Isadora Watts, 'author'

When I started this blog, one of my aims was to improve my writing through frequent practice. Another was to establish a small readership, which might help me find a publisher for my proper writing. I used to want to be an actual writer, you see. I have had a couple of agents over the years, for a couple of different projects, but they were unable to find a publisher. Still I did have some good feedback from people who know about these things. I suppose I'm saying I think my writing is decent. And for a while it seemed I might make something of it.

Then parenthood happened. And life filled up. I still want to write, but I'm quite happy pootling along with my blog. And yet, those manuscripts I worked so hard on all those years ago are still sitting there - shimmering with promise, fully completed, proofed and ready for consumption.

Well, what a time it is for a half-hearted, used-to-have-dreams, writer to be alive. In the space of a couple of evenings in front of Anne with an E (good, but eminently multi-taskable), I dusted off those manuscripts and put them online. And now I have an Amazon/ Kindle author page all of my own - Isadora Watts, 'author' - like a real actual writer!

Anyway, if you like my blog, you might like my novels. Erosion follows events in the lives of a liberal London family during the summer of 2003, against a backdrop of war in Iraq and an outraged public. The family were solid once, but their moral code has worn down over time. Now they struggle to resist the temptations and distractions life puts in their way. At the heart of the family, and the story, is Julia, who rather likes temptation, and barely puts up a fight at all.  The Book of Ruth is a retelling of a Bible story about the lengths a desperate woman will go to secure safe haven in a new country.

Please check them out. If you do like them, please leave a positive review. You never know where this little self-publishing lark could take me. I guess I do still have some dreams after all.

Why so quiet?

Wow. That was the longest hiatus from blogging and entirely unintentional.  I had no reason to stop. I just thought I'd run out of things to blog about. And I am starting again not due to popular demand, but because it turns out there are still things to blog about. Transatlantic things. Strange things Americans do or say. Perfectly sane and sound things Brits do or say that Americans find strange. And so on.

But first, a quick recap of the last 2 months.

In summary it's been wall-to-wall house guests. Just the way I like it. Pretty much solidly in August and for most of September we hosted dear East Coast friends, my favourite little sister and her family, and my lovely parents. Visitors earlier this year got the short end of the stick as I was working crazy hours. But now life is in a better balance, so I was able to raise my game and join our guests for day trips.

We did some great day trips. The Tar Pits was a particular hit: it's a strange, fascinating place with pools of asphalt bubbling away right there on Wilshire Boulevard. Thousands of animals met their deaths in the tar pits, which are another of those great reminders - like the nodding donkeys on La Cienega, or the oil tower in Beverly Hills High that this is a city built on oil and not just entertainment.

I finally got around to visiting the Wayfarer's Chapel, too. It's a beautiful 'tree chapel' - inspired by Redwoods - for those of the Swedenborgian persuasion, built by the lesser known Lloyd Wright (Frank's son). I'm not sure it's worth going out of your way for, but it's a short drive from us and we - and our visitors - loved it.

The best times, of course, weren't the day trips so much as the doing-nothing moments. Bathtime with Granny, a bedtime story with Grandpa, and some slightly troubling game she played with her cousins where all the Playmobil people died and they had to make gravestones out of lego. Golden times.

And then there were beach days. And days and days. And even the odd hour in the late afternoon. The pleasure of playing in sand and splashing in the waves never gets old. The beach concerts are still a perfect way to spend a Sunday evening. There were two AVP volleyball tournaments t his summer - one in Hermosa and one in Manhattan Beach a few weeks apart - which provided some great entertainment. And P has now graduated to a co-pilot bike, which trails behind (and fixed to) mine, so she's mad keen to ride her bike along the Strand waving at beach goers and thinking she's the next Bradley Wiggins.

It's been a lovely summer. And as it's still 25c and sunny I don't feel as if summer's over yet. But the hiatus from writing is definitely over.

Why so quiet?

Some of my readers have pointed out that I've been a little quiet of late. I'm touched you noticed. Well, here's why.

First of all, I'm working full time which is, and perhaps the clue is in the name, quite time consuming. I'm travelling to the client site for a couple of days most weeks - and it's a five hour commute. And going through the Big Corp bureaucracy to get my move to the US is almost a full time job in itself.

Secondly, Lady P is rather more demanding than she used to be. There's no getting away with tapping away on a laptop while she amuses herself. If she's playing she wants company. And if she's crawling, or cruising, she needs constant monitoring. Plus, when I come home from a trip I want to do all the nappy changing, story reading, and playing, that I can. I especially enjoy our band practice sessions where we bash toys together noisily. And chasing her on hands and knees, and playing peekaboo, all of which generate brilliant giggles and squeals of excitement. It's even more fun than writing. Who knew?!

Finally, TLOML has been a little under the weather this past week. Our equal opportunities household has temporarily become one of those cliched ones where the woman (that's me) does all the cooking, dishwasher emptying, nappy changing, and laundry. Leaving me no time to even write a blog post to gripe about it.  (Perhaps that was deliberate, on his part. Every time he sees me reach for the laptop he coincidentally needs a cup of tea. Funny that.)

Suffice to say, I'm a busy bee. I envy Lady P her three hours of napping each day. And unlike maternity leave, I can't join her and nap at the same time anymore. Instead I have to make the most of her sleeping to do work, or personal admin, or chores. None of which are as restful as sleeping, let's face it.

Fortunately, TLOML is feeling better. I know this from the energy with which he is shouting at Thursday's NFL game. And hopefully work will calm down a bit as everyone gets all pre-Christmas lazy. You know, that four week period where people start saying 'there's no point starting that now, with Christmas coming up. Let's talk about it in January'. Love this time of year!

One thing won't change and that's the fact that hanging out with Lady P is more entertaining than writing. But I'll aim to keep my posts a little more frequent. I do love to blog about the holidays, as you may know. And a transatlantic Christmas, in Saltburn, packed with Lady P's firsts, should provide me lots of material.

Twits, tweeters, and Twitter

Do you tweet? I do. I signed up for Twitter so I could follow people, or publications, I think are funny or interesting. Or both. Like Caitlin Moran and Rosie Boycott, The Guardian and W Magazine.

Then I got serious. When my entrepreneurial friend and I conceived our fantastic book idea I decided to start using Twitter to build my reach. It is packed to the gills with women called things like @GirlyMomma or @JustaMummy (no, I'm not kidding), promoting their blogs. Why not me, too? That way I have more to offer a publisher - a social media following, and a ready-made marketing platform.

Because our book is pregnancy and baby-related I started to follow all those whimsical mummy tweeters and a bunch of brands like Mothercare and Avent. Oh, and some celebrity mums too. I never imagined I'd be following an ex-Atomic Kitten, but lo, so it came to pass. And some random people Twitter suggested to me, like @Sassafras Mom and @Pasadobledc, whose tweets I always enjoy.

Part of Twitter etiquette requires that mere mortals (as opposed to celebs and brands) follow back. So if I follow @MumsyMumsy she has to follow me back. It's rude not to. Likewise, if @unBEElieveablehealth follow me, I have to follow them back. Despite that I'm really not interested in bee-related health. That's how they come to have 8k followers, I suspect.

By following those who follow me, I ended up following an awful lot of obscure companies like the bee loving health people. Also a bunch of women who blog about parenthood, which is fine by me. But then the list of people I follow grew above 500. And as I only have ~280 followers I think that looks a bit sad.

So the cull began. First I cut people who don't tweet very often and don't follow me. Sayonara, @Kate Moss.

Then the ones I only followed 'cos they followed me. Like Activities Children (which is a stupid name, for starters). Here are four tweets in a row from them from a few days ago.

I think you can guess how the next 20 or so went. You can see why I had to cut Activities Children out. They're still following me but I suspect it won't be for long.

My social media profile will be in tatters soon, and my Twitter stream very tightly focussed indeed. Which is a shame. But given that my grand 280 followers are the result of months of following back randoms, and consistently tweeting witty little tweets, I wonder if I have just reached the limits of my social media potential. I suspect a publisher might want a followers number closer to the 45k enjoyed by @FormulaMom.

I'll have to follow an awful lot of chumps and obscure brands to hit those heights. Time to retreat back into a Twitter cave, I think. Stop following for follows and go back to following those who interest me. More Kardashians, fewer @craftymummies. I won't miss all those craft projects and motivational tweets, that's for sure.

A proper writing project

I'm glad lovely Lady P ran a little behind schedule. Not least because it gave her longer to fatten up, and me longer to rest.

But also because by being late, she allowed me to make a meeting, optimistically scheduled for 3 days after her due date - with my new literary agent. That's right, an actual agent. Mine! 'My agent': I love saying that. And I love my unborn child for hanging in there so I could meet the agent properly and kick start discussions about a real, proper, book project.

Two years ago, when I started blogging, it was as a means to an end. I had the idea that writing something, however frivolous and slimline, every few days, would be a good habit to get into. Spending that time at my keyboard would inevitably lead me to get my teeth into a 'proper' writing project - like a modern classic novel, or an incisive, moving, critically acclaimed and commercially successful short story collection. Or a fought-over, massively bankable screenplay. (Always good to set your sights high, right?)

What happened instead is that I enjoyed blogging so much I didn't have much time or energy left for other writing. The blog quickly became an end in itself, and a very satisfying one, at that. Dreams of making a career out of writing faded, against the bright reality of a well paid Big Corp job and the fun of writing for myself, in my spare time.

I guess the lure of the 'proper writing project' was always going to reel me back in. So in recent months my glamorous e-entrepreneurial friend and I have been working on a book. As we embarked on a quest for an agent I decided to raise my social media profile - hence my increased volume of tweets, Instagrams, Pinterests and Facebook posts. I won't say anymore about the book until we have a publisher and it is really real. But I can at least tell you it is bloody brilliant.

I don't know whether it's all the writing practice my blog gave me, my social media bleatings, or just sheer good luck, but we have managed to find a lovely, clever agent to represent us. Now all we need is a publisher... watch this space!

And the Liebster goes to..

I was recently awarded a Liebster by a kind fellow blogger. 'Liebster', from the German, means beloved, or favourite, or darling. Depending on how much you like the blog you awarded, I suppose.

Anyway, I've been pondering my favourite blogs. According to the Liebster rules I can only nominate 5 blogs. I read 5 on a regular basis, so that's easy. But there's another, which only updates every few weeks, and when it does, I devour it. So I'm nominate that as my 5th-and-a-half. Don't tell the Liebster police.

My Liebsters go to:
1)  Kentish Towner Essential reading for any Kentish Towner. Daily musings on life - park benches, new gastropub menus, obscure but useful shops - in my favourite part of London. I challenge anyone to read it and not want to move here. Actually, that said, I've been bombarding TLOML with Kentish Towner posts and he still isn't in love with NW5 (preferring instead the leafier, more salubrious surroundings of NW3). It's early days though...

2)  Green Pastures New. No, not just because she nominated me for a Liebster. But because Cumulus' posts are a fascinating, thought provoking, chuckle generating insight into a life that is very different to mine.  Cumulus has just moved to New Zealand with her husband and three brilliant and rather challenging boys. Her ruminations on the importance of tea, her efforts to secure support for her family, and other 'just moved across the world' topics are always interesting. Plus I love the way she writes.

3) A Bite of the Big Apple, Adventures of a Trailing Spouse. My friend Hannah's very own transatlantic tales. (You may know of her from my posts as the New New Yorker). An entertaining set of posts on stuff you need to know when you move to NYC - from how Brooklyn brownstones used to be laid out, to buying a bed, and fleeing the city for a weekend away.

4) Babes with Babies. A witty blog with tips on how to remain sane and stylish when pregnant. No, I'm not breaking any news: I am not up the duff. But I'd like to be, one day. And most of the time one of my friends is. I always recommend this blog to them, because I think it's so brilliantly practical and yet, glamourous. Proof that the two can co-exist. At least in the blogosphere.

5)  Aliceson Robinson, of Nine Muses. She just knows stuff. Especially about the most interesting plays, exciting exhibitions, and gourmet treats. Inspiration. I just wish I acted on it more often.

5.5) - Hemingway to Hollywood. Hilarious insights from The Euro aka Hemingway Holly on the silliness of LA life.

And finally, some honourable mentions. These are blogs which get plenty of traffic already. But I like them.

• Little Brown Pen. Mainly for their series on colour. Many photos, few words. Some days that's all I want to look at.
• Fashion Toast. Hugely successful. Proof that I am not the only person who likes looking at photos of a pouty doll girl wearing rather unlikely outfits. Still not sure why I like it since I always leave the site feeling like a dowdy giant. But like a moth to a flame, I am drawn.
• GOOP. She takes a lot of flack, does Gywnnie. And yes, much of her advice is aimed at multimillionaire housewives. Still, she knows her food and the recipes are great. Plus she has a nice face.

Let me know if I missed any of your favourites...

The continuing tales of Isadora Watts

A couple of kind readers have asked whether I plan to continue my blog. After all, I suppose it was about my life in America, and all the funny things those Americans say and do. And that chapter has now closed.

But my life is still pretty transatlantic. I am noticing all sorts of things about London that I had previously taken for granted. Like how nice the tube smells. I'm not kidding, I really do like it. And how freeing it is to be able to 'jaywalk', as Americans put it. And how they ask you how many bags you want at M&S - which I much prefer to the Gristedes approach of giving you 2 bags for a pint of milk even though you have repeatedly said 'no bag thanks' (must be my accent).

Plus, the whole 'Eastbound' thread is not over yet. We have some adventures ahead, starting, I hope, with TLOML's successful visa application. The process should only take a couple of weeks but given the length of our evidence submission, they may need more time...

The 140 pages of evidence attached to our visa application

When TLOML arrives we will embark on our hunt for a flat with American style amenities: 1 bathroom per person, a waste disposal, draught-free windows, etc. They're not impossible dreams but still rather hard to find in the converted 19th century townhouses of North London.

And then there'll be all the fun of watching TLOML assimilate. Hearing him grumble about the length of swimming pools and the reluctance of waiters to provide tapwater will be entertaining, as will the novelty of him being a foreigner and saying daft things like 'sidewalk' and 'fanny pack'.

Okay, so I haven't really sold it very well. I will be blogging about bureacracy, flat hunting and well-worn language difference cliches. But I will try to make it entertaining. So please, do stick with me...

Wordsmithery, trashy magazine style

In Star magazine, and others of that ilk, people never go to parties or bars. They 'hit them up' instead. And no-one ever kisses, but plenty of people 'pucker up' and 'plant smackers'. There are many 'hoofers', but no dancers.

Beyonce and Jay-Z did not go shopping last week. They 'scooped up designer duds'. And, accompanying young Louis to a party, Sandra Bullock did not dress as a pirate. She 'donned swashbuckling swag'.

All the trash that's barely fit to print

I know, I know, spending even a nanosecond reading those rags is a complete waste of time. So analyzing and pausing to comment on what they say is idiocy.

And yet... and yet, those turns of phrase make me smile. I'm considering adopting them. I think I could be even more successful at Big Corp and in my writing career if only I had a more exciting style of speech.

Or should that be 'a snazzier mode of chewing the fat'?

Hiatus

This two week hiatus is  the longest break I've taken since I started blogging. Needless to say there has been a huge public outcry, and due to overwhelming demand I thought it was about time I got back on it.

I have a good reason for my absence. Four reasons, in fact.

Reason 1) The Parental Visit
My parents hit NYC for two days only, on our way to Atlanta. Two days is not long to see the world's most exciting city but I have to say I pretty much nailed it. I'm considering selling tours,  I did such a great job.

On Day One we did all the posh stuff on the Upper East Side and Midtown. We checked out the Museum of New York, Central Park, Lord & Taylor, the Rockefeller Plaza, Bryant Park and the excellent Morgan Library. It was Mr Morgan of JP Morgan fame's personal library, built specially for his incredible collection of rare manuscripts and first editions. Nice to be a Morgan. Now it's lovely museum. On Day Two we took a boat trip from Chelsea down to Battery Park City, checked out the Financial District and the brilliant, engaging Tenement Museum. We walked the High Line and had a slice of pizza.

So in two days I think we can safely say they saw a good chunk of the city. The key is to chuck money at the problem and just cab it everywhere.

Reason 2) Touring Atlanta
TLOML, my parents and I went to visit TLOML's dad and his family in Atlanta, Georgia. Again, we had just two days to get a flavour of the South. Again, thanks to some excellent itinerization (thanks this time to TLOML's dad), we nailed it. We brushed up on Civil War history, checked out the Gone With the Wind museum, and most importantly ate at a Waffle House and a Chick-Fil-A, two of the South's culinary icons.

Reason 3) 5 Days of Meetings
Yeah, not much to blog about there. 5 days in London, 5 days of windowless meeting rooms. Least said the better.

Reason 4) The Hamptons Substitute
This weekend we, along with our favourite New Yorker, welcomed our favourite West Coast rascal to NYC for a weekend of Big Apple eating and drinking. The Hamptons was originally mooted but we decided to save the megabucks a Montauk hotel would have cost and spend our money instead of cocktails and gourmet delights in the city. Our weekend was carefully structured to ensure we ate and drank in the West Village (Friday night),  Tribeca (Saturday afternoon), the East Village (Saturday night) and Uptown (Sunday brunch). Unfortunately by the time Sunday rolled around we were so exhausted we had to just chill out and watch NFL with Gotham Pizza at Rabbit Hutch Towers.

So during my two week hiatus I generated enough material to write a post everyday - well, except maybe the 5 days of meetings - but just not the time. So brace yourself: you can expect a torrent of posts as I catch up in the next few days.

Twits

Badgered begged and beseeched by many readers, I have at last joined Twitter.

Okay, it wasn't many readers. It was mainly Beautiful Rosie (BR). But she's pretty persuasive.

That's right, I'm a twit now too. I appear to be in good company.Within hours of signing up, and before tweeting, twittering or even having a photo or bio, I had followers. 'Stingystyle', 'irideharleyz' and 'FashionSnag', what on earth do you want from me? Most peculiar.

Victoria Coren made me laugh in this weekend's Observer with this piece on marriage, and being followed on Twitter by Arnie.... she chose to ignore the fact he was apparently following 19,000 other people on Twitter too, choosing instead to imagine him thinking "I zink I'll follow zat Wictoria Coren, she is intriguing me."

Hopefully I will have the same effect and keep Arnie occupied and away from the housekeeper for a few minutes at least.

Last night I dreamt...

...that I was posting on my blog.

Wish I could remember what I had written, I feel like it was a good one.

Focus focus focus ceramics belts pork and focus

I feel that my blog is losing focus.

It was meant to be about writing. I intended to blog all about my attack on the literary scene. Sure, I'd oil the machine with some sassy cultural observations, but the main thrust would be about my writing.

As weapons in my armory for this attack, I have a couple of brilliant, almost complete short stories, a novel called The Book of Ruth and of course my cool online interactive novel Face the Consequences. I hoped to use these and Transatlantic Tales to flag down some passing agents - ultimately so I can get a deal for my novel Erosion. I pictured myself dusting off those short stories, submitting them to the New Yorker and documenting the process in a concentrated fashion in my literary blog.

And yes, I'm assuming that the unblogged endeavour just doesn't have the same chance of success. That's the only explanation that makes sense for all those depressing (weird, as they should be cheering) weight loss and debt repayment blogs.

Face the Consequences - a new 'choose your own' adventure

The Book of Ruth, as narrated by God to Isadora Watts

This grand plan has gone wrong. Instead I am blogging about eating, drinking and moving house. And that's because I'm being restrained. Trust me, it could be even more scattered. I find myself writing blog posts in my mind - which thankfully don't see the light of day - on topics as random and trivial as my love of small ceramic jugs (including a digressive paragraph on the ones without handles) and the recent rediscovery of a favourite red belt I haven't worn for 5 years (obi-style!).

Other, better blogs are far more concentrated. My love of blogs begins and ends with Fashion Toast, which is essentially photos of Rumi Neely looking pouty in various vintage outfits. I look at it daily and know exactly what I will find when I do. Very satisfying. The Euro aka Hemingway Holly is firing witty continental barbs at the silliness of Los Angeles: a subject vast enough to provide the sole content of a hilarious blog. My smart friend Soph blogs on Babes with Babies about being a gorgeous glamourous mother, which is both focused and pretty aspirational. And a new favourite is Little Brown Pen, which consists solely of colour-study photos of Paris.

So I think I need to shape up. Stop chit chatting about eggs and ham and Skymall, and channel a laser-sharp beam directly at literary adventures.

Sigh. The thing is, I just had this amazing gingered pork belly with brussels sprout slaw (TLOML and I are going out of California with a bang, in Napa), and did so want to tell you all about it... And that red obi belt deserves an entry all of its own... I can't make any promises people. I guess I'm just not the laser-sharp focus type.

PS Just tagged this post and am ashamed to realise this is the first time I have labelled anything with 'writing'. Says it all, doesn't it?