Samba

Only a few, cold wintry days of work left before the Hottie and I jet off to the warmer, friendlier climes of Brazil!  (A trip largely designed and organized by an INSEAD alumn's newly minted private travel company, which is a fun bonus).

But there's a "hic" as the French say (pronounced, appropriately enough, 'Eek!')  No, no, not some Appalachian redneck (apologies) but a snag.  A hitch.  A teensy weensy problemo.

In the nine-odd months since I last wore warm-weather clothes my body has, how should I put it - somewhat expanded its horizons.  The Swiss call it the Raclette-Equator.

I call it stress.

Anyways, as most women know, when you run into this kind of hic, the only clothes that still (more or less) fit are your dresses.  Especially the light, airy, flowy ones.

Which means that next week you will find me paragliding over the beaches of Rio in a dress. 

That's right, a dress.

I'm sure to be a hit with the locals.

Printemps

The temperature has finally edged above 5°C and the city's gone mad.

All over town the restaurants and bars have dragged chairs and tables out onto the sidewalk.  They've thrown some sheepskin on them and, lo and behold, made a killing.  Apparently, all you need in Switzerland is a good sheepskin and you might as well be in Jamaica.

Even more surprising, along the lake the boat and bath houses have opened.  Loungers are set up by the water, and I actually spotted a group of crazies pulling on diving gear.

People.  We're still in the single digits here.  Is this all entirely reasonable?

Then again, the heatwave mass hysteria is rather contagious.  I pulled on the sportswear this morning (sans hat, scarf, gloves, fleece or anything - just the bright pink top courtesy of HH) and ran for an hour along the lake.  Then I had a sit-down in the sunshine on my balcony with some ice tea.

Hmmm...

I think I might start liking Switzerland in springtime!

Published

That's it.  It's out there.  When you look me up on amazon, you now get a hit (both .com AND the .co.uk versions!)

I hummed and hahed about publicizing it on this blog.  You have been my biggest supporters, after all.  But, well, the title page doesn't say "Res" and, as Buddy noted, that would result in an uncomfortable mix of my personas.

So, if you're interested in checking out the baby you're going to have to be a little bit clever.  Or drop me a line and I'll whisper in your ear.

After almost 18 months, I've reached the end of my project.  It didn't all go according to plan, and there were many, many painful moments, but still, I achieved something.  I wrote a book.  An entire one.  Some people have read it.  A few more may still.  Maybe one of them will really like it.

And that's already something.

The Past Imperfect Re-Kindled

This afternoon I saw a demonstration in Switzerland.  Hundreds of people blocking up the streets and waving signs, and one man singing (badly) a rather humorous song, or at least I assume it was humorous based on the giggles of the passers-by.  Although Swiss-German always sounds quite amusing to me anyway.

Leaving the demonstrators behind, I wandered onto the main drag of the city, the one where all the fancy watches and the LV handbags go to feel casual.  And there was a woman begging for money on the sidewalk.

I was so surprised I almost tripped over her.

It was like someone had sent me a tiny chunk of the outside world right into my Swiss antibacterial bubble.

Speaking of the bubble, it's been a challenge lately.  Turns out CoolCo Sub is so very cool that everyone wants a piece of it.  And they're suing us to get it.  Which is when everyone turns around to me and says "wait a sec, you're a litigator, right?" at which point I somehow become responsible for everyone keeping their jobs.  Fantabulous.  Especially when my Nemesis sticks his nose in it and starts trashing my work like the angry little man he is.  And I've already failed in my mission to save everyone's job since we had to fire someone two weeks ago.  I'm not going to go into that any further except to say it was incredibly unpleasant.

It was right in the middle of all this medieval madness that I received the following email from the agent who had asked to see my full manuscript:

"Dear Res,
Loved the first few chapters, girl.  But then, not so much.  So I will now crush your hopes and dreams and suggest you go read One Day so you can see what real authors do.
Toodle-doo,
Cruella"

So there it is.  I could keep going.  I could re-write.  Again.  I could send out to more agents.  And I could keep waiting.

Part of me wants to do that.  Part of me wants to wait for the chance to open up a brown cardboard package with the first ever copy of my book, a book I could slide into my bookshelf and smile at my name written on the side.

But the other part won. 

And so, following my Facebook friends' advice, I am publishing my novel on Amazon's Kindle.  It will be coming out very soon, so watch this space.

In the meantime, maybe I should buy a Kindle?