year?  

Well, in the interest of preserving my marriage, my official answer right now is "maybe".  However, I predict that by the time next November first rolls around, my fingers will once again be poised over the keyboard ready to type with reckless abandon for another 30 days…

Sarah LaFleur

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Thanks Sarah, that was a really interesting account of your NaNo experience - love the sticker chart idea! Getting ahead of yourself and something coming up to 'thwart' your advances sounds so familiar, even to me, an as yet non-NaNo writer. 

Check out more from Sarah Lafleur on her website, find her on Facebook, and on Twitter - how we connected initially! She's also got an author page on Amazon, so take a look!

More from me next week - keep writing!

Lou x

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Born to be a Tourist - my travel blog