Mary Simses's Blog, page 4

Positano – Day 8

 

This day was the highlight of our trip, as we spent it on the water in a chartered boat with our captain, Paolo. Here we’ve just left Positano.

 

 

 

 

We took the boat to Capri, taking time for a swim on the way. The color of the water in the grottos was unbelievable.

 

 

 

 

We went all around Capri, and then got off the boat and made a quick trip to the town center.

 

 

 

We stopped for lunch at Nerano, a small fishing village with a beach dotted with colorful umbrellas. This was the view from the restaurant.

 

 

 

We loved seeing Italy from the water. It’s a day I’ll never forget.

 

Positano – Day 7

We had a relaxing day, swimming in the ocean and in the pool at the hotel. I went up the “staircase from hell” twice – the second time was after dinner. I don’t know how I did it. This photo doesn’t even do it justice.

 

 

 

 

 

Positano at night is pretty special. After dinner we ate lemon sorbet served in huge frozen lemons. Delicious!

Positano – Day 6

We went on an excursion today and stopped at Amalfi, which seems like a huge city compared to Positano.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The streets were crowded but there were plenty of great things to photograph, right down to the lemons.

 

 

 

 

 

We went on to Ravelo, where we had a wonderful lunch and toured the gardens of a fabulous villa that was once privately owned.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ravelo is the highest point in this area of the Amalfi Coast, 1200 feet above sea level.

Positano – Day 5

The view from our hotel terrace is pretty spectacular. I could get used to this very quickly (and have!).

 

 

 

 

Our hotel is hundreds of feet up on a cliff, as is almost everything here. There are no bad views.

 

 

 

 

The water changes hue from one minute to the next and every shade is prettier than the one before.

 

 

 

 

 

To Positano – Day 4

Venice Day 3

We’re staying at Ca ‘Sagredo, a beautiful hotel that was once a private villa. It was built in the early 1400’s, before Columbus ever touched American soil.  Each morning we climb a lovely staircase to go to breakfast and at the bottom of the stairs are two statutes. This is one of them – just a little decoration. You can see a tiny bit of the Venetian glass chandelier which hangs from the huge room at the top of the stairs.

 

 

 

 

We took a water taxi to the island of Murano, for a private tour of some glass blowing facilities and glass artist galleries. We arrived around 9:30 in the morning and Murano was wonderfully quiet. 

 

 

 

 

We saw the work of Lino Tagliapietra, who is almost 82 and was named a master glassblower in 1950, when he was only in his early twenties.

 

 

 

 

A Third Book

Well, my second novel, The Rules of Love & Grammar, just came out this Monday in Germany (there it's called Der Sommer der Sternschnuppen or The Summer of Shooting Stars) and I'm VERY excited to report that by Wednesday it was number 25 on their paperback bestseller list. I almost fainted when I got that news. On May 31 the book will be published in the U.S. and I'm looking forward to that.

But the book has been out of my hands for weeks now, while my publishers in the U.S. and Germany have been doing what they do to get it ready to send it out into the world. It's kind of like going through an "empty nest" syndrome, similar to how people feel when their kids go off to college. So I've been thinking about my third novel.

Writers, like many others, can't rest on their laurels or on their last project. They have to move ahead to the next thing and that's what I want to do. When I'm not writing, it feels as though there's a piece missing from my life. And I also feel kind of guilty that I haven't already written some pages for a new book. I've tinkered with a couple of different ideas, and done a handful or so of some very rough pages, but that's about it. Nothing was working.

The good news, however, is that I think I've landed on an idea that will work. It's an idea that I keep coming back to, so that tells me I've got to do it. I was explaining it to my editor yesterday, on the phone, and I described the beginning and the ending of the book, and then I added, "Oh, and there are about three hundred fifty pages in between that I still have to figure out." I laughed. She liked the idea. I think I'm on to my next novel.

The Waiting Game

A week ago I emailed the manuscript of my new novel to my editor. Now I'm waiting to get her reaction and her comments. My editor only saw the first 100 pages of the manuscript. That was many months ago and the pages were from a much earlier draft, so I'm anxious to know how she will react.

I'm getting some positive responses from a small group of readers I also sent the manuscript to - people who read the draft of my first novel and gave me detailed, honest comments that helped shape it and improve it. I'm counting on them to do the same with this book and I'm sure they will. But I haven't heard anything yet from my editor, who I know is reading it and who I know is also very busy.

It's a bit of a nail biter, though. With my first novel, I had nothing to lose. I didn't know if anyone would think it was good or would publish it. With the second novel, it's a whole different story. I feel a sense of expectation - not only that others expect a good piece of work from me, but that I expect it from myself. I don't want to let anyone down - my readers or my publisher. So it's a little scary. But there's nothing I can do except wait. Oh, and read books!

It's been like a vacation, to be away from my own manuscript and read lots of other peoples' books. I'm loving that part. And I know that some day, very soon, I'm going to get that phone call and my editor will tell me what she thinks and will send me her comments. And I'll be opening up the laptop once again and digging back into my manuscript to do the revisions. So I'm going to appreciate every minute of this break, even though it is a little nerve wracking, because it's giving me a chance to recharge my batteries. And, God knows, I'm going to need them charged when I head back into the fray.

Art Imitating Life

People often ask me if Blueberry Cafe is autobiographical, and I answer them with a resounding "no." But, after saying this, I have to admit that there are many bits and pieces of my life that found their way into the novel. I'm an attorney and Ellen is an attorney. I love taking photos and so does Ellen. Ellen likes to listen to music by Jerome Kern, the Gershwins, Cole Porter and other musicians of the 1920's through the 1950's who composed what are commonly referred to as the "old standards." And so do I. I happen to love fresh, hot apple cider doughnuts - and usually buy them at a local green market on Saturday mornings. And, of course, Ellen becomes enamored of them as well. I created all of those traits in Ellen on purpose, because those are things I love. What I didn't realize, however, is that I was also putting traits from real life into some other characters without even meaning to. Those are the characters of Ruth and Chet. I think I was easily halfway through the fist draft of the book before I realized that I had given Ruth many of my mother's traits, especially in regard to her cooking and baking talents, and had given Chet many of my father's skills, especially in regard to Chet's ability to build things and fix things. So, in the end, although the book is not autobiographical, there are certainly more pieces of real life in there than I had ever imaged there would be. And I think that's the way it should be - at least for me. I love knowing that, although I'm making up a story, many threads from my life are being woven into it.

Why Writing Can Be Like Shuffling Cards

I made an important decision yesterday regarding the book I'm currently writing. It's only my second novel, and, like the first, it's taking a while to write. Fortunately, I am getting closer to the end of a rough draft. Yesterday, however, I made a decision about the structure of the novel, a change that is requiring some re-shuffling and re-ordering of events and chapters. A scene I was going to include about two-thirds of the way into the book is now going to be the climax. It's a good decision and the right place for that scene to occur, but now I have to re-shuffle the deck a bit. I had to do that a lot with Blueberry Cafe and I used index cards and put a phrase on each one for a chapter or a scene and then lined them up on the floor and moved them around until I got them the way I wanted them. I guess I may be pulling out the index cards again.