Tag Archives: la dolce vita

UpClose & Personal: Malena Lott

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A/B is pleased to announce several new special sections in ’09:

UpClose & Personal with an Author, This Author Reads and Writing Tip Tuesday. Authors! See our Authors & Publicists page for submission guidelines. To kick off our New Year, our editor Malena Lott will submit her UpClose & Personal interview:

 

Malena Lott, Dating da Vinci, Nov ’08

Favorite guilty pleasure: Lipstick Jungle. Heard it may be canceled, though, and then I’ll be left with the shows I watch with my husband: 30 Rock and The Office. 

Writing crutch? Usually have to have a drink by my side. Starbucks Cafe Mocha and Frappaccinos are both addictive and expensive. 

Plotter or Pantser? Pantser, though I usually plot in bed right before I go to sleep. I figure if it’s a great idea I’ll still remember it when I wake up the next day. 

Favorite movie snack: Buttery popcorn with M&Ms in it. Only good thing that came from a relationship with an ex-boyfriend. 

Personal style: It changes from day to day, but I love to wear color and add a little glamour and glitz to my outfits, with a scarf or jewelry or funky hat. Gap jeans and cowboy boots with a fitted T and jacket would be my favorite ensem. Comfortable but seems dressy compared to a lot of mom-wear. 

Favorite brands: Apple, and therefore all the Apple baby brands like the iPod and iPhone and the cool applications like iTunes and iPhoto and iWeb, which is what I use to create malenalott.com

Favorite time of day to write: Mornings before 10. My mommy brain is fried by evening. 

Favorite writing spot: Lately I’ve started writing again in the playroom/office. I sit in this 1960s pink office chair against the window so it’s nice and sunny. I also love to sit in a sleek black recliner in my library downstairs. 

Favorite writing motivation: A fat, juicy contract would be nice motivation, but usually just setting a word goal is good enough for me. I like to write 2,000 words a day if I’m in first draft mode. 

Favorite weekend activity: Long walks with my husband if it’s nice weather. I also like to go on little mini adventures with the family. Weekends is when I update Athena’s Bookshelf and get more reading done, too. 

Favorite vacation spot: I’ve only been to Hawaii once, but it really was paradise. I thought, “Wow! This is on our planet? What else has the universe been keeping from me?” I aim to find out. Anything in nature is pretty satisfying for me. 

Favorite writing tip: Finish. 

Finish these sentences:

When I was young, I...dreamed of being famous and traveling the world. I grew up in a small town and couldn’t wait to see what else was out there. 

When I grow old, I...hope I can look back and see that I’ve made a difference in the world and that my loved ones felt I loved them as best I could. 

When I first fell in love, I…felt giddy and stupid. I usually had multiple crushes at once. The only time I felt truly hopeful about love was when I fell in love with my now husband. I had a feeling we could last, and fifteen years later I think I’m still right about that. 

I love to read because…there’s no better way to get to live multiple lives and experience the raw, rich emotion of human existence. 

Web site: www.malenalott.com

Lott’s second novel, Dating da Vinci, a tale of love, longing and la dolce vita, is in bookstores everywhere and available online. 

 

How Author Malena Lott Gets La Dolce Vita

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First off, a hearty Midwestern thank you to authors Joanne Rendell, Jenny Gardiner and Jess Riley for taking the time to share their personal insights into “the sweet life” with our readers. These three authors are a big part of the reason I wanted to start Athena’s Bookshelf – to bring light to great books by great emerging authors. We’ll be back to more  book reviews next week, including reviews for The Amend Sisters, Where Am I Wearing, And Never Stop Dancing and more historical romance.

And now, for my route to the sweet life, la dolce vita…

This is going to sound strange for an author to say, since stories live in our heads all the time, but the best way for me to experience the sweet life is to get out of my head once in awhile. I’ve always prided myself on being a thinker and my creative outlet is not only escape for me, but therapy. But what I realized last year, while reading The New Earth by Eckhart Tolle, is that my brain was pretty much controlling my life, and not in a good way. 

Do you ever have too many thoughts going on at once? Catch yourself worrying about the past and fretting about the future? Conjuring up drastic scenarios that may never come to fruition? Yeah…I pretty much rock at that. And it’s all well and good if you’re creating those things for conflict for your characters, but something else entirely if it’s about your own life. The stress pool is a cesspool. 

By practicing keeping myself in the present moment as much as possible, the past and the future melt away (unless the present is purposely planning for a future moment.) What’s left is the glorious present – whatever I happen to be doing at the moment. Making bacon for my 8 year old’s farmer’s breakfast this morning. Concentrating on the bacon and visiting with her, and not thinking about the dozen other things I need to do this morning. Getting ready for my launch party yesterday, I listened to Oprah’s Soul series, instead of worrying if anyone would show up at the launch party. (Thankfully many did!)

We’ve all heard the saying, “don’t worry, be happy,” yet it’s much harder to live it. But I’ve found when I do, then everything in life is sweeter. I really get to savor the small stuff and simply be present. Now I have to rush. Can’t take the kids to school in PJ’s, now can I? 

Be sure and check out my web site to enter two great contests ending in November, for an Italian Cafe CD perfect for your next dinner party or a Sephora Makeup Kit for yourself or as a Christmas gift for a girlie girl on your list. Need some holiday baking and recipe ideas? You’ll find my favorites on the site, as well. Thanks for supporting Dating da Vinci, and I wish you the sweet life this holiday season and beyond!

Get the book on Amazon here. 

Author Jess Riley Talks About La Dolce Vita

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Our third author to help us celebrate the sweet life with the launch of Dating da Vinci by Malena Lott is Jess Riley, debut author of Driving Sideways. Ciao, Jess! 

“It’s a Wonderful (Dolce) Vita”

When Malena graciously invited me to write a post celebrating “The sweet life,” my mind immediately jumped to two things: The Suite Life with Zack and Cody (don’t ask me how I know about that show, I don’t even have kids) and The Sweet Life by the lovely 2007 Deb Mia King. Once I got my first associations out of the way, I really started thinking about what makes life sweet. 

For me, one of the best (and most unanticipated) side effects of having a novel released has been hearing from readers who were moved enough by actual words I wrote to send me … well, I guess I’ll just say it: fan mail. (I have to say it in a hushed voice, looking over my shoulder, so I don’t jinx myself and make it go away.) I still can’t believe that, and it will never stop thrilling me. Also, since the release of Driving Sideways, I have reconnected, and in some cases connected for the first time, with long-lost friends and relatives—aunts, uncles, cousins…I even reconnected with my ex-mother-in-law! I’ve exchanged emails with many of these people that I will save and print and treasure and read when I feel like singing “Nobody likes me, everybody hates me, guess I’ll just eat worms.” But mostly? I wander around some days feeling like George Bailey in the final scene of It’s a Wonderful Life.

I loved Joanne’s post on Monday about the vitality of dreams, and how central they are to a ‘sweet life.’ Absolutely…and to that, I would also add a creatively stimulating environment…the freedom to pursue one’s art…but especially, love and support for (and from) one’s family and friends. Because I’ve found that while it’s fun to make strangers blush, when your own mother-in-law blushes at your description of the ‘special area’ of a certain unfortunate individual? It’s bound to make Thanksgiving that much more entertaining.

Plus, the people who know you best will stick with you through times both good and bad: the sophomore slump, your triumphant return in book three, mood swings (from movie deal to cancelled contract to hara-kiri inducing PW review to gushing blurb from David Sedaris to experimental scratch n’ sniff cover to the book club member who told you that while she loved the book, did you have to use all that crass language?), and the fact that when you add up all the time you spend on blogs, Crackbook, Myspace, or checking your numbers on amazon plus taxes, postage, travel, and conference fees, your book has actually netted you only $53.76.

A labor of love, darlings. It’s a labor of love. But when writing lets me spend even a moment feeling like George Bailey in the final scene of my all-time favorite movie? Loved and buoyed and saved by all the people who make my life wonderful? Truly, to me, that is better than fresh-from-the-oven peanut butter cookies, better than sticky cinnamon-caramel rolls on Christmas morning, better than a fresh tube of chocolate chip cookie dough after too many glasses of wine. It’s the real dolce vita.

 Visit Jess at www.jessriley.com.

Get her book at Amazon here. 

How Author Jenny Gardiner Gets La Dolce Vita

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Our second guest author to help us celebrate the launch of Dating da Vinci by Malena Lott is Jenny Gardiner. Jenny, welcome!
La Dolce Vita. The sweet life. I think you can find no sweeter place in which to find La Dolce Vita than in Italia.
I’m a huge Italiophile. I’d never even been to Italy until about six years ago. I knew I’d love it—I adore Italian food, Italian wine and art. I’m fascinated by Italian culture. And Italian men? Need I say more? Besides that obvious selling point, I’ve been so smitten by the language of love that I actually started studying it several years ago. A somewhat impractical language on which to focus one’s attention, but it sounds so sensual, it’s music to my ears.
I didn’t know until I went there, however, that I would feel so very connected to Italy. 
Italy is definitely my place to indulge in the sweet life. We’ve been back a few times since that first visit during the off-season. And because it was November in Tuscany that first time, we were relatively free of the manacles of hoards of tourists and instead could partake in the local life, even helping our hosts to harvest olives in their grove. And dining on homemade ravioli and veal straight from the farm of our host’s brother. Everything was local, from the olive oil to the wine to the boar meat to the vegetables. 
In Italy, in many ways, life is much simpler. People work for a few hours in the morning, then take long, leisurely lunchtimes with family and friends. Maybe a siesta for a while. And return to work for a few hours later in the afternoon.  Italians place a high value on the arts, take pride in their heritage and history, and work hard to preserve what was so that it will be there for the indefinite future.
My last trip to Italy was a sailing trip with my family and two families of dear friends—15 of us sailing the Aeolian Islands off the coast of Sicily. By day we sailed from island to island, swam in the sapphire waters, hiked smoldering volcanoes, and wandered through markets and local ruins. By evening, we’d throw together an antipasti platter made with only local salamis and cheeses, accompanied by hearty local wines. Then we’d dinghy ashore for leisurely meals of fresh pasta and seafood served by some of the nicest wait staff you’ll ever find. We finished with  fresh desserts and local liqueurs, and returned to our sailboats to settle down to the gentle waving of the ocean all night long.
I can’t think of anything much sweeter than that.

 

Learn more about Jenny at www.jennygardiner.net and find her book at Amazon here. 

 

How Author Joanne Rendell Gets La Dolce Vita

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To celebrate launch week of Dating da Vinci by Malena Lott, we’ve asked some of our favorite women’s fiction authors to stop by and share their own idea of “the sweet life.” 

Burnt Marshmallows: A Writer’s Dolce Vita

by guest author Joanne Rendell, The Professors’ Wives’ Club

“I wish I could get this novel finished….”

“I wish I could get an agent….”

“I wish my agent could find an editor who will buy my book…”

“I wish my book would get great reviews…”

“I wish it would be put on the front tables at Barnes and Noble…”

“I wish it would sell lots…”

“I wish I could get on the New York Times Bestsellers list…”

“I wish Oprah would call…”

Many people live by their dreams and aspirations and writers, like me, are no different. From the moment I started writing fiction, I dreamed. I dreamed of being able to finish a paragraph, a chapter, then a book. When my first manuscript was done, I dreamed of securing an agent and finding a publisher. I was lucky, although there were hiccups and rejected manuscripts along the way, these dreams came true. I found an agent and a publisher and now have a book out on the tables of Barnes and Noble and another book in the publishing world’s pipeline.

But even when our dreams come true, we still keep coming up with new dreams. As soon as my first novel The Professors’ Wives’ Club was launched this Fall, I cooked up a whole new set of dreams: seeing a review in O magazine; a mention in The New York Times; my name on the bestseller’s list; a call from the Today show. I couldn’t help it. I just kept dreaming.

Indeed, because of these new set of dreams, I spent a few weeks after my book’s launch worrying: worrying about sales, worrying whether I was doing enough to help publicize my book. In an attempt to get my name out there, I ended up writing a number of articles for publications and websites, including an essay about homeschooling for Babble.com which whipped up a storm of controversy. The piece was picked up by a number of media outlets and resulted in my family and I being featured in an article for The New York Times. 

Yet, what I realized through the whole rollercoaster adventure in the world of “big media” was that, in spite of being exciting and dream-fulfilling, it wasn’t where I found the most happiness.

The day after seeing my article in the newspaper (and after fielding all the phonecalls and emails it prompted), my husband, five year old son and I took off for our little ramshackle cabin in upstate New York. In the evening, the temperature dropped and we built a fire and roasted marshmallows. The moon was bright and a few wispy clouds scudded across the otherwise clear sky. I wasn’t thinking about the Times piece, or the sales of my books, or the fact that, out in the country, Oprah wouldn’t be able to reach me! Instead, I simply enjoyed the sweetness of the marshmallows and my small family who were smiling and laughing in the glow of the dancing orange flames.

Dreams are vital, I realized as I tucked myself into my sleeping bag that night. Without dreams we might not dare to strike out, take adventures, or pursue those things we’d really love to do. However, it is the simple pleasures – and sticky burnt marshmallows – that make our lives truly sweet.

Thanks, Joanne! I could use a smore right about now. Continued success on your writing and making those dreams come true. 

 www.joannerendell.com

Get The Professors’ Wives’ Club on Amazon here.