Tag Archives: publish my writing

currently…

7 Feb

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Hellllllllo weekend. I’m SO very happy that you have arrived because you are going to be a good one. Tonight Brian and I are having a date night- we have three different restaurants in mind that we could possibly hit up. It’s between Mexican, Pho and Cuban. Tomorrow during the day I’m taking my little sister Ana on our second date….miniature golfing here we come! Tomorrow night we are having two of our favorite couples over for our monthly dinner club…we usually go out and try new restaurants but this time we are staying in because we have a new addition to the group…baby Margot!!! Hopefully Margot likes pizza and wine. And Sunday Brian and I are going to tackle booking hotels for our honeymoon and probably just be cuddly at home all day.

currently…

reading….The Goldfinch for a book club that I started recently. I have been falling behind on my reading and needed a little pick me up. I used to read every night when I got in bed but now I seem to fall asleep on the couch while we watch tv. Pathetic! There was a time not too long ago when I didn’t even own a tv! I got so much more done. I also love hanging with my fabulous girlfriends and will find any excuse to have them all in one room, so I thought…I should start a book club! Our first meeting March 22nd. Are any of you guys in book clubs? Do you have any tips on how to throw a fabulous one? Or any great questions to ask?

working on…writing various personal essays. I’ve written four in the past few weeks. I wrote one about the body image issues I developed after ten years working as a professional fit model, one about an interesting encounter I had with a neighbor, one about our trek through Nepal and lastly one about my seven-year battle with anxiety – which I’m happy to report I’ve been winning recently. Each essay has a life of its own and I’ve enjoyed the process of writing them. Oh and the feeling I get from putting them in a little folder entitled “finished  essays”…pure joy. Now, I plan on writing more and trying to get the others published.

watching...sadly, not much of substance lately. I’m patiently waiting for Walking Dead, House Of Cards & Grey’s Anatomy to return and in the meantime I have found myself watching episodes of The Real Housewives Of BH. I know, I know…truly embarrassing.

loving…nesting and working on home projects (I spent far too long mulling over different shades of grey for our walls. Don’t worry the perfect shade has been chosen. PHEW), planning and daydreaming about our upcoming honeymoon (I can’t wait to be away with Brian for a whole month. We so need it) Apples with almond butter (it’s becoming an everyday occurrence), my new Polaroid camera (FUN! although Frank doesn’t seem to find it too fun. He barks and hides when the picture pops out), the coral mirror that my darling husband painted for me (he’s a keeper), trying on my bridesmaid dress with Rachel for her upcoming wedding ( I LOVE it and her) & dinner dates with my beautiful pregnant girlfriend Taline ( I still can’t get it through my head that my best friend is going to become a mama. It blows my mind)

eating…paleo. I’m not strict about it everyday but I’ve been sticking to it Monday- Friday and I really feel a difference…more energy, flatter stomach, better digestion…blah…blah…blah. I’ve even gotten Brian into it. He says he likes it.

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“If you have good thoughts, they will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely” – Roald Dahl

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around these parts…

16 Jan

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the above picture has nothing to do with this post- I was just compelled to share the cuteness with you all.

I could not be happier that the weekend is almost here. It’s been a bit of a blah week for me. Not for any specific reason..my head space has just been BLAH. I think I might finally be coming down from the high of the wedding. I didn’t really have a chance to mourn that it was over because we went straight into the excitement of the holidays. It was a joyful few months and I don’t think I was prepared for it all to end. I’m not saying that life can’t be joyful after the wedding…I’m just saying I’m a little sad it’s over.

Despite my blah mood, I was able to make some progress with a few of my goals this week.

I worked on a travel essay about our trip to Nepal, which I plan on submitting as soon as I finish it (hopefully this weekend).

Brian and I finally settled on our honeymoon destinations- Bali and Vietnam here we come. I just LOVE having a trip to look forward to.

I have my very first date with my little sister, Briana set up for this Sunday. I still have no idea what to do with her…must come up with something…soon.

We’ve also made a lot of progress with our home this week- we picked paint colors, met with a furniture builder and found two killer pieces at the rose bowl flea market this last weekend- a fabulous new turkish rug and mirror for the entryway. The mirror is currently white but I plan to paint it coral this weekend!

Other than the thrilling activity of painting the mirror coral this weekend…I plan to do a bit of cooking (paleo cauliflower soup), reading (finding your own north star), writing (travel essay), organizing (the clutter that has developed in our cabinets is crazy…I was almost killed by a falling juicer the other day) and taking a few walks on the beach with my pup and husband.

Hoping that I will have a little more umpf next week!

On another note…did you see the new header on the blog?! I love it. I just die over Frank’s regal pose. Thank you, One Part Gypsy for creating such a fabulous header for me.

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Find me elsewhere: instagram @kate365, twitter, facebook

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let’s do this 2014

6 Jan

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My vision board for 2014 is finally done! It took me a bit longer than anticipated. I usually finish it in one day but this year I found myself more contemplative (is this a sign that I’m getting older?) about what I wanted on it. Since 2013 was focused on my home life…I hope 2014 can be a year focused on my career…and maybe 2015 the year of the baby? Brian just read that and probably lost his breath a bit. HA! I have so many career goals and I felt like they took a back seat this last year. I’m not complaining…I feel like some years have themes and everything ebbs and flows. But now I am raring to go. That doesn’t mean I want 2014 to be allllll about my career because that would be just plain boring. Life is so much more than just your career.

My 2014 goals…

TRAVEL / SOUTHEAST ASIA

I can’t imagine a year that I won’t put a travel goal on my list. I live and breathe travel. My life feels the most full when I am traveling. The first year I stared this blog my goal was to travel across the country and I did just that with my lovely girlfriend Rachel. It was a wild adventure…a wild adventure that had us sleeping in tepees…, getting chased by what we thought was a tornado…exploring haunted cemeteries in New Orleans…touring Graceland…and so much more…it was a month of bliss. I still think about that trip, often. Last year my goal was to travel overseas with Brian and we ended up heading to Asia…we explored Hong Kong and trekked the Himalayas in Nepal. That trip changed me. Seriously, it changed me. It opened my eyes and my heart in ways I hadn’t expected. I had never been to Asia prior to that trip and I fell in love…hard. The experience left me wanting more. So this year Brian and I are planning on taking our belated honeymoon through parts of southeast Asia. The four locations we are looking into are Thailand, Bali, Vietnam & Cambodia. Depending on many variables…we could end up going to one location or all four. I’m sure you can imagine I would love to go to all four but we will see!

VOLUNTEER / BIG SISTER

Last year one of my goals was to join the BBBS program and become a big sister. I was niave enough to think this would be a quick and simple process but, it is not. After submitting may application…it took months to hear back…than I had to go through background checks and interviews…once given the OK I had to wait until I was matched with the right child. I will say that I think it’s amazing how thorough they are. They give a lot of thought on which child to pair you with depending on your likes, dislikes & background. When I finally got a call saying they had a child in mind it was a few weeks before our wedding and I knew it would be irresponsible of me to take it on at that moment, considering my head was being pulled in a million directions. So I told them I would call back after the dust settled in December. When I finally did I went through an interview with the family…first the child alone (to see if she liked me)…then her parents (to see if they liked me) and then each of us sat down with a case worker to see if we all liked each other. I’m kinda thinking this is the future of dating, no? Seriously! In the end we ALL liked each other! PHEW. Starting this month Brianna, my new little sister (who happens to be the sweetest, cutest and most creative 13-year-old girl) and I start our bimonthly dates. I’m so excited and slightly nervous I won’t be able to come up with fun activities.

WRITING / MY BOOK

Oh, my book….my book…my book. It’s been on my brain for two years now. I wrote the book proposal many moons ago…then the first chapter…a chapter in which I’m pretty proud of. But the problem with books…they just don’t contain one chapter. Writing a book also take a lot of time and focus…two things which I seemed to have none of this last year. But I’ve finally arrived at a place in which I have both time (well other than my new commitment to watching every “Walking Dead” episode- I’m obsessed) and head-space to create. My goal is to have a finished manuscript by the end of the year that I am ready to submit.

PUBLISH / SIX ESSAYS

I am a huge fan of personal essays.  I love reading them in all the forms they come…short, long, funny, sad, depressing, uplifting- I love the insight they give into different people’s lives. Because of my interest I took a personal essay writing class with the incredibly talented Taffy Brodesser-Akner a few months ago and decided that I not only wanted to read personal essays but I also wanted to write them. So I’ve made it my goal to publish six essays this year. Wish me luck!

HOME / DECORATE

As many of you know we moved into our new home well, shit, almost a year ago and our office still looks like a bomb went off in it, we have no dining table & our walls are white. Try having people over for dinner without a dining table…dare you. I wasn’t aware of how far back we had fallen until our building hosted a loft tour for owners to show-off their units to other owners. You know…a fun way to meet neighbors and compare decorating tips. Clearly, I wasn’t stupid enough to sign our home up on the tour but I also wasn’t expecting to walk into units and feel like I was in the pages of Home Decor. Each unit felt wildly different and they were all beyond gorgeous. After the tour ended…I walked into our loft and I vowed I would change it…SOON. The funny thing is I love decorating- I find it so creatively full-filling. I blame our wedding for the fact that our house looks like we just moved in. I swear weddings…such time suckers! So now that the wedding is off our plates, I want to focus on finishing our home this year.

my motto this year:

“Your life shows up for you, when you show up for your life.” – Marianne Williamson

Find me elsewhere: instagram @kate365, twitter, facebook

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grateful

28 Nov

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things I am grateful for this thanksgiving…

+ my husband – I got a really good one. It sounds so cliché but he really is my best friend. He’s so supportive of me and always makes me feel loved. I couldn’t love him more

+ frankers – that little puppy makes me smile every single day

+ our home – it’s exactly what I had on my vision board. light, bright, modern & by the beach

+ our wedding day – such a joyful experience. I felt as if my heart was going to burst

+ the card that Brian wrote to me before our ceremony

+ my family – they stick by me no matter what. They are a loving, thoughtful and hysterical bunch.

+ my new family – I got very lucky in this department

+ publishing an essay

+ my health

+ the wonderfully generous wedding gifts we received

+ having the opportunity to start volunteering as a big sister

+ my girlfriends – the add so much to my daily life

+ feeling inspired again

+ the chill in the air

+ pumpkin pie

+ our espresso machine

+ fresh starts

+ synchronicity

+ my new leather jacket – I would sleep in it if I could

+ date nights with our favorite couples

+ opportunities

+ cozy nights in with my little family

+ upcoming travel plans

+ this blog and community

+ the warmth of the holidays

+ my life

find me elsewhere: instagram @kate365, twitter, facebook

 

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so…now what?

20 Nov

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The dust has settled. We are married and I don’t have to be stressed, consumed and focused on the wedding anymore. So…now what? HA. Seriously though, it’s a blessing to have the head space again for the rest of my life. I’m sure you all noticed I blogged much less leading up to the wedding. I also wrote less essays in general, stopped focusing on writing my book & finishing other work projects. I hit a serious wall. This year was magical for so many reasons. My life came together in so many ways- Brian and I got engaged, bought a house, traveled to Asia, planned a wedding, bought a puppy and got married. Can you say…exhausting? Neither of us felt like we had much head space for anything else other than getting through the day. Problems of abundance, I know. I’m not complaining in the least, I’m just saying it was a year focused on building my home life and not so much my career. But, now I am ready to throw myself back in head first. With everything I have. I missed writing and creating in general terribly. It definitely left a void in me. But, I felt tapped out and unable to connect to that part of me. So, I decided to go with the flow of life and let myself focus on other things. It was what it was and I knew in my heart it would come back at some point. Life is a long journey and everything ebbs and flows. I tried not to fight it. Well, that’s not entirely true….I did try to fight it and was being very hard on myself, but, with the help of my fabulous therapist I lightened up. I gave myself the freedom to enjoy what was and go with the flow. She also reminded me that sometimes the inspiration comes from living your life.

But, now the time has come to start working again and I am so ready. SO READY. I’m currently sitting at a cozy little coffee shop by my house with a day of writing ahead. And go!

* On a totally unrelated note: somebody please come to my home and take all the leftover wedding cake away from me. I must be stopped. 

find me elsewhere: instagram @kate365, twitter, facebook

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I’ve surfaced

26 Sep

Considering my last post was entitled “Dig Deep”, and I haven’t updated in over a week, you must have assumed I was on quite the excavation into my soul. I was, for part of the week, writing the first twelve pages of my memoir as an assignment for my new writing class, which I love by the way. The assignment proved to be much harder than I thought it would be. Stupidly, I assumed that because I have been living this project so vividly for the last year, that it would be easy to just jump in and start writing a book. Aren’t I fancy? But instead, I found myself staring at a blank computer screen and sending Brian texts like…“this writing a book thing is no joke”.

When the judgmental blank computer screen would become too much for me, I would retreat to the couch to read “Tiny Beautiful Things” and escape from the question looming over my head…how do I want to start my book to? It’s a BIG question that I didn’t have an answer for. As my writing teacher, Richard, put it so eloquently- “If the first fifteen pages don’t grab the reader, they aren’t going to read to twenty.” No pressure, Richard. No pressure.

You will be happy to know that I soldiered through it and finally put words on a page. I’ve started my book! So what that I am only ten rough pages in- IM IN! This first assignment made me realize that this is going to be a very long and laborious process of love. Like birthing a baby! That’s probably unfair of me to say since I have never birthed a baby but I’m going with it. It has definitely awakened something in me. I’m finding it hard to go to bed at night because I have so many ideas racing through my head. I’m feeling very alive by the process.

You know what didn’t prove to be a hard but fun process last week?? The stomach flu. It proved to be an awful, awful, awful experience. It knocked me on my ass for three days. It was hard for me to even move from the bed to the couch. At one point I was so exhausted by it all that I just crumpled on the bedroom floor in my ratty t-shirt, sweat pants, disheveled hair and started sobbing to Brian, “pleeeeease make it stop”. It was quite a display. Have you ever been so sick that even blinking hurts? That was my reality for the latter part of the week.

On another note, we are off to Asheville, North Carolina tomorrow. I am a fan of getting out-of-town and I hear Asheville is gorgeous, so I am excited. I can’t wait to tell you all about it!

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Dig deep

17 Sep

My desire to write a book has been tugging at me a lot recently. I can’t think of anything more gratifying than accomplishing this goal. It’s been something I have wanted to do since I was 20. It’s always been one of those “one day I will” goals. Like “one day I will” fly to the moon. Six months into writing this blog, I wrote a book proposal for 365 til 30. I was pretty proud of this 50 page document at the time. I thought I did a pretty good job considering I had never written a book proposal before. I thought it was where it needed to be. But now when I look at it I realize that I only scratched the surface. Actually, I’ve only dragged a tiny sewing needle across the surface of it. There is still so much that needs to be explored. This new-found realization both excites me and terrifies me. I think the biggest question that needs answering isn’t…why was my life was such a mess when I turned 29?

Knowing that I needed some inspiration and guidance, I reached out to a writer friend whom I admire and respect greatly. She’s so damn smart and honest that I just knew she’d help me unlock something. We spent a few hours talking about my book and I left feeling inspired. Her notes to me were simple- Dig deep when writing my book, be willing to go to the places that scare me and get in a writing class so I can be surrounded by other writers.

I immediately went home and scoured the internet in search of a writing class that suited my needs. I finally stumbled upon a class called “Memorable Memoir” and thought it sounded perfect, so I signed up and my first class is tonight. I think this most definitely constitutes a new “artist date” with myself, don’t you think?

I’m excited to see what will come from this experience.

Lastly, I want to share Cheryl Strayed’s advice to writers because I just love it. I plan on reading it every single morning until I have a finished book in my hands.

1. Write a lot.
2. Don’t be in a hurry to publish.
3. Find the work that moves you the most deeply and read it over and over again. I’ve had many great teachers, but the most valuable lessons I learned were from writers on the page.
4. Be brave. Write what’s true for you. Write what you think. What about what confuses you and compels you. Write about the crazy, hard, and beautiful. Write what scares you. Write what makes you laugh and write what makes you weep. Writing is risk and revelation. There’s no need to show up at the party if you’re only going to stand around with your hands in your pockets and stare at the drapes.

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happy list

6 Sep

things that have been making me happy recently…

– spending hours (yes hours) watching “Breaking Bad” with Brian. We got to the “Breaking Bad” party late but we are making up for lost time. We are obsessed. The other night we watched 3 in a row- that’s close to 3 hours of television! We would have watched more but we had finished the DVD. We’re like addicts over here.

– my yoga practice. My time on the mat keeps me sane. 

– elephants. My obsession started when I learned that I can ride an elephant when we are in Nepal! This is going to be me-

– putting my vision boards in full display again. I think Brian was a little surprised when he got home from work and it greeted him at the front door! I mean, don’t I look beyond happy in that middle picture?!

– the book “Wild”- Cheryl Strayed is an incredible writer. 

– my weekly hikes in the Santa Monica mountains

– spending mornings writing at my favorite coffee shop

– this quote

“Write like a motherfucker.” ― Cheryl Strayed 

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What’s been making you guys happy recently??

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146

13 Feb

My note from the universe this morning-

With the vista of a new year still dawning, is it my imagination, Kate, or is someone out there forgetting that the “hows” are my domain? That when it comes to manifesting change, their real job is to focus upon the end result. And that simply doing what they can, with what they’ve got, from where they are, will always be enough to move heaven and earth?

I didn’t think so.

The Universe

I rather like this note. It came at the perfect time considering I have been obsessed with the “hows”. How is the road trip stuff all going to fall into place? How will I take that time off of life & work? How will we move in the next few months with everything going on? If we don’t move how will we get Frank? How will I make Paris a reality in June? How will my book proposal be received? How will I get back to Tassajara this spring? How will my goal of contributing to Explore and Takepart come together with all the moving parts? How will everything fall into place exactly the way I want? How? How? How?

Exhausting questions because they don’t have answers! With that being said I am off to a Trapeze class this afternoon. I think it will be the perfect activity to help me get out of my head. Although it looks like it’s about to rain? That can’t be good.  I can’t trapeze in the rain can I? It seems like rain will make an already challenging activity needlessly more challenging. I guess we will see if it actually still happens today! My mother is supposed to be joining me on this adventure as well and I would hate to think of the disappointment she would feel if it got cancelled. Last night she texted me this-

“I wouldn’t miss it. Hoping I can get into Cirque de Soliel“

Yes, it appears the type A monster may make an appearance today.  She doesn’t just thrive on the French language he likes the trapeze too- she’s versatile.

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169

20 Jan

INSPIRATION VIDEO : PUBLISH MY WRITING

I love this woman and I love this TED talk she gave about nurturing your creativity.

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“As for discipline – it’s important, but sort of over-rated. The more important virtue for a writer, I believe, is self-forgiveness. Because your writing will always disappoint you. Your laziness will always disappoint you. You will make vows: “I’m going to write for an hour every day,” and then you won’t do it. You will think: “I suck, I’m such a failure. I’m washed-up.” Continuing to write after that heartache of disappointment doesn’t take only discipline, but also self-forgiveness (which comes from a place of kind and encouraging and motherly love). The other thing to realize is that all writers think they suck. When I was writing “Eat, Pray, Love”, I had just as a strong a mantra of THIS SUCKS ringing through my head as anyone does when they write anything. But I had a clarion moment of truth during the process of that book. One day, when I was agonizing over how utterly bad my writing felt, I realized: “That’s actually not my problem.” The point I realized was this – I never promised the universe that I would write brilliantly; I only promised the universe that I would write. So I put my head down and sweated through it, as per my vows.”

Elizabeth Gilbert

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