I finally pulled the trigger and posted the first bit of my latest novel on Wattpad just now! What's good enough for Margaret Atwood is good enough for me, I always say. Of course, she's Canadian and so is Wattpad, so they have an affinity for each other. I can have that affinity too, because I'm from San Francisco, and they love us San Franciscans in Canada. Mostly. They weren't very nice to my friend who was there on business when the Warriors were playing the What's-their-names in the NBA finals. But I'm sure that was just a heat-of-the-moment thing. Usually, they love us.
Anyway, go check out my novel, HEARTS & MINDS on Wattpad. I've worked on this thing for more years than I care to admit, on and off. I could try to figure out how many years, but I'd probably cry. Don't need that, no thank you. Read it, vote for it, and I'll post more of the story very soon. Like, in a minute.
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Greeting, O great Internet void! So, yeah, I skipped blogging during 2018, and for that, I apologize, mostly to myself, because who the heck else it reading this? Let me sum it up. First, I have to backtrack to 2017 a bit: After much soul-searching/panicking, I decided that I needed to get a real job ASAP and let go of my young person’s dreams of “making it” as a working author. Or at least a published author of some renown. And some pay. Not a whole lot of pay. Just some. I was now in my mid-40s, heading into the sunset of my late-40s. It was time to hunker down and make some real money because the whole freelance thing was just not enough. What did I truly want in the work realm? To be in a place that didn’t suck away my soul. To be with people I like. I love my local bookstore, and after a few months of cajoling and digging in, I talked the owner into hiring me as a bookseller. I started in the summer of 2017. I can say with all sincerity that working in a bookstore is, in the words of Ferris Bueller, so choice. The folks who support independent bookstores are there because they love books and community, and the books sell themselves. I just cheerfully offer advice when needed, make sure we have the books readers want, and try to be familiar with the intricacies of our inventory system. In any case, within a few weeks, another job lead I’d been following panned out, and I was enlisted at my local community college as an “emergency hire” in the English department. This was another dream come true—putting that dusty master’s degree to good use as an English instructor! I taught two semesters of a part-time load. I had dozens of students, most of them from SF or the Bay Area, of all ages and backgrounds. What a lovely bunch of “kids”—even the ones my age! I really enjoy teaching and put my all into it, taking advantage of my seasoned colleagues and their generosity in sharing lesson plans and advice. Even though I was working part-time, it felt full-time, especially since I did not let go of the bookstore job. No, sir! I stayed on a few hours a week. Why? Well, I wanted to keep my connection there for various reasons, one being, I wasn’t sure if the teaching gig would remain permanent. And it’s a good thing, because I didn’t get to stay on at the community college after the second semester—HR won’t allow an emergency hire to teach beyond two. Yup. I need to be hired into to part-time pool. Fingers crossed that will happen, and I’ll be back. I miss my students. I’m still freelancing, but less. I’ve also tutored and taught a summer creative writing workshop for kids ranging from about 9 to 13 years old in the Bayview/Hunter’s Point. They really kept me on my toes, that's for sure and certain, as the folks in Avonlea would say. In the meantime, I’m doing a lot at the bookstore—social media and marketing in particular. I’m still writing freelance, particularly for The Noe Valley Voice. I had a short story published in Forum Literary Magazine (see photo), and I’m maintaining my SCBWI membership. Writing? Yes, I’m still writing. Revising, editing, all that good stuff. I haven’t entirely given up on my young person’s dreams. I’ve just adjusted them to a middle-aged person’s fancies. To paraphrase Ferris Bueller, if you have the means, I highly recommend picking up a #momcation.
Let me explain. Months ago, my dear husband brought up an idea. During spring break, he and his father would take our two darling children to Mexico. His dad has a time-share at a resort with swimming pools and all-inclusive meal options. But what would Olivia do, you ask? It was a no-brainer. The first words to pop into my head: WRITING RETREAT! A me-treat, if you will. Immediately, I got to work putting together a little getaway of my own, and scheduled my time so I’d be free of any freelance projects. I knew if I stayed home, with all its distractions like laundry, email, and TV, I’d get very little done, even with the family gone. I needed a place that was semi-isolated, but not too remote. Somewhere with Wi-Fi and a room of my own. Simple. Clean. Nice but not too expensive. I did some research into Zen Buddhist centers and cheap hipster motels, but I already had a place in mind. I’d been wanting to try it for a while, and it turned out to be just the ticket. Costanoa is an "eco adventure resort" roughly 80 minutes south of San Francisco on CA-1 in Pescadero. It offers lots of different accommodation types. On one end of the spectrum there’s a KOA on the property hosting tent camping and RVs, plus some cabins. On the other end is a luxury lodge and spa. This part also has deluxe cabins with housekeeping, fireplaces, bathrobes, phones, and mini-fridges. For some reason, Costanoa emphasizes its accommodations have no TVs, although if you bring your laptop with a DVD drive, as I did (I didn’t trust the Wi-Fi would be stable enough for streaming), who cares? I need me my stories, people! Anyway, what met my modest needs were the resort’s tent bungalows. My friend introduced me to the term glamping a few years ago—glamorous camping or glam camp. Apparently the British coined this clever phrase, no surprise. The tent bungalows come in a variety of sizes, some for families/groups of up to six. Since I only had me, I reserved a two-person lodging. Mid-week, it was a pretty good deal, and with my AAA membership, the nightly rate was $79-ish. There’s electricity and yes, some spotty Wi-Fi. My laptop and tablet connections were pretty good, but for some reason I had issues pushing through texts on my cell phone. The queen bed, which takes up most of the space in the cozy quarters, is covered in an electric blanket and comforter for those super chilly, early spring evenings and nights. Next time: Part 2 of my Glamping Me-treat Momcation story! All right, we are nearly two weeks into the new year, and I am just now getting to this lovely blog after months of silence (part of which took place in 2015). I've been reading a lot—a variety of books, from kid lit to YA to grownup lit. I enjoyed Jenny Lawson's Furiously Happy, and it almost made me wish I had a real mental illness instead of garden variety worries and anxieties. Kidding! I was doing some writing until those pesky holidays set in, although I can't complain too much about going to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter in Orlando, FLA, and then relaxing on a Disney cruise in the Bahamas with my peeps. The rat race has taken hold of my throat, but I am hoping to calm down a bit next month and concentrate more fully on zee craft. Although having a steady income is also something that I've simply got to pay attention to as well, also.
Really enjoying catching up on Season 3 of Orphan Black. Such great acting, and the storytelling is also pretty good, even though I have some questions....Most of them are "Huh?" and "Wha—?" but still, they stir in my brain. I guess I wonder how much advance planning the creators/writers are doing or if they are just answering to the whims of fans or the restrictions of budget. Well, we'll see, once the series is all done (that kid Kira keeps getting older, so they might have to do a time jump), and we can watch it any time while folding laundry as we do with Buffy/Angel reruns. So, I've been using Wordpress to build my website. Then things started going off the rails with all the plug-ins updating. The darn thing didn't work anymore! I'm not a coder or an html-er. I can't afford to pay for tech support. I wish this weren't the case, but alas and alack. Now I'm giving Weebly, a drag and drop builder, a go. We shall see if this works out or not. I'm hoping not not.
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About Olivia
I'm the author of two novels, Year of the Smoke Girl and The Flower Bowl Spell. My stories have been published in anthologies and lit mags. I'm currently working on a chapter book series, a middle-grade novel, and I've posted an award-winning novel, Hearts & Minds, to Wattpad, which is free to read! Archives
December 2020
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