The Bard |
Virginia Woolf |
1050 Euclid St., #204 -
Santa Monica
CA
90403
cpolkinhorn@msn.com
The Bard |
Virginia Woolf |
I fell in love with the small town of El Segundo, a community with plenty of free street parking (hard to find anywhere in California) with a great choice of restaurants, bars, small stores. This town invites you to take a leisurely stroll, stop for a cup of coffee, a meal, a drink, or, visit the cultural treasure, called Old Town Music Hall!
The Old Town Music Hall celebrates the classic period of American cinema and music. The manager and other talented musicians play the Mighty Wurlitzer Pipe organ. The theater itself is lovingly decorated in the old style with beautiful chandeliers, tapestry, and all kinds of memorability.
After a nice dinner at a nearby restaurant, my friends and I went to listen to old cinema music and watched the classic black-and-white film 42nd Street. It was a blast!
In case you’re in the neighborhood, drop by and let yourself be transported into the Roaring Twenties with old-fashioned popcorn and delicious coconut muffins from a nearby bakery!
More information and pictures here:
http://www.oldtownmusichall.org/index.html
I spent a little over two months at my first home in the German part of Switzerland, visiting family and friends. I was looking forward to a change of climate from sunny southern California (which turned out not quite as sunny and warm over the holidays, as I saw on the internet) to real Winter. Having grown up in Switzerland, Christmas in my subconscious mind is still associated with snow and cold, a Christmas tree with candles, roaring fires in the wood stove or fireplace, hearty meals and a few glasses of excellent wine. So when I first arrived here in the beginning of November, snow was nowhere to be seen. In fact, not even the mountains had much of the precious white and the tourist industry in the ski areas were all gloom and doom.
After a short holiday in a castle in the Piedmont (see my last blog entry), it was back to Switzerland and my dreams of white Christmas seemed to kind of evaporate–
Pretty, but more like Autumn than Winter |
until the second day of Christmas and then the dream became reality.
and with it the work of shoveling shoveling shoveling …
And, of course, a real Christmas tree with real candles!
and one of those yummy gloggs or mulled wines (hot red wine with spices and fruit)
A visit to my niece’s tea and coffee lounge with the addition of a vegetarian buffet at restaurant Limalimon in Bremgarten, Aargau. Although I’m not a vegetarian, I really enjoy these delicious dishes!
And above all, I’m very grateful for the company of family and so many friends.
Wishing you peace, health, and happiness in the New Year, dear friends. May your dreams come true in 2015!
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This was another opportunity to combine fun with research for my novel, Finding Angelo, Book 2 in The Wine Lover’s Daughter series.
I’m staying in Switzerland at my second home for a while. My nephew had an important birthday and his niece, my great-niece, organized a wonderful trip for the family to an old castle in the Piedmont region, Italy, just south of Switzerland.
The castle was renovated and turned into a hotel and restaurant. However, whatever could be kept of the medieval structure was left intact. You could get lost on the inside of the buildings with its many hallways and secret pathways. Pictures of the predecessors of the castle looked down from the walls of every room and I swear I heard a ghost at night, rattling in the hallways. Hmmm?
The towns below are Pavone and Ivrea.
View from the castle.
The gardens are well kept but natural.
Dinner and breakfast were served in a vaulted cellar.
Very romantic and special. Who knows, my next novel may take place in the Piedmont in Italy!
March 2018: What started out as an idea about a novel became reality. Finding Angelo, Book 2 in my The Wine Lover’s Daughter series does take place in the Piedmont, and, in part, at the Castello di Pavone!
https://myBook.to/FindingAngelo
More about the castle and its history: http://www.castellodipavone.com/en
I just sent off my WIP, The Italian Sister, to the editor.
It’s a great feeling to have the manuscript I have been laboring over out of my hair for a while. After a sigh of relief, panic sets in. WHAT NOW? I feel oddly abandoned without my work. Besides, I’m totally stuck on the sequel I was planning to write. And I mean STUCK!
Okay, I know, lots of writers go through this. I do have a few options, I guess:
1) I forget about writing for a while and enjoy a piece of chocolate instead. But that only takes a few minutes and then what?
2) A cup of coffee? A few more minutes. And then what?
3) I go on vacation–wait, you need money for this… Hmm.
4) It’s cheaper to just go for a walk in my beautiful neighborhood:
Okay, done that. Now what?
5) Read, but I do this all the time anyway. And reading can also be an escape to keep from writing.
Gee, this is getting difficult. I’m running out of options.
I guess there is only one option left:
6) BUCKLE DOWN AND WRITE ANYWAY. Sigh!
Unless, dear writer/reader, you can come up with a better idea. What do you do when you’re stuck?
Cheers!
I am working on my WIP with the title The Italian Sister. It started out as a family drama, but on the way, it developed into a …. and that’s my dilemma, what do I call it? Here is the temporary blurb:
“Standing at her father’s grave in California, Sofia Laverne mourns his untimely demise. Barely recovered from her recent divorce, she has to come to term with the loss of another family member. Imagine Sofia’s shock and surprise when she finds out that her father had had an affair in Italy many years before, that Sofia has a ten year younger sister and inherited part of a vineyard in Tuscany. Eager to meet fourteen-year old Julietta, Sofia packs her bags and takes off for Italy. When she arrives in the small hill town of Vignaverde, she is greeted by olive groves, neat rows of grape vines, green and rust-colored hills, and picturesque houses. Some of the inhabitants of this beautiful estate are, however, less welcoming and resent her intrusion into their family business. Soon, strange occurrences begin to frighten Sofia. When a suspicious accidents lands her in the hospital, Sofia fears for her life.
A suspenseful family drama, The Italian Sister takes us on a wild journey from California to Tuscany and provides glimpses into the exiting world of winemaking.”
First, I was going to call it “part family drama/part mystery,” but one of my beta readers pointed out that it wasn’t a mystery in the strict sense, and she is right. It was more of a thriller. Hmm. “thriller”? The word thriller always evokes some murderous, blood-curdling events and that isn’t the case in my WIP. There is suspense, to be sure, but “thriller?”
I needed to do some more research in this area. So I found a few definitions on the Internet and I was relieved to find out that I’m not the only one who is confused about the terms.
Mystery: The protagonist (a detective, private investigator or an amateur sleuth) is trying to solve the truth about an event, usually a murder. He/she is searching for clues and eventually solves the puzzle. The reader doesn’t know any more than the protagonist and the truth is slowly or suddenly revealed to both the protagonist and the reader. The protagonist is only in moderate danger. Great examples are the mysteries of Agatha Christie.
Thriller: The protagonist is in danger from the beginning. The reader usually knows who the killer is and the fascination of the story is watching the cat-and-mouse game between the killer and the protagonist. The plot is characterized by car chases, violence, anything that gives the reader a “thrill.”
Suspense novel: The protagonist becomes aware of the danger only gradually. The reader, however, knows more than the protagonist. The reader knows who the killer is.
Here are the links to the different definitions:
http://www.nadinelapierre.com/blog/?p=26
http://www.dailywritingtips.com/is-your-novel-mystery-thriller-or-suspense/
Of course, many novels incorporate elements of mystery, thrillers, and suspense. So what is The Italian Sister?
The mystery aspect: The reader does not know more than Sofia, the protagonist. However, it is not a mystery because there is no murder/crime in the beginning and Sofia does not go hunting for clues.
Thriller? Well, the story may thrill (I hope it does).
Suspense? Sofia does become aware of the danger only gradually. That’s true. However, the reader does not know more than the protagonist.
So what is the poor writer to do? Fortunately *** wiping the sweat from my forehead *** I came across another definition of a genre: ROMANTIC SUSPENSE.
“The romantic suspense novel is a modern emergence of early Gothic writing. This genre evolved in the 1950s with writers such as Mary Stewart and Victoria Holt. … The genre is recognizable when contrasted with other writing. It is not a detective mystery story because the law (police) rarely gets involved in the action. It also differs from traditional … suspense novels because it moves more slowly and has more character interplay and psychological conflict than the fast-paced violence of [most] suspense thrillers.”
http://www.writersonlineworkshops.com/resources/definitions-of-fiction-categories-and-genres/
That’s sounds more like my WIP, which also has a love story. Now, I just have to finish this darn thing.
What is your experience with genre labels? I hate them and one of the reasons is the fact that my novels cross genres. That makes classification difficult. But labels are here to stay, so I might as well get used to them.
Happy writing and reading, my fellow bookies and “novellers.”
I finally spotted a vineyard and a house on top of the hill. I followed the country road up to a large red-brown barn-like building. As I parked and got out of the car, it was very quiet and peaceful. Only the singing of a few birds interrupted the silence.
Somehow, I knew I had found what I was looking for. Here was finally an outfit that looked like a real winery and not just a glitzy tasting room. In fact, there wasn’t a tasting room at all but just a tasting area, a longish table with bottles of Caparone wines and wine glasses lined up neatly in a row. Behind it stood a young man who smiled and asked if I wanted to taste some wine.
Now, I certainly wasn’t going to turn down a taste of wine, particularly since there was no tasting charge. Other wineries usually charge ten dollars for tasting, unless you belong to their wine club. Marc Caparone poured me a glass of Sangiovese, one of my favorite wines, and it was truly delicious. So were the other two varietals of their estate wines I tried, Nebbiolo and Aglianico, both wines I had never had before. They were excellent—interesting, complex, with a lot of character and just the right amount of tannin. I’m not an expert on wines, not by a long shot. But I know what I like and I truly liked those wines. I have ordered several bottles since then.
A few months later, I spent a whole week in Paso Robles and went back to the Caparones and it was then that I also met the father, Dave Caparone, who had started the vineyard and the winery. Now in his seventies, the trim, wiry man shows no sign of slowing down. According to his son, he still checks the vines every day, sometimes even at night.
The following videos provide a glimpse of the Caparones’ musical talents. Pour yourself a glass of wine, sit back, and enjoy!
Here is Marc Caparone playing the cornet:
And here are Dave and Marc together. Dave on the very left, playing the trombone and Marc next to him with the cornet:
Here is Dawn Lambert, Marc’s wife, singing one of my favorite songs:
And finally, the whole family together:
Moved by the story of Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani girl who stood up for the education of women, got shot in the head by the Taliban, survived, and continues to fight for the right of every child to have an education, my friends and I decided to pool our creative resources in support of this courageous girl, her amazing father, and her wonderful family.
During the fundraiser, I was reading some passages from my Family Portrait trilogy. There was music, acting, and all kinds of artistic presentations. All the money we collected will go to the Malala Fund.
Furthermore, for the month of June, I will contribute all the royalties from the sale of the printed versions of the Family Portrait series (An Uncommon Family, Love of a Stonemason, Emilia) to the Malala Fund. To buy the books, please click here:
An Uncommon Family on Amazon
Love of a Stonemason on Amazon
Emilia on Amazon
OR you can also just make a contribution directly to the Malala Fund: http://malalafund.org/
This isn’t only about Malala but this is about justice, the right of everyone, boy or girl, to have a decent education, to be able to fulfill their dreams, to live in peace and without fear.
Despite the Taliban’s threats, Malala Yousafzai remains a staunch advocate for the power of education. On October 10, 2013, in acknowledgement of her work, the European Parliament awarded her the Sakharov Prize for Freemdom of Thought. The same year, she was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize. She didn’t win the prize, but was nominated again in March 2014.
And here are a few pictures of our fundraiser, which was a great success!
Climbing the stairs
from the cellar to the room
with the tile floor,
eight months later,
after the pain has softened,
after the ashes have been scattered
on the rock, after driving past the
snowy fields of Saint Gotthard,
we feel your presence
fill the spaces between our bodies.
of this merging, of your hands
entwined in the leaves of plants,
your scent lingering in the
cedar closet, your smile
in the candle flame,
your voice trailing the crackling
of logs in the fireplace,
a sound so delicate,
we dare not move
as not to disturb it.
the silent words into our hearts
and choose to believe in the
here and now