Will the juice come?

As long as you can start, you are all right. The juice will come. -Ernest Hemingway I love this quote from the American author Ernest Hemingway, and I find it very useful. I was recently speaking to a friend who is mapping out all of her ideas. She seems excited about her project and endlessly…

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Reason #5383 to love Rome: San Teodoro neighborhood

San Teodoro an interesting, and very old, neighborhood of Rome, tucked away between the Circo Massimo, Campidoglio and the Ghetto. It’s said to be the area where Romulus and Remus, the founders of Rome, were said to be suckled by the she-wolf. Today, it’s a quiet neighborhood: only a few cross roads and a few sites…

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What’s the ‘crossroads’ novel?

Once on a long hike, I told my older son the story of Stephen King’s novel The Shining. It terrified him, but also kept him going on a pretty exhausting 12 km trek. I read some novels out loud to my children, and my oldest son asked me if I would read this to him.…

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Queuing up for the London Eye

As anyone traveling with kids knows, travel plans alter radically once you are lugging along pint-sized companions. On a trip to London with my children, I had plenty of activities to fill our days, but none of them included queuing up for kilometers to go on a giant ferris wheel. Unfortunately, the London Eye is visible…

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What are your 2016 writing resolutions?

This has become a bit of a tradition for me – perhaps I’ve figured out a way how to hold myself accountable for my writing schedule. Each year, I set myself writing goals … and up until now I’ve pretty much stuck to schedule. Let’s see if I can keep this up for 2016… Of…

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Explore Palais Ferstel’s Passage, Vienna

In Mitteleuropa and Eastern Europe, I always love peeking into the spectacular ‘passages’. Vienna is no exception and the beautiful Freying Passage of the Palais Ferstel is well worth a visit on your next visit to stately Vienna. The palace is named after Heinrich von Ferstel, the architect who built it in 1860. The passage…

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The lack of pressure before becoming a bestselling author

There’s an interesting interview with the British, bestselling women’s fiction author Jojo Moyes in this month’s Writer’s Digest. In her interview, Moyes speaks about the lack of pressure before writing her most successful book, You Before Me. Before that best-seller, Moyes had written numerous books and had a large and loyal following, but her breakthrough…

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Macabre memories in Sedlec, Czech Republic

Close to the pretty town of Kutna Hora, an oft-visited town close to Prague and famous for its spectacular Gothic church – Svata Barbora (Saint Barbara), see my earlier post – lies another impressive must-see. Only two kilometers northeast of Kutna Hora lies the suburb of Sedlec. While the town is nothing special, it’s a destination…

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A happy writing year to all you fellow writers out there!

On this FIRST day of 2016, wishing all you writers who may follow my blog a wonderful new year filled with challenging and exciting story ideas, effortless revisions, and the knowledge that you have lots of support through your sweat and tears from fellow writers who are cheering you on. The writing itself may be…

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