Julia McDermott's Blog, page 21

“Time Travel:” mon expérience

L’interview took place last August at the Carolina Coffee Shop in Chapel Hill, NC, right before UNDERWATER was released.I had just dropped off my daughter at college and was planning a Launch Party for my new Suspense novel. The interviewer was fellow Tar Heel Lucy Hood, who had studied in Spain just a few years after I returned from my year abroad in Montpellier, France on the UNC program there.

Fast forward to January 2014, and you have Lucy’s article, Time Travel, in the current edition of the Carolina Alumni Review!

You’ll find a lot about my first novel MAKE THAT DEUX, which Lucy and I discussed that morning, a little about UNDERWATER, and a few things about me (including a recent photo).

While MAKE THAT DEUX takes you back to the 70s (think: American Hustle, Argo and the Bee Gees), UNDERWATER is set in current times. It takes place in Atlanta and New York, with a scene or two in France.

I’m not a big “time travel” person when it comes to the movies, when that means the characters can go back and forth in time and try to alter or fix things that happened, then deal with the ramifications. But one movie that does it well, in my opinion, is the not-so-famous film that came out in 2000, called The Family Man starring Nicolas Cage.

In the movie, there was a boyfriend and a girlfriend, and one of them was going to spend time in Europe for a great opportunity, and then they…

Well, it’s a romantic, sweet story, just like (but different from) MAKE THAT DEUX. But if you want to take a different journey, filled with conflict, betrayal, despair and deceit, go deeper and dive into UNDERWATER.

You may have a hard time coming up for air.

Chez le coiffeur: Bernard Dugaud atelier de beauté

On Saturday, February 1, 2014, I will be at the Bernard Dugaud Salon in Buckhead in Atlanta from 1:00 to 3:00 signing copies of my Suspense novel UNDERWATER !

Come by the salon on Roswell Road just where it meets Peachtree, park in the back lot and find the entrance there. I will be looking forward to seeing you, Mesdames et Messieurs!

L’interieur:

Chez le coiffure: Bernard Dugaud atelier de beauté

On Saturday, February 1, 2014, I will be at the Bernard Dugaud Salon in Buckhead in Atlanta from 1:00 to 3:00 signing copies of my Suspense novel UNDERWATER !

Come by the salon on Roswell Road just where it meets Peachtree, park in the back lot and find the entrance there. I will be looking forward to seeing you, Mesdames et Messieurs!

L’interieur:

Rendez-vous at a French Café!

I’ll be signing copies of UNDERWATER on JAN 20, 2014 (MLK Holiday) from 3:00 to 5:00 pm at LA MADELEINE Country French Café in Dunwoody, Georgia (Perimeter Center West)!

Come enjoy a pastry or two, have un verre de vin and pick up your copy!

L’anniversaire de my (French) “Charlie Brown” Christmas Tree

I(t) made it.

Since last Christmas, I’ve kept my  Charlie Brown Christmas tree out (in my bedroom) all year. When shopping for gifts at Sur La Table earlier this month, I found the rest of the ornaments it needed, including a Buche de Noel.

This year’s tree:

To borrow a question from my husband, How many pair of black pants  pair of boots  purses  Eiffel Towers does a person need?

Answer: Beaucoup. For this tree: five, to be exact – though one was a gift from a friend.

Our (real) tree is still up, and it will be for a few more days. It’s nine feet tall and loaded down with ornaments that we’ve collected over the years. Perhaps next year, the ornaments pictured above will go on it – but it’s too early to know that now.

When it comes time to pack up the Christmas decorations, I’m not going to want to store this little tree away in the storage room. So it just might have to stay out for an encore (but not on the dining room table).

Since I like to keep a little bit of Christmas out all year.

Last year’s Tree:

The cost of forgiveness

During 2013, I read some good books, one of which was A TREE GROWS IN BROOKLYN by Betty Smith. Being so attached to Chapel Hill, NC, where I went to college, you’d think I would have read it a long time ago – or least known that the famous author lived in the town for many years. I didn’t even know about the Betty Smith house, though I’m sure I’ve walked by it before.

I knew about the novel, though, and last summer, when my daughter (soon to be a freshman at UNC) was looking for something good to read, I suggested it to her. She read it, and then I did and immediately added it to my list of all-time favorite books. One of the story’s most memorable lines is spoken by the main character’s grandmother:

“‘Forgiveness is a gift of high value. Yet its cost is nothing.’”

Two characters in my latest novel, UNDERWATER, struggle with forgiveness. One of them faces the difficult task of forgiving someone who refuses to express remorse for a past wrong. The other deals with her own internal feelings of sorrow and shame. For both, the decision to focus on gratitude instead of hurt makes forgiveness not only possible, but much easier.

Like love, gratefulness may seem just to happen, but it’s really a choice. Another idea the story examines is the responsibilities – and limits – of generosity. When someone gives us a gift expecting nothing in return, we feel grateful, we want to reciprocate, and we want to be around them more. When the “gift” has strings attached though, we feel indebted, and we want to create distance from the giver.

While it’s good manners to reciprocate a gift, it’s not always possible to do so at the same level. Gratitude is possible, however. When a gift has strings attached, the giver doesn’t want a gift in return, or even just true gratitude. Instead, (s)he wants the recipient to feel indebted, and then to do something or to behave a certain way.

Forgiveness is a gift for which we should expect nothing back, however. No strings attached.

And its cost is nothing.

 

My Christmas Poem, y’all

“I want to know everything about you, so I tell you everything about myself.”

- Amy Hempel

Until I realized that almost no one read it (see recent WSJ article Bring on the Holiday Letters), I used to write and send out a Christmas poem every year, and I (rather) miss* doing it.

So, inspired by the Journal author’s words that holiday letters (for me, poems) have a of “seasonal warmth,” and her reminders that they

“…bring us together in a way that our relentless digital connections cannot…represent tradition in a world that discards traditions too quickly…and they require real effort and thought: Somebody took the time to write them.” (emphasis mine)

…here’s my latest:

The kids are all grown; the house, empty, almost -
No more lunches to make, no more bagels to toast.
They’re all doing their thing; my job raising them’s done –
And for me and my husband, the fun’s just begun.
 
Around les enfants, my world used to revolve.
When ma fille was twelve, I found a nouvelle resolve:
I sat down to write books, and I ceased to write verse
For my “holiday letter” – of it, I would disperse.
 
“Who would miss it?” I thought. Just a relative**  few.
All the others would not; from them, I took my cue.
So I focused my brain on a lofty ambition:
“Why not write a whole novel?” That was my admonition.
 
“You can do it!” I said to myself. “You have time;
For a break, you can always come up with a rhyme.
When you hear and see things, you are constantly thinking:
‘That would be a good scene! Or way, with them, for linking.’
 
“Yes, I know it takes months – sometimes YEARS – but, once finished,
You can start a new project, no right-brain cells diminished.
And then, hopefully, readers will love what you’ve written.
Those at home, and in places like France and Great Britain!”
 
So, not knowing if I would succeed or would fail,
I began to create, it became my travail. 
It’s ‘ton boulot,’ a French friend expressed, when I asked.
(That means ‘job.’) And with that, it’s what I am self-tasked.
 
Au même temps, I chose, fluency, to re-attain
in French, la langue stored somewhere inside of my brain.
I commenced with a course that I’m still taking now
And I’ve risen in level, and at times, I know how
 
To think en français; it occurs more and more
When I don’t think about it – then, my “puzzler” gets sore.
I have much more to learn, and to write. But I’m glad
That two books, I have published, and that they can be had
 
On your tablet or, if you’re old-fashioned, in hand.
You can give them as gifts, put them on your nightstand.
I am writing “Book Three” – it will be out next year;
And to you, I wish holidays full of good cheer! 
 
* I just like to smile write. Smiling’s Writing’s my favorite.
** One relative in particular did…
 

Encore: A warm welcome and a few questions

BOOK Reviewer and Blogger Nicole McManus has featured me today in an interview on her website Ariesgrl Book Reviews. Thanks for your warm welcome, Nicole!

Read about me, my book UNDERWATER and how it came to be written on her HOME page today!

Get Underwater FREE – for a limited time!

“How did it get so late so soon?”

- Dr. Seuss

It’s time to start your holiday shopping, and if you’re like me, you have some Readers on your List.

But if you’re (also) like me, first, you insist on reading/prefer to read like to read any book that you give as a gift.

However, you don’t want to buy yourself a gift  spend money on yourself ahead of time simultaneously, so…

Voici la solution:

From Monday, November 11 through Friday, November 15, you can download UNDERWATER on your Kindle absolutely FREE!

So, next week, go to Amazon and download UNDERWATER on your Kindle. (You need a good book to read next week anyway, before the holidays kick into full gear.) It’s a page-turner, so you’ll finish it in a couple of days.

Then, order the Paperback and wrap it up – or Gift a Kindle version!

Buy a copy for all the Readers on your List!

Then, voilà! You’ll have a head start on the holidays! And it won’t be as late you think it is, as soon as you think!

Julie or Julia?

It’s a question I am asked a lot – and have been asked, for most of my life.

Not by friends or family, though  – everyone calls me Julie (and sometimes, Jule or Jules). So, when asked, even though Julia is my real name, I say “Julie.”

It’s just, well, simpler that way.

“Julia” never quite stuck (except for that brief * period in the 80s, when it did, with everyone at the office; after I quit my job to stay home and raise kids, it got unstuck again).

I don’t mind that it didn’t stick – I’m happy with either. However, I sign my name Julia (usually), and once I began writing books, after fleeting thoughts of adopting a pen name, I decided to sign use Julia.

First, Julia is more popular now than Julie. My evidence: my daughter knew several girls in high school named Julia, yet no one named called Julie.

Second – and this is the more important reason – Julia is my real name,  just like a Cathy might have the real name Catherine, or a Jim be a James.  (Then again, I imagine that most people named Julia are called Julia, the way a Maria is called Maria, not Marie.)

But my parents named me Julia, so there you have it.

There are some famous Julia’s (Julia Child, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Julia Roberts, and even a Saint Julia, I’ve learned), and some famous Julie’s (Julie Andrews, Julie Christie, Julie Newmar). Perhaps, like me, some Julia’s are also, or always, called Julie. Does the last letter really matter that much?

Not really. Make that Julie.

* Actually, about six years…