Betsy Talbot's Blog, page 6
April 11, 2015
Your Invitation to a Private Club (Plus the Secret Handshake)
I should be happy, but I’m not.Wild Rose is enjoying a 4.7 star average rating on Amazon. Book two in The Late Bloomers Series, English Ivy, is half-written and may be released ahead of schedule.
I did a 24-km hike yesterday and can still move today.
What’s not to be happy about in my world?
For one thing, emails like this:
“I don’t have friends like this in my life.”
“Where can I find some Late Bloomers?”
“You just can’t make friends like that after forty if you don’t already have them.”
It seems as if finding Mr. Right is easier for us after forty than finding a strong group of friends, women who will tell it like it is, share the mystery and wisdom of midlife, and offer unquestioning support when the shit hits the fan.
Women with a sense of humor, a quick wit, and open arms.
Women who can keep secrets. Women like The Late Bloomers.
I write about women like this because I know women like this. I rely on them, a sisterhood that greatly enhances my life. And they rely on me.
And now, you can have the same thing.
The Late Bloomers Private Facebook Group
There are only three rules to this free group:
You must be a woman to join. I won’t ask for ID, but starting around forty and up to Gloria Steinem’s age is the target demographic.
You can state or ask anything you want as long as you do it with respect. No subject is off limits, and no one will be censored. (Unless you’re being disrespectful, and then I’ll boot your ass. No bullies in Late Bloomers.)
You can never talk about what goes on in the group outside of the group. Ever.
Right now there is exactly one member besides me, a real-life Late Bloomer friend of mine, and I hope you’ll join us. You pretty much get all my attention at this point!
Every week I’ll be posting questions, updates, and discussion topics, but the group is for all of us. You can start a discussion or reply to a post as freely as I can, and I hope you will.
No matter where you live in the world, you can have a Late Bloomer circle of friends.
Click here to join the private group!
The Secret Handshake
Once you join the group, please introduce yourself! We can’t become friends if we don’t know anything about you. Remember, this is a private group on Facebook that requires permission to join. No one outside the group can see what you post, not your family, not your coworkers, not anyone but us.
A few suggestions for a fun introduction:
Write an online dating profile of yourself. Why stop advertising all your good qualities just because you’re not dating?!
Share one thing most people don’t know about you, but you wish they did. (This is what I shared.)
Tell us what you’d do on a day off with absolutely no responsibilities to anyone but yourself.
I can’t wait to get to know you better and to see you create strong, Late Bloomer friendships with other great women.
Click here to join the private group!
PS: I have to approve all requests manually, so please be patient if you don’t get immediate access. It’s coming!
April 6, 2015
When You’re Too Busy to Take a Break is When You Need it the Most
I have too much to do.(Can you relate?)
A book deadline is looming, though with my heavy release schedule for the next year, you could pretty much say that any time and it would be true. Registration for our popular decluttering course starts soon, and we have decided to add some free webinars to advertise it, which means a whole new set of content creation and scheduling. And we have a limited amount of time at our house this year to finish big projects before my parents come to visit. (Remember, I’m the woman who just bought a bathroom mirror more than a year after moving into my house. That’s how far behind I am.)
Throw in Spanish lessons, flamenco lessons, one major long-distance hike to plan, a business mastermind group, plus a big personal project, and my days are pretty full.
You know exactly what I’m talking about because your days are probably just as full, if not more.
So why is it when we get so overloaded, so busy, and so in need of a break that we keep pushing through? Is it some kind of macho torture to show that we’re tough?
I dunno. But I can tell you I’m done with it.
No more.
Nada mas.
Done-zo.
I’m Outta Here
After a few weeks of twelve-hour workdays and middle of the night meetings thanks to timezone differences, I recently decided to take a full day off. When you work as your own boss this is incredibly easy to do – no permission slip required – but it also means that nothing gets done while you’re gone. (That’s why I rarely take a full day off, even when we’re traveling.)
Warren and I left the house at daybreak for a three-hour walk through the hills around our house. The further away we got, the more relaxed I felt. As we pushed up the first hill, we started talking about some of the overwhelm in our life and business lately. What could we do to make it better?
Like most people, we first started thinking of workarounds. We could shave some time off here, drop a task or two there. But it was all fine tuning, nothing revolutionary. Then Warren got smart and asked:
What if you had no restrictions in time or money, how would you improve your life?”
Well, that’s where the conversation got interesting.
As we continued walking in the sunshine, through fields of colorful wildflowers thanks to the recent rains, we got wild and weird with our responses. Those outlandish ideas then surprisingly morphed into “do-able” answers. And a couple of solid new ideas with less effort and more return.
Before we finished our walk, we stopped to write down the flow of ideas, seriously good ones that will positively impact our lifestyle, business, and cash flow. (The picture you see above is Warren taking notes on the closest “desk” we could find.)
If I’d stayed in my office working, we’d have never gotten those ideas.”
When we arrived back home, we showered and left for our favorite sunny terrace in the village, sharing paella and wine with neighbors and friends on a perfect spring day. Later at home, I took a nap. Read a book. Watched a movie. Painted my toenails.
I never looked at email, my calendar, or my current projects.
The next day, I woke up energized, ready to tackle a new day. I got my line count done in half the time as usual. HALF. The rest of the work flowed. I even mastered a tricky step in my flamenco class. I felt like a new woman.
It might be the macho way to burn through the pain, to always be crushing it and churning out work. But I’m not the macho type. Decidedly not so. The more feminine way of regrouping, giving time and brain power to better ways of doing things, is what works better for me.
Sometimes I forget that. But a walk in the sunshine with a man who wants to share joyful life together is a pretty good reminder.
Are you ready to follow the adventures of The Late Bloomers? Click here to find out what you have in common with these five, forty-something women who are ready to make big changes in their lives!
April 3, 2015
Living without a Mirror for One Year
I couldn’t imagine living without a mirror before. It’s not that I had some elaborate morning routine or sat vainly staring at myself for hours a day. My hair is short and I only wear lipstick. But the mirror was what I used to gauge my readiness before heading out into the world.
Was I:
Looking well-rested?
Having a good hair day?
Showing my age?
Whatever result I saw in the mirror I reflected back to the world throughout the day. That morning image impacted my work, my self-esteem, and my relationship.
But now, after fourteen months without a bathroom mirror, I’ve learned just how misleading a mirror’s reflection can be.
How I Lost My Mirror
In January 2014, we bought a house in Spain. The house sat vacant for five years, a victim of Spain’s recession. When we bought it, there was some work and a lot of cleaning to be done. We were lucky that the bathroom was already updated by the previous owners, containing a shower and even a heated towel rack. With a good scrub and some new towels, all we really needed was a mirror.
After selling our house and all our belongings in 2010 to travel the world, we didn’t have so much as a dish towel or a pillowcase to our names. We certainly didn’t have a bathroom mirror. So we began scouring the second-hand shops and auctions in our area looking for the essentials, including the bathroom mirror.
As the house became a cozy home, first with a couch, then with a bed, rugs, a reading chair, and more, we still couldn’t find a bathroom mirror we liked. So we just never got one, not until this week.
And you know what? We didn’t miss it.
A Better Measuring Stick
Without a mirror, I learned to evaluate myself accurately. When I stopped starting the day with a visual inventory, an accounting of all the ways my body was betraying me, I was surprisingly free to go about enjoying my life, satisfied with the face that laughed through wrinkles, the stocky legs that walked me over mountains, and the hair that started changing color on it’s own when I finally stopped dyeing it.
How do I feel? This question replaced my daily mirror routine. I didn’t need a mirror to tell me if I was tired, gaining weight, or feeling a little out of sorts. I could feel it. By using a mirror for so long, I’d gotten out of touch with myself.
Over the months without the mirror, I tuned into my body. I adjusted my diet, activity and rest levels daily to stay at what I considered optimum levels of happiness and productivity.
Getting ready for the day was faster when I stopped counting wrinkles, and pictures taken during this time do not show me looking any different than when we had a mirror.
Warren and I began looking out for each other, taking account of each other’s appearance in ways that we’d gradually stopped doing over the years. We’d do a quick spin after getting dressed for the day. Is this alright? Anything out of place? Rather than the mirror pointing out the flaws, we simply helped each other groom a bit more.
Compliments flowed. We noticed more details about each other.
But the biggest transformation was in my feeling of readiness to face the world. Without a mirror, I simply got dressed and started living.
No more letting this thing on the wall determine my mood, readiness, or energy level.”
Bringing the Mirror Back
When we finally bought the mirror last week, my first thought was that it would be easier to put on my contacts and floss my teeth.
And now that it is hanging in my bathroom, I am delighted to discover the lessons of the past year have paid off. I still start the day listening to my body rather than the image staring back at me. I haven’t joined the anti-aging brigade now that I can see more of the gray in my hair or the wrinkles around my eyes.
My body feels good. My heart feels strong. My mind is more creative than it has ever been.
When I stare into the mirror now, I can confidently tell it what to reflect back to me.
You know what else I like to see? Heroines of books who look, act, and talk like me and my friends.
Click here to sign up for free short stories, wisdom for women over forty, and news about The Late Bloomers Series.
April 2, 2015
A Lesson in Openness
I go for a one-hour walk every day with my husband. Today I was feeling the pressure of hitting my word count and wanted to skip the walk. There’s a deadline looming, and I’m not totally stressed about it, but I am quite a distance away from zen.
We went walking anyway, and along the way we talked to a couple we met last summer from Barcelona who are visiting their family farmhouse for the Easter holiday (Semana Santa). It was nice to see them, and to beremembered after a winter apart.
They took us on a tour of their property and gave us cuttings of beautiful cacti from their courtyard. We petted the dogs, said goodbye, and kept walking.
Then we saw a friend from the village drive down the road, the man who gave us the first basil plant for our house when we moved in, and he invited us to visit the farmhouse he is restoring. We hopped in the car and drove over. The house is surrounded by gardens and olive trees, patios and even a swimming pool for his grandkids. From the moment we got out of the car I could smell the flowers he uses to brew manzanilla tea (no teabags!), the lemon trees, and the exotic blossoms in pots around the courtyard. We sat inside, listening to big band music on the stereo while we talked, eating fresh tomatoes in olive oil and salt, and sipping beer.
We left with home canned tomatoes, dried tomatoes, lemons, green beans and dried peppers, plus instructions for cooking and an invitation to return.
Our one-hour walk was more like 3-1/2 hours, and I’m strangely motivated to write more instead of feeling like the work day is gone.
This day was a good reminder to me to make sure my deadlines still leave enough room for living, to enjoy those spontaneous moments and connections that only happen unbidden, unplanned, and require an open heart and schedule.
My wish for you today is a moment of pleasant surprise, sweet connection with other people, and gratitude for the little things in life.
Are you joining the fun on my Facebook page? This week people helped me name a character’s dog for English Ivy, learned that I broke up with one ex-boyfriend because he had a dirty bathroom, and helped me guess who could have sent me chocolate roses (which strangely ended up at my pharmacy instead of my house). We have fun, and you should join us by liking the page here.
March 18, 2015
For the Woman Who Always Takes Care of Everyone Else
Is that you? It was certainly me for a long time. And I know a lot of fantastic women who still put themselves at the end of a very long to-do list.
This exact scenario is what led me to Wild Rose’s story, the first book in The Late Bloomers Series:
What if a woman who normally took care of everyone else was suddenly put in a position of having no one but herself to look after? What would she do with that freedom? What would she learn about herself? Who would she invite into her life?
>>>Click here to start reading Wild Rose’s story now
My other gig is as cohost to the popular Married with Luggage Podcast, and this week the tables were turned and I was the one in the interview seat. We talked about Wild Rose, the motivation to become a romance writer, and why I chose this story to start. Take a listen and find out more of the behind-the-scenes story of writing romance and taking a leap into the unknown.
I’m so excited by the rush of sales this week. Women over 40 are hungry for this kind of storytelling.
>>>Click here to get your copy of Wild Rose and start reading immediately!
Want to find out more about The Late Bloomers Series? Click here to read the overview, and then be sure to sign up for my email list to get a free short story starring all five women as they celebrate New Year’s Even in New York City.
March 16, 2015
Writing My Own Love Story (How I Became a Romance Writer, Part 2)
(Just coming into the How I Became a Romance Writer series? You can go back to the beginning here.)
When I started writing seriously, it was on serious topics: decluttering, saving money, learning how to say and get what you want, planning for a big dream. The how-to of it all was not difficult to map out. I was writing about my own experience and using detailed notes, so my biggest challenge was putting it into a format that was most useful for the reader.
A challenge, yes, but not an overwhelming one.
After everything we’d been through in the planning and execution of our big dream, the one thing I still hadn’t talked about in depth was our relationship. The subject seemed too soft, too subjective, not a straightforward A to B to C type of thing.
And holy cow, did our relationship evolve!
We planned for so many changes in our lives, but we were woefully unprepared for the shift in our relationship once we began traveling together. Those first few months were tough, learning to be together all the time, adjusting to a new and ever-changing normal, and relying completely on each other for the first time in our lives.
It was stressful and challenging, not at all like the carefree trip I’d imagined. But there was something else, too: a red-hot bond being forged with every new experience, every single challenge, and all those moments together.
The relationship I thought was pretty good was turning into something stronger, a partnership I couldn’t even wrap my brain around, at least on the days I didn’t want to kill him.
This time in our lives was magical, frustrating, sexy, and raw. I wanted him more than I ever had except when I wanted to throw him off the top of a mountain. He felt the same way about me.
So there we were, two 40-year-olds only recently weaned from a life on the couch, adventuring around the world together. We were older than almost everyone in our hostels in South America, and we barely spoke any Spanish. We were overweight and inexperienced.
But man, were we hot for each other. There is nothing like going after a dream with your partner to make you feel sexy and alive and in love.
How would I share that experience? Would I even want to? I’d been so honest about everything else, including our finances, that it felt weird not to write about this. But every time I thought to start a book about it, I stalled.
It’s a good thing I did, because seasoning is required to make a delicious story. Without time and the perspective it brings, these kinds of books just sound like, “look at us and how awesome we are!” Nobody wants to read that, and if I’d written it then I’d be embarrassed now.
In late 2013, I began writing about the transformation that started the night we made the decision to travel back in 2008. For the first time, I shared what we learned through stories and emotions, completely leaving out the bullet points and checklists.
I learned how to build the tension in the story, to weave the past and present together, and to show through action and dialogue how our relationship grew over time.
When I started writing this book, I had no idea my next book would be a romance, much less the start to a series. But like most things in life, you can’t connect the dots until you look backward.
The way I’ve seen my own relationship develop has made me curious about others. The way I’ve lived these past few years in countries around the world has made me curious about how other people live. And going through it all with this man has made me fall in love with love all over again, realizing the power of a true partnership, even on the darkest days.
Romance for me is all about possibilities. Where can this love take us? What can we achieve together? How do we make each other better?
Asking those questions in my own life has been transformative. But asking those question to my Late Bloomers characters, women that have a different history and set of values from me, now that has been a thrill ride. And I can’t wait to share it with you.
Next up in the How I Became a Romance Writer Series: Put Up or Shut Up. And to whet your appetite, I’ve got a free short story starring the Late Bloomers…New Year’s Eve, New York City, and change is afoot! Sign up for my newsletter and get it asap.
February 24, 2015
Wanting vs. Doing (How I Became a Romance Writer, Part 1)
People on the outside think there’s something magical about writing, that you go up in the attic at midnight and cast the bones and come down in the morning with a story, but it isn’t like that. You sit in back of the typewriter and you work, and that’s all there is to it.” – Harlan Ellison
I was always someone who wanted to be a writer. But I didn’t have an MFA, or a writing fellowship, or writer friends.
Even though I was naturally talented at English subjects in school and a voracious reader, I had no proper training. Plus I had a job and responsibilities and no time to devote to writing.
If you’ve ever let excuses stand in your way of doing something, you know exactly what I’m talking about. If the permission isn’t already there, you stand in line waiting for it to happen.
Classic Good Girl Syndrome, and I had it bad.
In my job I always volunteered for writing projects. You need a customer service manual, a training program, or a speech? Pick me! Pick me! I wrote newsletters, annual messages to clients, and even started a website for my virtual team way back in 2001 to make us feel more connected.
In 2007 I left corporate America and started my own little solo company, and with it came a website and a blog. Three times a week, I wrote about marketing, systems, and productivity for women-owned businesses. The first time someone commented on my blog I freaked out.
People were reading what I wrote because they wanted to, and that had never happened before.
Then my brother had a heart attack at the age of 35, and I began reevaluating my life goals. He came so close to dying, and at age 36 I had my first serious thoughts about mortality. At the time I was working a lot of hours, about 50 pounds overweight, and still struggling with what I wanted to do in life versus what I thought was allowed. I vowed to lose weight, get serious about writing, and make the most of my life.
But then I didn’t. It’s a lot like New Year’s resolutions in a way. The gung-ho attitude is there for a few days or weeks, but without the proper motivation it withers and dies. Pretty soon, life goes back to normal, and that’s exactly what happened to me. My brother got better, and my motivation waned.
A year later, a good friend had a brain aneurysm, also at 35. This vibrant, successful woman – far more successful than me – was in the hospital, blind, disoriented, and possibly not going to live. If she did, what quality of life would she have?
This time I did not fall back into my very small zone of comfort. Two tragic events in one year to people we loved…it was too much. My husband Warren and I asked each other the question that changed everything in my life, including the idea that I had to wait for permission to write.
“What would you change about your life today if you knew you wouldn’t make it to your 40th birthday?”
At 37, I only had a three-year window to consider in my answer. The obvious choice to me was the biggest one: to see the world. But what I didn’t realize at the time was how this decision would open up every other dream in my life.
Finally, I had permission – and the dawning realization that permission was always mine to give, in every area of my life.
We spent two years planning for our big adventure around the world, saving money, selling our belongings, and wrapping up our lives. But during that time, I took a few steps forward in writing.
The Married with Luggage blog was started, posting three times a week on what it was like to transition a life together. I wrote about fear, support, negative feedback, love, money, security, doubt, and excitement. Still, I didn’t consider myself a writer, even though I published about 3000 words every week.
Then on Labor Day weekend of 2009, a year after our decision to travel the world, I entered the 3-Day Novel contest. It’s an annual contest from a publisher in Canada that invites readers to submit 100 pages of a manuscript for consideration. The rules are that you cannot start on the book before Labor Day weekend except in outlining, and you must turn it in at the end of the weekend. They expect it to be rough, and from there they look for the diamonds.
Mine was definitely not a diamond. Not a cubic zirconia. Not even a nicely polished river rock.
But I did it. I wrote the first draft of a book, start to finish.
The change from wannabe writer to writer was quite easy logistically: I just had to write. To change the way I saw myself was harder. It wasn’t until I finished the contest and had been blogging three times a week for a year that I finally started thinking of myself as a writer.
I aligned myself with the work and the habit more than qualifications or commercial success, and in doing so I learned the most valuable lesson of all:
To be a writer, you have to write.
All those years of wishing and wanting, when all I had to do was start typing!Sure, there are skills to be learned and ways to improve the craft – that’s the work of a lifetime – but the single most important thing is to write, every single day.
And that’s what I do, even when I only have a notebook in a ger on the edge of the Gobi Desert in Mongolia.
Coming up next week in the How I Became a Romance Writer series: Writing My Own Love Story First. And don’t forget that Wild Rose is already open for preorder with delivery on March 17. Click here to get your copy now.
February 16, 2015
Top 25 Movies with Actresses Over the Age of 40
I am a huge movie buff, and it is not surprising that many of my favorites include actresses over 40. These woman are getting better over time, just like me, and just like you. (Oh, if only Hollywood would notice!)
In fact, several over-40 actresses are the inspirations for my LateBloomers Series main characters:
Wild Rose: Sandra Bullock
English Ivy: Julianne Moore
Violet Sky: Angelica Huston
Tiger Lily: Lucy Liu
Whoopsie Daisy: Robin Wright
So if you’re looking for something great to watch, here’s my list of the top 25 movies with actresses over 40:
The Thomas Crown Affair (Rene Russo is spectacular!)
High Art (Patricia Clarkson and Ally Sheedy play damaged very well.)
The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (Judy Dench, Maggie Smith, Celia Imrie – can you imagine all of these great women in one movie?)
Kill Bill (not for the faint of heart, but I do love me some Uma Thurman, Lucy Liu, Vivica Fox, and Daryl Hannah)
Julia (such an under-appreciated movie staring the versatile actress Tilda Swinton)
Boogie Nights (Julianne Moore is my inspiration for the character Ivy in the LateBloomers series!)
Enough Said (Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Katherine Keener in the same film? Heaven.)
Stranger than Fiction (Emma Thompson and Queen Latifah finish the weirdest book anyone has ever written.)
Bridesmaids (Oh wow, so many GREAT actresses over 40. Loved this film despite the fact that I thought I’d hate it!)
Frida (Salma Hayak with eyebrows! Also, the first movie Warren and I ever saw together.)
The Curious Case of Benjamin Buttons (Cate Blanchett was magical in this movie.)
The Matrix (Carrie-Ann Moss saving the world with Neo!)
How Stella Got Her Groove Back (Angela Bassett schooling Taye Diggs on love…steamy!)
The Grifters (Annette Bening and Angelica Huston – my inspiration for LateBloomer Violet – along with my teenage heartthrob John Cusack)
The Heat (LateBloomer Rose’s inspiration is Sandra Bullock, who does buddy movie very well with the hysterical Melissa McCarthy)
Fight Club (Helena Bonham Carter doing weird very well, as usual)
You Can Count on Me (the delightful Laura Linney and her black sheep brother Mark Ruffalo)
Laurel Canyon (Frances McDormand being a free spirit. I adore this actress!)
Adaptation (Meryl Streep is incredible, and I love it that this is “inspired” by real-life New Yorker writer Susan Orlean – what a great sense of humor she must have!)
The Wrestler (Marisa Tomei as an aging stripper)
A Home at the End of the World (Robin Wright – the inspiration for LateBloomer Daisy – falls for Colin Farrell)
Finding Nemo (We watch this movie dubbed in Spanish for practice, and I miss hearing Ellen Degeneres as Dori.)
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (Michelle Yeoh getting her action on…though I think she was technically late 30s in this movie)
Before Midnight (Julie Delpy showcasing the complexities of balancing love and work)
Waiting to Exhale (LOVE the sweet storyline between Loretta Devine and Gregory Hines)
Living in a small village in Spain means I’m not always current with the movies. What did I miss? I’d love your suggestions for great movies with 40 actresses.
January 15, 2015
I Just Pushed Send
Damn, that felt good.(And I’m pretty well schooled on what feels good, let me tell you.)
The idea that started one year ago, to write a series about a group of women over 40 who tackle love, adventure, success, and gravity, is now reality. Wild Rose, the first book, was sent to my editor today.
I’m an adventurous, loving, successful, gravity-challenged woman myself, but I’ve never written a romance novel before. Funny to think that I can write a memoir about my own relationship, but writing about characters I made up feels more revealing. They are all a little bit of me, and that leaves me feeling exposed.
Today when I pushed the send button, shooting my manuscript from the sunny climate of Southern Spain all the way to my editor in Southern California, I felt a little raw.
But just like those moments before you have really great sex, the shiver as you remove your clothes and stand…
or lie down
or hang from the chandelier
or sit in a swing
or float in the pool
or kneel in the sand at the beach
…naked in front of your lover, the fear is stage one of the excitement, the thrill of connecting with another person.
I wanted to share the photo with you to remind you (and me), that the fear of taking action is greatest right before you do it. Once the move is made –the clothes are off, the heart is opened, the words are out – you’re too busy adapting and moving ahead to be scared anymore.
The fear is in the anticipation, not the doing.
So while there is still one more round of (hopefully) minor edits to come, the heavy lifting on Wild Rose is done, The LateBloomers Series is ready to be born on March 17, and I’m officially a romance author.
And for now, I’m going to drink a stupidly expensive bottle of wine with my own handsome hero in front of a warm fire on a chilly evening in Spain. Let the anticipation begin.
PS: Do you want to read a short story about the early life of The LateBloomers? You’ll discover the personalities, conflicts, and dreams of each of the LateBloomers, sort of a preview of what is to come in the series. You can get that for absolutely nothing, at the same time Wild Rose comes out, by signing up for my email list. Because all the goodies go there first, to the loyal people who believe – like I do – that life begins at 40.
December 10, 2014
Surviving a Stay-at-Home Digital Detox (Podcast #92)
