Stephanie Verni's Blog, page 33

Week One Recap: FROCKTOBER 2018

WELCOME TO FROCKTOBER FOR OVARIAN CANCER

This month is all about fashion–but it’s also to raise money and heighten awareness of Ovarian Cancer. As my beloved colleague and friend, Chris Noya, fights her battle, I will do my part to make this month meaningful. I’m looking forward to the challenge of posting 31 outfits in honor of Chris and women everywhere who are battling this disease.

My love to you all as you bravely carry on. We are with you.

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FROCKTOBER | Day 1

“The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Today’s #ootd is a dress from @boden_clothing, shoes by @stevemadden, and bag by @laurenconrad. Necklaces from @forever21. Visit my initial FROCKTOBER post to see how you can donate.

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FROCKTOBER | Day 2

“Your best will never be good enough to the ones constantly searching for your flaws. But for you to be the best, you need to ignore your flaws and do your best.” – Gift Gugu Mona

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Thanks for following along with me. I love inspirational quotes, and thought I’d partner them with fashion. I also am an average girl who wears all brands – it’s all about the cut, really. Today’s #ootd is a dress by PopSugar : hat and booties by Apt.9. Happy fall, y’all!

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FROCKTOBER | Day 3

“Over the years I have learned that what is important in a dress is the woman who is wearing it.” – Yves Saint Laurent

A Previous Life – A Short Story

[image error]Last night at dinner with my friend, Elizabeth, she mentioned that she enjoys reading my short prompts and short stories on the blog. I haven’t written one in a long while, so this morning, I found a prompt that I decided to tackle. It goes like this:

Write a scene whereby two people think that they have met before–whether in this lifetime or a previous one.

This one’s for you, Elizabeth.

A PREVIOUS LIFE

The bar was dim, and there were few people in the place at the moment, because it was still early. The 80s music played in the background, and he caught himself tapping his foot to the sound of Aerosmith. He’d met her only briefly, but was compelled to invite her for a drink. He sensed a pull to her that he hadn’t experienced before, something that was drawing him to her for some inexplicable reason. It was, quite frankly, irritating that she’d been on his mind ever since they met in the supermarket as they were both buying coffee for their Keurigs.

“I’m a big fan of Hazelnut,” she had said. “Can you reach that box up there? I’m too short to get to it.”

The box was up high, and he stretched to grab it, as it was way in the back on the top shelf. She thanked him for getting it for her.

“Hazelnet’s good,” he said. “But I like strong, dark coffee.”

“You’ll want the Starbucks cups then?”

“Yes,” he said, “Although I do like Peet’s Coffee, too.”

They stood examining the selection of coffees, mulling them over, and both agreeing that Dunkin’ Donuts coffee is the best.

“You seem so familiar to me,” she said in a matter-of-fact kind of way.

“You as well,” he said, and from there a 20-minute conversation ensued whereby they both tried to figure out common connections and if they knew one another. That exercise drew no conclusions that they had ever met, were acquainted with the same people, or had ever come in contact with each other before. However, by the time she had to go, he didn’t want her to leave, and he invited her for a drink.

“Tonight?” she asked.

“How about tomorrow,” he said.

“Okay,” she said. They picked the very bar where he sat waiting for her to enter the door to have a drink with him.

He looked at his watch. He hated lateness, and worried that she may not make it on time. That would be a strike against her.

But his fears were assuaged when she walked through the door with two minutes to spare.

She waved and smiled at him as she approached, and he was both relieved and glad to see her; he hopped off his stool to pull her stool out. There was a glass of water on the bar, and being a gentleman, he had waited for her so they could order their drinks from the bartender together.

“You look nice,” he said, as he helped her settle in, then seated himself beside her back on his stool.

He looked nice, too, she thought, a far cry from how they both looked yesterday in their workout clothes having both exercised and then shopped for coffee for their morning routines.

After ordering two glasses of red wine, he asked her questions about her job, what she did, and they talked about their families. She laughed a lot, and the lines around his eyes deepened from smiling so much while he was with her.

The ease of it, he thought.

She chatted on about some of the things she’d been doing during the day, and described a funny lunch date she had with an old friend. It was as if he’d known her for years.

She listened while he talked about his business, the inordinate amount of emails he receives in a day, and the never-ending comments he must respond to on social media. She was interested, engaged. Her eyes brightened while he spoke. She felt as if she were sitting next to an old friend. The conversation flowed and was comfortable, and she and got up the nerve to say so out loud after spending a couple of hours together.

“I hope you don’t mind me saying so, but I feel like we’ve met before.”

“Me, too,” he said.

“No, let me clarify that,” she said. “I feel as if we were together—an item—in another life.”

“Were we famous?” he asked teasingly.

She laughed. “If we weren’t Victoria and Albert or Bonnie and Clyde, then no. We were probably just us. In different clothes in a different time. Or maybe we were cavemen or even Adam and Eve?”

“Okay, then,” he said, laughing.

“Actually, I’m being serious,” she said. “I just feel a strange connection to you for some unknown reason.”

He wondered if this was a come-on, the way she would let him know she was interested in pursuing this relationship further.

She wondered if she’d said too much, as if she gave away too much of herself in that one setting and sentence.

But instead of the statement sitting between them awkwardly, he put his arm around her, and she leaned into him, comfortably.

“All kidding aside,” he said, “I know exactly what you mean.”

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STEPHANIE VERNI is the author of THE POSTCARD AND OTHER SHORT STORIES & POETRY (2018), INN SIGNIFICANT (2017), BASEBALL GIRL (2015), and BENEATH THE MIMOSA TREE (2012).

Welcome To #FROCKTOBER: What It’s All About

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Today is the first day of #FROCKTOBER.

FROCKTOBER | Day 1

“The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

This month is all about fashion–but it’s also to raise $ and heighten awareness of Ovarian Cancer. As my beloved colleague and friend, Chris Noya, fights her battle, I will do my part to make this month meaningful. I’m looking forward to the challenge of posting 31 outfits in honor of Chris and women everywhere who are battling this disease. My love to you all as you bravely carry on. We are with you.

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By the way, I’m just an average girl who has always loved clothes. It’s my other creative outlet besides writing. I just like to have fun with it.

Today’s #ootd is a dress from @boden_clothing, shoes by @stevemadden, and bag by @laurenconrad. Necklaces from @forever21. Visit yesterday’s blog post where you can find out where to donate to this worthy cause.

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#whatareyouwearing #ovariancancerawareness #frocktober2018 #whattowear #fashion #style #personalstyle ##ootdfashion #ootdinspo #frocktoberfashion #whatthefrock #fabulousfrocks

#stephsscribe #FROCKTOBER

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What the Frock? I’ll Tell You What I’m Frocking Up To This Month.

Welcome, October.

I’m very excited to see you again. You are one of my favorite months of the year. First, because autumn is my favorite season, and second because we get to mix a love of fashion with building awareness for Ovarian Cancer, an ailment my colleague and friend, Chris Noya, continues to fight and beat.

So, Welcome, Frocktober.

During the month of October, I’m joining other bloggers in promoting fundraising for this disease, as well as posting one outfit a day for 31 days of fashion. I’ve done it for the past two years, and I’ll do it again.

Ovarian cancer is a scary thing. All cancers are. A group of bloggers started the first #FROCKTOBER endeavor to support women with ovarian cancer, and I’m happy to follow along and do it with them…and others. For more information about the initial FROCKTOBER group of women, click here.  To donate to to the Ovarian Cancer Research Fund, you can click here.

If you’re on Instagram, Facebook, or have a blog, feel free to participate, and share #whatyouarewearing. Fashion Lovers—If I can post 31 days of fashion, so can you. Each Sunday in October, I’ll be posting all my outfits from that past week here on Steph’s Scribe. Or, you can follow along daily on Instagram at stephanie.verni.

We can raise money and have fun at the same time.

That’s what the frock I’m up to this month. Want to frocking join me?

[image error]I’ll be posting every day on Instagram @stephanie.verni

 

 

Take Me To Portwenn…Doc Martin’s Village

[image error]Port Issac in Cornwall, UK. Photo credit: visitcornwall.com

If you picked me up today and plucked me in the picturesque and intimate village of Portwenn, the fictional Cornish fishing town depicted in the British television series Doc Martin, I would be able to converse with the locals, know where to eat, visit Mrs. Tishell to purchase my vitamins, and, if I ever fell ill, be in the good hands of Doctor Martin Ellingham. I would wind my way up and down the streets and descend the hills to the waterfront area, replete with fishing boats, restaurants, and benches to catch a glimpse of the sunset.

Admittedly, I was hesitant to begin this quirky series that takes several episodes to sink your teeth into, but by Episode 4, I was hooked, and am now halfway through Season 3. The characters are fun, odd, and although some are stereotypical, there are those who are quite unique and original. But perhaps the most engaging part of the show, now in its eighth season, is the feeling you get from the village itself. I absolutely adore everything about it: its vistas, its fisherman cottages, its rolling hills where Aunt Joan’s farm is set, and its curvy and hilly streets. In fact, it’s so charming and welcoming, you want it to be real.

And luckily, it is.

The name of the actual town, located in the middle of the North Cornwall coast, is Port Isaac. Watching this television drama/comedy makes me want to board a plane right now and drive along the Cornwall coast. Years ago, when I discovered writer Rosamunde Pilcher and her fantastic novels, I got a sense of Cornwall’s personality through her descriptive books, specifically The Shell Seekers. And while Doc Martin seems to be filmed mostly on days filled with sunshine, I’m quite sure the coast has a different personality in the throes of winter when it becomes cold and dark and the winds violently whip along the coastline.

[image error]Doc Martin on set (Martin Clunes). Photo credit: Wikipedia.

I’m enamored with the idea of small villages and small towns. My favorite getaway weekends are when my husband and I steal away and get to know a place by staying in a bed and breakfast or small inn, talking to the people who live in the town—many of whom are born and raised there—and getting a sense of the makeup of the place. Portwenn, as depicted in Doc Martin, allows us to feel that sense of community, not only through its talented cast, but also through the scenery that directors offer us as viewers of what it looks like from many different, yet always appealing, angles.

Last year, my son chose California as his high school graduation trip, and our family spent two weeks traveling the California coast, staying in both large cities and smaller towns. I’m hoping my daughter chooses the United Kingdom when she graduates next year. It would be delightful to stumble upon Portwenn—Port Isaac—and commiserate with the locals who continue to call that charming place their home.

And maybe bump into a Doc Martin of our own.

[image error]Kittiwake Cottage, Port Isaac. Photo credit: Trip Advisor.

Gearing Up for #Frocktober and #NaNoWriMo

[image error]October = #Frocktober
November = #NaNoWriMo

As this will be the third year Steph’s Scribe has participated in #Frocktober, and the second year we’re partnering with the Stevenson University Library to present #NaNoWriMo, we’ve got a lot of planning and work ahead of us. There are outfits to pick out and novels to work on.

But isn’t that what makes life fun? Having projects to immerse ourselves into each year?

Fall is absolutely my favorite season…and these two months are exciting. My husband and I married on November 1 in a barn in the fall season. Despite that the weather was much like it is today in Maryland – drizzly with clouds – we had a lovely wedding. I look at #NaNoWriMo as a time to build our novels…sort of a rebirth of our writing. I hope you’ll join in the fun in November.

As for #Frocktober, I do it for fun. It’s also a time to do some fundraising for cancer.

So as I try to attempt to do 31 days of #norepeat fashion, wish me luck. We’ll see what comes to pass in the upcoming weeks and months.

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Completely Disheartened

[image error]First, I have to apologize to you, readers, because this isn’t going to be one of my typical uplifting and positive posts. In fact, it’s going to be the dead opposite, and yet, I’m working toward a positive ending—a silver lining—if I can effectively bring my thoughts full circle.

After this week’s rollercoaster news coming from the media, I’m feeling completely disheartened. I’ve made it a point here on this blog not to share my political views on anything, and I’m sticking to that. However, the fallout of the national political climate leads me to a couple of disheartening conclusions, I’m afraid. And that conclusion is about our state of decency in this country and the way we communicate with one another, especially with those we disagree.

Whatever your political alignment, emotions run very high at times, and people forget that we are rationale human beings with the power to clearly articulate facts rather than solely using emotions without getting ridiculously overheated and then going for the jugular with offensive language and borderline lies that are misrepresented, and often times, can be completely untrue. The Twitter storm of both angry people and those feeding misleading information is alarming. I don’t like when people or the media tell me how to think. I like to think I’m smart enough to educate myself on issues and to draw my own conclusions.

So here comes the full circle attempt and the reason why I do what I do on the side–that is, embrace being a fictional storyteller. When people ask me why I write the stories I write and publish them, I can answer that question with one sentence, and it’s even truer today than ever:

I write the stories I write to put something positive into the world; there’s already enough negativity out there already.

The beauty of reading fiction is that it’s meant to be an escape from reality for a bit, from the general negativity that can float into our lives, either consciously or unconsciously. I enjoy escaping into crafting my stories as the writer, and I hope readers enjoy escaping into them, as well.

So while I remain disheartened by some of the things I see and read as an avid consumer of news, I remain an optimistic person, because there are many of us out here who feel the same way. I will continue to write about people in a positive way. Negativity and anger have the power to seduce us if we allow it. I choose to learn from it—turn away from it—and carry on in a way that puts some distance between it and me.

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Please, Do Not Call Yourself A Writer, Unless…

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I’m a writer.

I can say that now.

I’ve written four fiction books and one academic textbook with my colleagues.

It annoys me when people say they are writers when they are not.

Have you written something today?

Then you are a writer.

Did you write something yesterday?

Then you are a writer.

You can’t call yourself a writer unless you actually engage in the craft of writing.

To my students: you are writers. You are writing. I am excited to read your articles.

To my fellow writers on Instagram and Twitter: you are writers. Many of my followers and those I follow are writing. We are all working hard at it.

But you can’t sit around the house with empty journals, a flashing cursor with nothing going on around it as it blinks, or sit at Starbucks daydreaming with your laptop open and no words on the Word document and call yourself a writer.

So, I’m here today to ignite your passion for writing and ask you to consider actually doing it. For real.

The Month of November has been deemed National Novel Writing Month (#NaNoWriMo), and although you can log into the actual site for National Novel Writing Month and take the challenge of writing 50,000 words in one-month, essentially a short novel, if you’d like to take my route, you can write along with me here on Steph’s Scribe.

We did it last year, and we’re going to do it again.

Start writing today.

Rev it up during #NaNoWriMo.

I will be writing along with you. Recording daily word count totals is fun. Adding up those word totals can be exciting. You will see progress with your project.

TRIVIA QUESTION: Do you know which novels were started during #NaNoWriMo? Two of my favorites: THE NIGHT CIRCUS and WATER FOR ELEPHANTS.

So, if those writers can do it, so can we. Or we can start working on it now and really get things going as we head into November.

Get ready. Get prepped. Start getting focused.

I’m challenging you to write with me.

You can’t walk around in your black clothing, brooding and claiming to be a writer much longer.

But you can if you actually start writing something.

Then you can call yourself a writer.

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My Progress

Project: Novel, LIFE WITH NAN

Word Count: 17,459

Goal: Finish by February 1

[image error]Life with Nan, my WIP (work in progress for NaNoWriMo

 

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We’re Always Getting Ready to Live But Never Living

[image error]“We’re always getting ready to live, but never living.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

I picked up this little, tiny, tiny book at the library last week called “The Law of Attraction Plain and Simple: Create the Extraordinary Life That You Deserve” by Sonia Ricotti. I can’t explain what made me grab it and check it out. I don’t read self-help books. I typically read fiction; I’m not a big nonfiction reader simply because so much of what I teach is nonfiction, so fiction offers me that escape. I also write a lot of fiction, so I learn from others who do as I do.

But this little book spoke to me as I stood in the quiet library and perused it. As a blogger, I’m always looking for things to share, little tidbits I pick up from here and there, and books are a phenomenal source for blog inspirations. The particular quote I noted above from Emerson is the featured quote in Risotti’s wrap-up chapter entitled LIVE LIFE: ENJOY THE JOURNEY. All the chapters in the book are helpful, but this last one pulls it all together and has action steps. As I can often find myself not living in the moment and instead thinking of what’s ahead a lot, I sometimes miss what’s happening.

It was a conscious effort for me to attempt this notion last year, but I’m not sure I’ve conquered the simple, yet challenging task yet. I’d been noticing that I have trouble enjoying things as they unfold, and I needed to stop all the noise in my head and just focus on the here and now. I practiced this over the summer, as my son graduated from high school, as we took two amazing vacations, and as I packed my first child off for college. As Ricotti says about enjoying the journey, “It takes practice, awareness, and time to master.”

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She goes over 10 steps in her book, very simply outlined, that can help us put on a more positive hat. From managing your thoughts and feelings (second step) to letting go (fifth step) to forgiving (sixth step) to choosing friends carefully (ninth step), the book forces you to do a quick evaluation of your life, your philosophy on life, and the decisions you make in your life for better or for worse (and if they are the worst choices, she asks you to re-evaluate them…maybe those decisions helped in an unconventional or conventional way that you haven’t recognized yet).

As an example, years ago I hated to fly on commercial airlines. People thought I was afraid to actually go up into the air–that it was a fear of heights or soaring that I didn’t like. In fact, I love that feeling of being up in the air. What I didn’t like was the knowledge that I was trapped on an airplane with no means of escape if I wanted to get off. Call it claustrophobia if you want, but that’s why I didn’t like to fly. When I put my fear back into the universe and in God’s hands and realized I can’t control the plane (and there’s the biggest problem of all–that I couldn’t CONTROL it), I began to cope, and I flew. I’ve flown to Europe, the Caribbean, Aruba, California, and all over the United States because I tossed that fear back where it belongs and faced the fear time and time again. This notion harkens back to her chapter on Choosing Your Thoughts and Feelings (chapter two), and that you have the ability to control what you think and feel.

I’m not going to say that self-help books are my new go-to, as fiction is my true love, and that my time reading diminishes during the semesters when I have tons of grading, but sliding one in here and there can be beneficial.

However, I woke up this morning feeling positive and ready to share these thoughts with you. If you need a little boost or refocus, you may want to check this book out.

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Do You Believe in a Little Magic? Because I Do Now.

[image error]Today, for the first time in weeks, I was able to work in my garden. A back ailment had kept me from tending to it, and the front bed was a bit overgrown. To my surprise, as I began to examine it closer, I stood and looked in utter disbelief. And then, I just smiled.

Growing in the garden is a mimosa tree.

Yes, you read that correctly. 

A mimosa tree.

Inexplicable.

No one in my family planted it; it just magically appeared. As well, there are no other mimosa trees on our street, and I don’t recall seeing any that stand out to me on nearby streets or in the neighborhood, either.

The significance of that mimosa tree is that my first novel is called BENEATH THE MIMOSA TREE. It’s a love story that features the idea of forgiveness at its core.

The reason that I chose a mimosa tree for the story is because in the backyard of my childhood home in Bowie, Maryland, we had a stunning mimosa tree next to our patio. Its leaves were healthy and its blossoms were bright pink. It gave off a lot of shade. I loved that tree because it was so distinctive and unique.

I’ve wanted to plant a mimosa tree in our backyard here at our home for a while. With many home projects going on over the five years we have been here, I just never got around to it.

So, I guess a magic fairy took care of that chore for me.

I’m still in awe.

Thankful.

And feeling some magic in the air.

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