Stephanie Verni's Blog, page 32

FROCKTOBER – WEEK 4 And Some Words of Wisdom to Be Kind to Yourself

[image error]As FROCKTOBER comes to a close this week, I’m hoping 3 things come from it:

1-That I helped raise some money and awareness for ovarian cancer research;

2-That my Instagram photos–as stressful as they were for me to pick outfits and to take sometimes–didn’t bore you too much, and,

3-That you take away that you can feel beautiful no matter your shape or size.

Over the last several months, I have been battling hip and back pain, which has prevented me from exercising like I used to. It’s frustrating & maddening and I am carrying around some extra weight that I desperately want to get rid of. I’ve started doing yoga, and am seeing where that takes me. I can’t look at a plate of pasta without gaining weight.

So, here’s the thing. We all have to fight little battles every day. Take them one day at a time.

In the meantime, be good to yourself, because truthfully, we love you just as you are, tight pants and all.

Thank you for following along with me this year.

Why I Bought the Bumblebee Tights

[image error]If you’ve seen Me Before You or read the novel by Jojo Moyes, you know what the bumblebee tights are all about, right?

In the book and film, the bumblebee tights symbolize Louisa’s independence—and her vivacious spirit—that which Will encourages her to fully embrace and to, in his words, “live boldly.”

After I read the third installment of the Me Before You trilogy, and after having faith in the third book titled Still Me to not disappoint me as the second book, After You, did, I was moved entirely by the character’s development. I was relieved to laugh along with her and learn more about her integrity, passions, and capacity to love in that third book. In other words, Jojo Moyes brought Louisa Clark back to the character we grew to love in Me Before You.

As a writer myself, I take into account storytelling, meaning, and the nuances of character growth when I read. I put so much into reading and writing—and in pursuing my own goal of writing some good, solid novels.

For me, the bumblebee tights that I purchased the other day signify my own new spirit: to not be afraid to pursue my dreams as fully as possible. For years, I have self-published my work. This time, I think I have the guts to try and pursue a publisher for my work. I’m striving with my fourth novel to offer readers meaningful, fun, and funny characters who are maneuvering through this world just as we all are.

Therefore, my bumblebee tights are a reminder to do as Will said and LIVE BOLDLY. We only have one life, as he said, and if you want to go for something, you better just hunker down and do it.

My Experience of Teaching a Travel Writing Course

[image error]I’ve been pretty fortunate to have the opportunity to teach a course called Special Topics in Travel Writing at Stevenson University, where I am a full-time professor. It’s one of my favorite courses to teach, and for years in another course I teach called Feature Writing, we cover travel writing as part of the curriculum. To be able to teach travel writing as a semester-long, intensive 400-level course is something I treasure.

The students in my class are required to each pick a location relatively local to our region. Some explore cities or towns in Maryland, some in Pennsylvania, New York, Delaware, Washington, D.C. or any other destination that they can access easily. I require them to tackle two days in that place. Before they go, they must first research it, then gather secondary research when they travel, along with their own primary research of experiencing that place themselves. They must write a minimum of 20 pages in their travel journals. They must speak to people and garner quotes that they can use in their stories. But even more than all of that, they must immerse themselves in travel and the experience in order to produce a final piece of writing that is 2,500 words worth of engaging storytelling.

Travel writing, therefore, is a person’s experience in a place. Travel writing recounts a person’s story that they came away with from travel, no matter where it takes place. I like to explain travel writing as a personal experience you have with travel whereby you use storytelling techniques to engage a reader. And to top it all off, you typically learn something from the experience.

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In class, we also read a lot of travel writers and dissect their pieces, as we focus on both content and technique. Writers such as Pico Iyer, Paul Theroux, Andrew McCarthy, Don George, Bill Bryson, Susan Orlean, and Elizabeth Gilbert all share their stories of what they learn through travel. Some may take the form of travel writing, others the form of memoir, but regardless, storytelling is at the heart of it.

I first fell in love with travel and the idea of travel writing on my first-year anniversary when my husband and I went to Italy. We completely immersed ourselves in the Italian culture—which happens to be our heritage—and I became enamored with all of it (and ate a lot of really great pizza). I painstakingly and carefully kept a journal of that trip, and then subsequently did the same during our trip to Great Britain the next year, and continue to use those journals in classes as examples of how you can use an abundance of note-taking to your advantage when writing. The journals are detailed, full of emotion, and replete with facts and things we learned.

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The best part of teaching the travel writing course is watching the students fall in love with the idea of getting to know themselves even better through travel experiences. With each trip we make, we grow and learn. We typically learn to appreciate things we have and sometimes gain a greater understanding of the world around us simply by traveling. Additionally, as a faculty member in the Business Communication department, our team of communicators values travel because all of our communication theories and practices come into play with a heightened awareness.

There is a downside to teaching travel writing, however. Teaching the course seems to bring on an incredible itch to travel. It makes me want to go places even more so than I already do. I’d like to experience the donkeys in Morocco, stand on the moors along the coast of Cornwall in the U.K., and drive the countryside and meet the locals in pubs in Ireland.

It seems the students and I have bucket lists that just keep on getting longer and longer.

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National Novel Writing Month Kick-off Next Week

[image error]Writers get excited about National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) like kids get excited about gifts at the holidays. It’s fun, it’s fulfilling, and it can be frenetic.

Why?

Because you’re trying to write a novel during the month of November.

That’s 30 days, people.

And if you can’t finish it, you can at least make some progress toward it.

Novels such as The Night Circus and Water for Elephants were started during NaNoWriMo, so if that doesn’t motivate you to begin that work you’ve been thinking about for a while, nothing will.

In conjunction with the Stevenson University Library and the communication club on campus, 47 House, I’ll be kicking off NaNoWriMo with a workshop to get people excited and motivated to begin.

Think about it this way: if you write 2,000 words a day for 30 days, you’ll have 60,000 words written, which equals a small novel. It’s possible, and if you can’t complete it, how great will it feel to just know you did something during the month to contribute to your goal of writing a book?

I’ll be right there, writing along with you. I started writing my new novel recently and have just hit 30,000 words, so I’m hoping to make some progress on my project as well. Additionally, the Stevenson University Library will be posting prompts to get you started…get you thinking…and ultimately, get you writing.

Join in the fun.

Start writing with me on November 1.

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FROCKTOBER Fashion- Week 3 Recap

For the better part of this week, I was sick with a bad head cold, and yet, I made it to all of my classes and meetings. I don’t like to disappoint my students and will show up unless I have a fever or have flu-like symptoms. That’s my game plan.

It was a busy week with Stevenson University’s Homecoming and meetings with fellow faculty and students. We had a lot going on!

These were the looks from the week. I also snuck in a girls night out with my friend Elizabeth to see the imomsohard tour at MGM National Harbor on Friday night. We laughed until we cried. Honestly, they were funnier in person than they are in their videos.

Looking forward to some more outfits this week as we continue to raise awareness for ovarian cancer. Such a great cause.

#fightovariancancer

[image error]FROCKTOBER | Day 15

[image error]FROCKTOBER | Day 16

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FROCKTOBER | Day 17

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FROCKTOBER | Day 18

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FROCKTOBER | Day 19

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FROCKTOBER | Day 20

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FROCKTOBER | Day 21

Friday Fiction : I Hate You (a flash fiction story)

[image error]On Fridays we write. Answering a prompt is a good way to stay in touch with your writing, storytelling, and creativity.

In this flash fiction piece, the goal was to “write a story with the word ‘hate’ in it.” Simple parameter.

I write a lot about relationships, mostly happy ones, and sometimes ones that are on their way back from devastation. This is one of those.

Here’s what I came up with for this week’s FICTION FRIDAY.

***

I HATE YOU | Flash Fiction

There was nothing left to say.

The words hung in the night air as the sound of the sea pounced against the rocks. The breeze caught the last few words as they floated across the ocean, lagging just behind the seagulls…

I hate you.

She had never in her life uttered these words before. Not to anyone. Ever.

But tonight, they sailed out of her mouth with such reckless abandon that despite having said the words aloud, and with venom, she felt better for it.

But only for a moment.

And then the excruciating pain of regret went ripping through her heart.

She was certain she would go to hell for having said it—screamed it, rather. She was a bad person. She had made bad choice after bad choice after bad choice. She had fallen, gotten back up, only to fall again, and hard. Mistakes could find her anywhere. She had been attracted to the wrong things, the wrong ideals, the wrong…

His mouth remained open, astonished at what he’d just heard. Perhaps he was waiting for her to apologize. She said nothing. He ran his hand through his hair, looked down at the sand, and then back at her.

She stood looking at him, frozen.

There was no way to take back the words that she had said.

There was no coming back from this one.

And in that moment, she knew that this was the final mistake she would make. There would be no others of this magnitude after this one, she vowed. It had come to this sunset moment on a California beach for her to finally realize that the years of her own stupidity, her emotional instability, and the pent up anger she kept locked deep within her had to end. In the most desperate and broken moment of her life, she realized that she needed help.

He looked at her once more, shook his head, and then turned his back to her and began the walk back, away from the surf, to where his car was parked.

She turned back toward the crashing waves, lowered herself to sit on the sand, brought her knees to her chest hugging them with her arms, and realized, for the first time, that no one could save her.

Only she could do that.

*

copyright | Stephanie Verni |2018

 

FROCKTOBER Week 2 for Ovarian Cancer

I’ve been hit with a pretty miserable cold this week, but I powered through, so I didn’t get to post last week’s outfits on Sunday. I’m coming out of the illness now–the change of season always gets to me–and I’m sharing what I wore for Week 2 of Frocktober.

Thank you to those of you who have donated to Ovarian Cancer. These brave women need our support, and that’s what FROCKTOBER is all about–to help raise awareness of this disease. You can still help by clicking here and making a donation of any size. THANK YOU.

Here’s what I wore last week. I hit the mid-point of my 31-days of fashion, and will share this past week’s outfits on Sunday. If you want to follow along daily, connect with me on INSTAGRAM at stephanie.verni !

Fiction Friday – 30 Years Later

[image error]Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com
THIRTY YEARS LATER

Kate crossed her legs and swallowed hard. She looked at her feet and wondered if the shoes were right. She played with the bracelet around her wrist and looked around the smokey bar, the sound of a cheesy Bryan Adams song filling in where conversations dragged. She wondered why she had ever agreed to this. She wondered what had made her say ‘yes’ to meeting here, in this bar, of all places.

The lights were dim and the mahogany bar was dark. She sat at al table adjacent to the bar and caught snippets of conversations between the patrons sitting on stools and the bartender. The bartender’s hands were working quickly to fill drinks as the place began to become busier with every moment she sat and waited.

She’d been there for twenty-five minutes, the product of a woman who was ridiculously early for everything. Kate knew it would have been much more dramatic had she made him wait and waltzed in at the last minute looking rushed and busy. But that would be a lie, and she didn’t want pretend to be something she wasn’t. She was habitually early for everything. It was her lot in life.

For a moment, she wished she still smoked, wished she could take a long drag off a cigarette and let it fill her lungs with smoke. She wished it wasn’t horrible for your health. She had genuinely loved smoking before she knew just how bad it was for you. She couldn’t identify the last date she had actually held a cigarette in her hands—many, many years—but whenever she found herself in a bar with a drink, she still yearned for one.

Funny how that feeling didn’t go away.

The door swung open, and there he was. She would know his posture anywhere. She felt her heart skip a beat like a teenager. All at once she felt silly and stupid. But she was used to that. She’d made a lot of bad decisions in her life, one right after the other, and she never could seem to keep it all right.

He saw her looking at him, and he gave a wave. He looked the same as he did all those years ago, when they were young and carefree, before life took them in different directions and decisions that were made only seemed temporary and not blinding. She wondered how different their lives might have been had they not gone their separate ways, had she not given the ring back and said she couldn’t do it, not at this time.

She remembered the hurt she saw on his face; she remembered the agony she felt driving home alone that night by herself. She remembered boarding the plane a week later having not heard a word from him. She remembered feeling all alone, afraid, and committed to her decision.

Had she been a fool?

“Hello, Sticky I,” he said. “Long time no see.”

She smiled at him. He had called her the name that all of their friends had called them all those years ago—Sticky I and Sticky II—because they were always together, stuck like glue. Sometimes their friends would just shorten it to, “Hey, Stick.” At one time, they had been the envy of all who knew them. The poster couple of all that was good about a relationship. At one time, they had been inseparable.

“Hi, you,” Kate said.

They stared at each other, and she motioned for him to sit down.

“So, how have you been these last thirty years?” he asked.

* * *

 

 

Meeting Mitch Albom Was A Dream Come True For This Indie Author

[image error] My Bucket List of Writers I Would Like To Meet (in no particular order)

Elizabeth Gilbert (heard her talk; did not meet)

Jeannette Walls (heard her talk; did meet)

Mitch Albom (heard him talk; did meet)

Charles Dickens (impossible; dead)

Jane Austen (impossible; dead)

Rosamunde Pilcher (elderly, no longer writing or traveling)

Steve Martin (still working on it)

Andrew McCarthy (actor now Editor-at-Large and writer for National Geographic Traveler; bumped into him in NYC, but didn’t talk to because I was too scared to).

***

This is a partial list of writers I would like to meet. Some I have met; some I’m still working on, and others may be added to my list. Those who are unfortunately dead are going to be a real challenge. I’m hoping that when I leave this earth and hopefully make it to Heaven, there’s a book club in the sky where we can all congregate and talk about writing and books.

Last night, though, one of my bucket list wishes came true when I met Mitch Albom. For years, I have been teaching his work in my writing courses at Stevenson University. The chance to hear him talk about his new book, The Next Person You Meet in Heaven, and receive a signed copy was a no-brainer.

Along with my two friends, Chip and Elizabeth, we got Chinese food and then made our way to Towson University, where Albom would speak. I hadn’t stepped foot on Towson’s campus in 25 years—since I was a graduate student in Professional Writing. It was sentimental to be back on my old stomping grounds, and Chip took a photo of Elizabeth and me because we met there and were roommates for two years. So that alone was worth the trip.

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The icing on the cake was hearing Mitch Albom’s stories in an hour-long talk he gave to an audience of about 350 people in Stephen’s Hall. I laughed, cried, and felt inspired when it was over. He is talented, kind, and philanthropic.

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When he signed my book, I told him how my colleague, Leeanne, and I use his book, The Five People You Meet In Heaven, in our Interpersonal Communication courses at Stevenson University, and how much I use his work as a model in sports communication and journalism. He thanked me, asked me what my name was, shook my hand, and I left with my friends.

I didn’t open the book until I got home to see what he had inscribed inside it.

“Stephanie—Thanks for ‘teaching me,'” he wrote.

I’ll cherish that book at that night for a long time. It made me want to be a better writer, storyteller, and person.

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I Decided To Have A Go At It

[image error]Last summer, I wrote a short story called Life With Nan. You can find this story in my recent publication The Postcard and Other Short Stories & Poetry. What’s happened to me after writing that story is interesting.

Just as Contelli’s Mimosa, a short story I wrote in college, became a full novel entitled Beneath the Mimosa Tree, so has Life With Nan started to become a novel. I fell in love with Nan and the main character of the story so much, that it prompted me to write a longer story, and so I think I’ll have a go at it.

That’s right. I’m using British lingo there.

The characters are all British, minus the main character’s father, who is American.

I guess this is what happens when you watch oodles of British television shows, obsess about British novels and characters, and find yourself reminiscing about the wonderful trip you took years ago to London and the Cotswolds. Certain things do inspire your writing.

And then, you start to write about them. Currently, I’m 8 chapters in and loving every minute of crafting these people I’ve imagined in my head.

And while setting a novel in the U.K. is something I’ve never done before (my husband said, “Why are you setting it there? What do you know about that place? Why not set it somewhere more familiar?”), I have to beg to differ with him on this count. Why not try to stretch myself and tackle something new and different? I have a computer and I can research things like British words, slang, places, street names, and locations. More importantly, I have to create the characters and make them believable. It can be done, but this novel may take more time and care and research than any of my previous ones.

But that’s okay.

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I owe that to myself and my characters — to give them a realness that makes them lovable and unforgettable.

Honestly, you guys, I strive for that in my writing

every

single

day.

So, I’m going to continue to have a go at it.

* * *

Getting a jump start on #NaNoWriMo with nearly 30,000 words so far. Care to join me for National Novel Writing Month starting November 1st? More to come on Steph’s Scribe.