Fear of Flying

I’ve been afraid of airplanes my whole life. Well, that’s not entirely true. But my fear of flying was formed on my first flight.

When I was nineteen, my grandmother took me on a high school “graduation present” trip to Rome. I was a little nervous getting on the plane in New York City, but the overnight flight was fine until we started our descent into Leonardo DaVinci airport. The 747, as I learned later, did a common ‘step landing,’ which entailed descending a few thousand feet, gliding, then descending a few more thousand feet, on its approach to landing.

Trouble was, every time the plane sank those thousands of feet on its glide path, I was convinced we were falling to the ground. And since I’ve never been very good with roller coasters, the rolling, dropping, wavy motion of the plane had added to my stress level and made me sick to my stomach. The minute I’d felt a sour taste in my mouth, I’d known I was in trouble.

The flight attendants ordered everyone to buckle their seatbelts for landing, but I unhooked mine and scrambled into the aisle, making a mad dash for the bathroom in anticipation of throwing up. I never made it. A flight attendant at the back of the plane blocked my desperate beeline down the aisle and literally shoved me into an empty seat in one of the last rows, ordering me to buckle up for the landing.

That’s where a good Samaritan came to my rescue. Blond hair, blue eyes. I’d seen him get on the plane in New York carrying five tennis racquets, and wondered who he was (since I’m a big tennis fan myself). Now he turned out to be my savior. He urged me to put my head between my knees and just breathe. I remember shaking with the effort not to get sick in front of this gorgeous guy, when I felt his hand gently stroking my back, trying to calm me. Of course, with his other hand, he slipped an air sickness bag between my knees, but it turned out I didn’t need it.

His advice worked. The plane landed without me making a scene.

Except, that is, for the scene my grandmother made later, when she yelled at me for being so reckless by leaving my seat during the landing. 

           

The name of that gorgeous guy? Well, he said he wanted to be a professional tennis player, and he was on his way to Rome to follow the tennis circuit in order to make a name for himself. I can tell you he had blond hair and blue eyes and that he went on to win many, many major tennis tournaments, but that’s all I’m going to say (or else I’ll date myself)!

This real life event has inspired my latest book. In my story, a fortune teller informs my heroine, “You’re never going to die in a plane crash.” Which immediately makes my scaredy cat heroine think "Okay, but that doesn't mean I'm never going to be IN a plane crash!" 

Of course this is a romance, so expect lots of steamy scenes as my travel writer hero tries to help my book publicist heroine overcome her fear of flying!

How about you? What are you afraid of? I’d love to hear!

Leigh Court

www.leighcourt.com

                                                                             

What’s an Aperol Spritz? It’s Your New Favorite Drink!

Recently, I was in Europe at an evening party with my husband. The alcohol was freely flowing, but I didn’t want to get buzzed because there were a number of people I wanted to speak with. So I asked the bartender if he could make me something “light.” He took one look at my jacket (which was orange, red, black and yellow) and brought me a red-orange drink in a pretty stemmed glass, which he called an Aperol Spritz.

Little did I know it’s the trendiest drink in Europe. (And soon-to-be in the U.S. too, is my prediction.)

Aperol is a citrusy bitter liqueur that has been popular in Italy since the 1950s, but this summer its popularity seems to have spread like wildfire. Literally every person I stopped to speak with at the party said, “That’s an Aperol Spritz!” and seemed dumbfounded when I admitted I had never heard of it before.

The attention-grabbing orange liqueur is combined with either white wine or prosecco or champagne, and topped off with a splash of tonic water or club soda. Customizable to your own taste!

Now that I’m back in the U.S. (and asking friends about my new favorite drink) I’m finding out that an Aperol Spritz almost as popular in California and New York as it is in Europe. I understand someone has even created a frozen version, like a slushie!

According to a recent article in the New York Times, the spike in Aperol consumption is in line with a rising demand in the U.S. for herbal bitter liqueurs. Traditionally, these bitters have been produced in Europe, but now, American-made versions are taking off in popularity.

So… give this orange-y bubbly low-alcohol drink a try. It’s very refreshing on a hot summer day, and it just might become your new favorite drink! It's definitely mine.

Leigh

www.leighcourt.com

10 Things We Can Learn From Our Dog

It’s hard to concentrate on work (writing or otherwise) on lazy, hot summer days. I just want to be rocking in a hammock with a glass of iced tea! So today I’m taking a break and blogging about something totally different.

Recently I was reading the morning newspaper (yes, GULP, I still actually read a newspaper) and saw this sweet list I wanted to share with you:

10 Things My Dog Taught Me

-There is great beauty in the quiet stillness. Let it envelop you.

-Sniff it. Touch it. Feel it. Taste it. Hear it. Engage all your senses in the world around you.

-Plunge In! You can always get out and shake it off.

-Don’t be afraid. Just stand your ground (and bark when necessary).

-Trust that most people have an innate goodness.

-Forgive fully, then let it go.

-Love is unconditional. If it has conditions, it isn’t really love.

-Accept the inevitable with peace and grace (even if it’s a trip to the vet).

-It’s okay to feel sadness, but remember that joy is just a moment (or squirrel chase) away.

-Live in the moment. Embrace it. Feel it. Become it. Share it. Then repeat for all the moments that follow. Life is not about the quantity of moments; it’s about the quality of moments.

(Thanks to Dana Riley for this list.)

Powerful words to live by! So remember to savor every moment of your summer…

Leigh

www.leighcourt.com

Total Recall: How To Improve Your Memory

We all lead such busy lives these days that sometimes our brains get “too full” and we feel like we have no more room for any additional information. And it’s not just adults who suffer! As my 8-year-old niece often says, “It fell out of my ear,” meaning her head is too stuffed with facts to fit one more in there, LOL. Having a full brain can certainly make retrieving a particular fact difficult, but I recently read an article by a psychologist with tips that might help us remember the important stuff:

Names:

-When introduced to someone new, try to immediately repeat their name back to them, as in “Nice to meet you, Joan” or “My mother’s name is Joan, too!” This helps cement a name to a face.

-Imagine their name written across their forehead. The name will make more of an impression if the person is bald, has bangs, etc. The individualness of their forehead will help trigger name recollection next time you see them.

Numbers:

-Always break down long strings of numbers into groups of three. Our brains are somehow wired to remember information in groups of three (“Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” or “I came, I saw, I conquered” etc.)

Strings of data:

-One of the oldest and best-known retrieval cues is still the most effective: the mnemonic. Roy G. Biv helps us remember the colors of the spectrum (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet) and HOMES helps us remember the names of the Great Lakes (Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, Superior). Whenever possible, come up with a simple, catchy word or phrase that will help prompt you to remember a string of data.

There are also some general tips for improving memory:

-Don’t skimp on sleep. Instead of staying up all night cramming for an exam or trying to figure out the next plot twist for your novel, you’d be better off getting a full night’s rest so you brain is fresh are ready-to-think the next day.

-You are what you eat. Stay away from brain-sluggish food like saturated and trans fats, and eat lots of fruits and vegetables, especially blueberries and Brussels sprouts! (Okay, maybe not Brussels sprouts, but definitely walnuts…)

-Read a print book. Studies done in Norway showed volunteers remembered more information they read in a print book than the same information they read on a computer screen (or tablet, or phone).

-Chew it over. Psychologists from the University of Northumbria found that volunteers who chewed gum retained more information after a 20-minute memory test than volunteers who did not chew gum. Chewing gum increases heart rate, so maybe more oxygen gets delivered to your brain while you chew, oxygen that can aid in memory!

-Have a latte. Researchers at Johns Hopkins University found that volunteers were able to recall more images if they drank the equivalent of one cup of strong coffee immediately after studying a series of images.

All this scientific stuff is fascinating, but remember, if all else fails, try tying that string around your finger. It actually does work!

What about you? Any tips or tricks that have helped you remember things? Let me know!

Leigh

www.leighcourt.com

Short Story Dispensers Are Coming To America

I love this, and just had to share it!  Thanks for the article, Matt Grant! https://lithub.com/frances-beloved-short-story-dispensers-are-coming-to-america/ 

In Francis Ford Coppola’s Café Zoetrope in San Francisco, an odd machine stands in the middle of one of the dining rooms. It’s a tall black-and-orange cone with a lighted monolith sticking out of its top. The kiosk, built by the French publishing company Short Edition, is called a Short Story Dispenser. It’s the first of its kind in the United States. With just the push of a button, the dispenser prints a one, three, or five minute story, completely free of charge. The stories come out on long rolls of paper like a receipt.

Lydia Valledor, Café Zoetrope’s General Manager, says the dispenser has been a huge hit since it was installed a year and a half ago. “I love the idea, especially for us,” she says. “We are all about Art; we have a lot of art on our walls. We also have Mr. Coppola‘s magazine Zoetrope: All-Story, which is a short story magazine. So the dispensers are very related to our place.” Valledor add that the dispenser comes in handy since the café tries to encourage patrons to stay off their phones and digital devices. “When people ask if we have Wi-Fi for the kids, we point to the machines and say, ‘No, but you have a story you can read.’”

The dispensers first started popping up in Short Edition’s hometown, the French city of Grenoble, in October 2016. “We always believed in the power of short literature, and the fact that it is particularly adapted to the modern world, as a way to bring (or bring back) people to reading,” says Loic Giraut, and international business developer for the company. According to Giraut, The dispensers were born after a seemingly routine have it ended in a flash of inspiration. “One day, while they were in front of the coffee vending machine, the four cofounders of Short Edition thought: ‘Why couldn’t we do the same thing, but with culture stories instead of coffee? Literature should be available everywhere!’” The company build a prototype and showed it to Grenoble’s mayor Eric Piolle, who commissioned eight machines to be erected around the city.

The dispensers are extremely simple to operate. “When plugged in, the machine connects to the GSM network, which allows us to manage and adapt the content,” says Giraut. For example, during December, the dispensers only put out Christmas or holiday-themed stories. Writers are discovered through Short Edition’s expansive online community of 100,000 short stories by 9000 authors. An even larger community of readers – some 200,000 – vote on their favorite stories.

“We always work with the community… to identify the best texts,” says Giraut. “Anybody can create an account on short-edition.com, take part in a writing competition that we organize, and publish his or her text.” Submitted stories are eligible for one of two prices. The public winner receives the most votes. The Short Edition editorial board and a jury of readers select the winner. “All the texts that have sufficient quality are then included in the dispenser worldwide,” Giraut says.

Reaction to the dispensers has been overwhelmingly positive so far. “We are receiving tons of messages both by email and social media, of people just saying thank you, or telling us that the story they read has made their day,” Giraut says. “We often hear people saying they had the feeling that story they picked up randomly was made for them, that it was really related to their actual life. It makes us really proud, because this was our goal when we invented the dispenser: to create emotion.”

Today, there are more than 150 short story dispensaries worldwide, most of which are in France. But there are 20 machines in North America, and that number is about to grow. “Our objective is to pursue our development in North America by installing more and more dispensers and starting to gather content from North American authors by launching writing contest in the U.S.,” Giraut says. “We have a lot going on in the beginning of 2018, and new machines should very soon appear on both west and east coasts.”

Sure enough, on March 22, at the 2018 Public Library Association‘s conference, Short Edition announced that they are installing four more machines on U.S. soil. This time, they will benefit public libraries: the Akron-Summit County (Ohio) Public Library, the Free Library of Philadelphia, the Richland Library in Columbia South Carolina, and the Wichita Public Library in Kansas. Each dispenser will be specifically branded to the library. And that’s not all Short Edition has planned. They hope to eventually include translations, allowing author is to be read internationally as well. “At some point, our objective is also to have a worldwide community of writers and readers, and have some Asian authors read in Europe or America, American authors read in Africa or South America, etc.,” says Giraut.

For now, Valledor says the one dispenser in San Francisco has become so popular that people come in off the street just to print out a story. While in most establishments it might be considered rude to do such a thing without being a paying customer, Valledor encourages it. She says it helps the café find new customers, all through the power of literature. “It’s like I always say, they’re coming today for a story – people who have never been here before – they open the door, see the space, they love it, they come back.”

Until next month,
Leigh
www.leighcourt.com

The Many Frustrations Of Being A Writer

I have to admit that the recent news of the closing of the Crimson Romance line of Simon & Schuster brought up unhappy memories for me. I’ve been traditionally published by four publishers, three of which have now gone out of business: LooseId, Samhain and Ellora’s Cave.

It’s not easy being a writer.

Where once only major publishing houses were the gatekeepers to whether your story was bought or not, the advent of smaller publishers gave more of us struggling writers a chance at realizing our dreams of becoming published authors. And indie publishing has been a boon for many writers.

When I get depressed about the current state of publishing, I only have to look at the great writers of history to cheer me up.

Many of these famous authors were in the same boat at one point in their careers:

REJECTED BY PUBLISHERS

Pearl S. Buck – The Good Earth – 14 times

Norman Mailer – The Naked and the Dead – 12 times

Patrick Dennis- Auntie Mame – 15 times

George Orwell – Animal Farm

Richard Bach – Jonathan Livingston Seagull – 20 times

Joseph Heller - Catch-22 – 22 times (!)

Mary Higgins Clark – first short story – 40 times

Alex Haley – before Roots – 200 rejections

Robert Persig – Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance – 121 times

John Grisham – A Time to Kill – 15 publishers and 30 agents (he ended up publishing it himself)

Chicken Soup for the Soul – 33 times

Louis L’Amour – 200 rejections

Jack London – 600 rejections before selling his first story

John Creasy – 774 rejections before selling his first story.  He went on to write 564 books, using fourteen names.

Stephen King’s first four novels were rejected. This guy from Maine sent in this novel over the transom, said Bill Thompson, his former editor at Doubleday. Mr. Thompson, sensing something there, asked to see subsequent novels, but still rejected the next three. However, King withstood the rejection, and Mr. Thompson finally bought the fifth novel, despite his colleague’s lack of enthusiasm, for $2,500. It was called Carrie.

During his entire lifetime, Herman Melville’s timeless classic, Moby Dick, sold only 3,715 copies.
Edgar Allen Poe was offered only $14 as an advance for "Eureka" toward the end of his life, with the provision that if the book didn't earn that much, he would have to make up the difference to the publisher.

So… take heart! We have good company in the ‘struggling writer’ profession.

Until next month,
Leigh
www.leighcourt.com

How To Stop Your Life Rushing By So Quickly

I have to credit this blog post to an article I read in The Times of London while I was there last August.

Columnist Jenni Russell had some wonderful insight on the ‘elasticity’ of time –  how on some days time seems to fly by, while at other times, like when you’re bored out of your mind at a business meeting, time seems to crawl.

And why we all wish we had “more time.”

The answer to having more time in your life, according to Ms. Russell, is two-part: novelty and emotional intensity.

Like so much of the body, the brain is designed to minimize the effort it needs to get its job done. It does this by recognizing patterns. For instance, if everything your brain encounters is familiar – the same office, the same friends, the same wine bar – then the brain hums along on autopilot. There’s no danger to confront, nothing out of the ordinary going on. So your brain doesn’t bother to concentrate on what’s happening because it has seen all this before. And when the brain isn’t fully concentrating, it isn’t registering much, which means very little memory is being created. So you can feel like “time flies” because, at the end of the day, you barely remember what you did. The brain says, “Meh. Been there, done that. No memory-making needed here.” (This is especially true as you get older and the years seem to get shorter. As in, how can it be 2018 already???)

On the other hand, if you present your brain with a new situation – like a job interview, going hang gliding, or a blind date with someone who unexpectedly makes your heart skip – the brain switches on the neocortex and starts processing information rapidly. The more unusual or exciting the situation, the more ferociously the brain concentrates and forms a mental memory. This is what makes time seem to slow and makes you remember vividly what you are doing.

It also makes you feel like you have more time, because you are aware of every minute.

What this shows us is that we have a choice over how we live life. How “fast” or how “slow.” Routines and familiarity may make our lives manageable, but they also erode the time we feel we have because, well, time flies.

  

All we need to do to prevent this is to surprise our brain and keep it on alert. Some suggestions:  take five 3-day vacations instead of a two-week one. Bike to work instead of taking the bus. Go to the concert of a performer you’ve never heard of. Drop into an art gallery after work. Learn a new language. Do anything that night give you a refreshing, memorable adrenaline shock.

The bottom line is: We can’t determine how long we’ll live, but we can choose how long our lives feel.

Some interesting thoughts!

Leigh

www.leighcourt.com

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

If you're hard at work writing your next novel this time of year, you're more dedicated than me...  Christmas is my favorite time of the year.

In my hometown, there's a Christmas tree fundraiser for the Special Olympics, to which area businesses donate and auction off decorated trees. They're all displayed in the lobby of a local hotel...

And they try to cover everybody's potential tastes, like this one for Star Wars fans: your very own Darth Vader tree, light saber included...

Or for the glam girl in your life, there's the jewelry tree...

For the outdoors-y type, there's the reindeer tree...

And for holiday revelers, there's the wine tree and the liquor tree...

But for me, none beats the Grinch tree, because when he realized the true spirit of Christmas, his heart grew three sizes that day!  Even his dog Max seems happy at the transformation.

The auction of the trees raised more than $20,000 for Special Olympics, ensuring a Merry Christmas all around!

I hope your holidays are filled with family and friends, good food and fun presents!  See you next year.

Leigh
www.leighcourt.com

Scottish Highland Games and Festival

The 5^th annual Scottish Highland Games and Festival was held last weekend in Mt. Dora, Florida. My husband is part Scottish so we went to have some fun. (I didn’t tell him I was going mostly to ogle the guys in kilts, LOL.)

And I wasn’t disappointed! Almost as soon as we arrived, we saw a field where brawny guys in short skirts were getting ready to toss an empty beer keg over a high-vault wire. Oh my. Such muscles!!

The Scottish clans were well represented:

One warrior in intimidating face paint looked ready for battle...

  

Others just wanted to chat (or have a “chin wag” as my Scottish friend Alice says)...

Or simply to look the part of a Scottish lass...

Bagpipe music serenaded all the festivities...

And my hubby (clan MacLeod) even stopped to inquire about getting a custom kilt... (Yellow and black is his clan tartan...)

It was a fun day, and as we left, we wished everyone shlàinte!

Leigh

www.leighcourt.com

 

The medieval Italian town of Lucca

Lucca, Italy (in Tuscany) is an ancient, walled town that's dripping in history. It’s been around for at least two thousand years, and Jenna Ives and I had a chance to visit this spectacular place a few weeks ago. (She dragged me to a Rolling Stones concert there, but I mainly went along for the chance to visit relatives I have in Italy…)

Lucca was a Roman colony as far back as 180 B.C. In 56 B.C. Julius Caesar was known to have struck an importance political alliance there. On the site of an old Roman amphitheater (where gladiators fought and wild animals killed each other) is now an oval of shops and apartment buildings, but you can still see the shape of the ancient battlegrounds.

Luckily, Lucca’s earthenware city wall (about 40 feet high and about 20 feet wide) is no longer used for defense. In fact, these days it’s been turned into a pedestrian walkway (which is a lot easier to navigate than the warren of Lucca’s narrow streets).

Lucca is full of historical churches, including the Duomo di San Martino…

And the church of San Michele in Foro…

But maybe the best way to get to know this city is by getting lost in its maze of quaint, tiny streets… You never know what you might see!

Jenna and I only spent three days in Lucca, then it was off to see my relatives in Southern Italy. But Lucca is such a unique and special place that it stays with you long after you’ve said “Arrivederchi, Italia!”

Ciao,

Leigh

www.leighcourt.com

RWA 2017 Orlando conference

Phew! Another Romance Writers of America conference has come and gone. It is both an exhilarating and exhausting experience, but it definitely fires me up to come home and start writing romances again!

This year’s conference was at the Swan and Dolphin hotels at Walt Disney World. An appropriate venue for letting a writer’s imagination soar!

View from my hotel room

An egret??

Quintessential Florida

The conference was full of workshops, publisher spotlights, agent and editor appointments, networking events with bloggers and librarians, special interest group parties, the RITA awards, and (first time this year) the Golden Heart award luncheon for unpublished writers.

My favorite part of the luncheon - dessert!

One of the highlights of the conference for me was a pop-up bookstore that appeared in the hotel hallway near the conference registration desk. Books, totes, pillows, bookmarks, anything a writer could need or want. These particular items always brought a smile to my face as I rushed by on my way to a workshop...

Another highlight was the annual Literacy signing. This year, more than 400 authors autographed their books to raise money to help fund literacy efforts. It was a chance for the public (and fellow writers) to meet their favorite romance authors!

Literacy signing

After four days of non-stop industry input and events, I was exhausted.

But, as always, I was very happy I went. I even celebrated my final night in the happiest place on Earth by going out to see the fireworks over Disney.

Next year’s RWA conference will be in Denver, and I’m sure by then my poor feet will be recovered enough to hit the ground running once again!

P.S. Next month I’ll be travelling in Europe (and dragging Jenna Ives with me) so neither of us will be posting in September, but we promise lots of fantastic stories when we return!

Leigh Court

www.leighcourt.com