Falling Down, The Blog

La Dolce Vita - Dating Da Vinci and other urban legends

Okay.  I must admit that for years people have been yammering about sugar.  To me, that is, they yammer. How they yammer. How bad sugar is for you, how it makes your energy soar, then crash, causes diabetes, blah, blah, blah. 

 

I think all granular white substances can be a lovely addition to anyone’s life.  Think salt, sugar, snow, blow.   (That last one is a joke to see if my children read my blog.) 

 

Anyway, I have steadfastly remained deaf to health advisories of all kinds.  After all, remember when they thought coffee was bad for you?  Now it’s the best thing since blow.  I mean snow.  (Kids?  Are you online when you're supposed to be studying for finals?)

 

So, you ask, why now?  Why give up sugar now?  For the shallowest of reasons ever.   I heard it causes wrinkles.  Can you believe it?  Not that it causes wrinkles but that it might be all I needed to say arrivederci to the sweet life? 

 

I have to say that I was very determined and went a few days without La Dolce Vita, until I hit a weak point at Starbucks and ‘forgot’ to tell the barista I didn’t want that syrupy goo that puts the 'good' in chai lattes. 

 

Once fate intervened, I was reaquainted with all the reasons not to forego the dolce vita.  1) Do I really want to look younger than my husband?  Everyone will think I’m the second wife that he cheated on before he dumped the first one.  2) Wrinkles are kind of like our generation’s tatoos…eternal reminders of weak moments and poor impulse control. 

 

So, now I’m back to sugar in my coffee and salt on everything, including my New Hampshire parents’ driveway, which has been iced in for days.  I would like to request that by the time we arrive, all ice is gone and in its place some soft and gentle snow, the kind that doesn't ice up your sinuses and drain your soul, but is the sort of thing Bing Crosby swooned about in my favorite Christmas movie ever. 

 

Anyhow, now to the link between my life, so fascinating, and the purpose of today's entry.

 

My newest guest from the girlfriend's cyber circuit is Malena Lott, whose second book has a great title.  DATING DA VINCI.

 

I like the cover and if you click on the line above, you'll see that Malena is very cute and obviously young enough to consider a twenty-year-old student an "eligible younger man" rather than a lost boy who must be returned to his mother before he gets another tatoo of 'You're either a gator or gator-bait" across his left cheek in honor of his school's upcoming visit to the national champonship in Miami. 

 

Here’s the premise, and then the praise.

 

Dating da Vinci follows young widow Ramona Elise as she experiences her own renaissance, with the help of an Italian immigrant named Leonardo da Vinci. A great winter read and an uplifting gift for the book lover on your Christmas list. Here’s wishing you la dolce vita - the sweet life!

 

"Written smartly...satisfying and uplifting."Publishers Weekly

This book was an extremely well written story that captivated me from the very beginning. I fell in love with the characters and Ramona's journey. I will definitely be reading more by Ms. Lott.

The Book Binge

Finding herself on a new path wildly different than the one she envisioned with [her husband,] Joel, comments BookList's Annie McCormack, Ramona Elise (or Mona Lisa, as da Vinci calls her) learns to open her heart to new possibilities in order to find la dolce vita in Lott’s delightfully affirming romance.

 

And here's our interview:

 

1.    If I had to offer two bumper sticker explanations for my novel, they’d be “Appearances are deceiving” and “Mean people suck.”  Tell me what your slogans would be, and why.

For Dating da Vinci, I think the bumper stickers would read To La Dolce Vita and Create Your Renaissance.

La dolce vita is Italian for “the sweet life.” In my novel, Ramona is searching for joy again and goes through a lot of trials and tribulations in the book to find it. It’s also about making the life you lead sweet, you know? That leads to the second bumper sticker, “create your own renaissance,” because renaissance means “awakening,” and the only person that can do that for us, is us. We are ultimately responsible for our own destiny. Yes, stars can align for you, and yes, maybe a hot young Italian will walk into your life, but so often we don’t take action on the good things the universe throws our way. We can’t sit idly by. If we want a better life, we have to go for it.

 

2.    Your two favorite movies over the past twelve months and why?

        My husband is a film critic so we get to watch a lot of movies. It’s pretty hard to pick just two because just like books there are so many that really stand out. But I’ll say Iron Man starring Robert Downey, Jr. was great fun with a wonderful message. Some filmmakers really get that the story is the foundation of a great movie, and that’s what Iron Man did. On the weepy front, I just adored Away From Her with Julie Christie as an Alzheimer’s patient. I cried the whole way through it. Now that the holidays are here I’m looking forward to re-watching some great rom-com favorites like The Holiday and Love Actually.

 

1.     3. What was the one thing you learned in getting your book published that you were really surprised to find out?

I didn’t realize the process was so long to get the book out, and that it involved so many people. You turn it in, then have to wait for what seems forever before it’s going to hit the shelves (for most of us a year or so.) Just when you’ve started “forgetting” you story because you are knee-deep in your next one, you get the manuscript back for any final revisions or to review copy edits, so you dive back into again. By that time, the story seems fresh to me again. And I’ll think, “wow, did I write that?” But in a good way.

 

4.     If you had to pick one and only one condition (beyond computer or pen and paper) that would allow you to write would it be: a. solitude   b. caffiene   c.  sleep   d. food   e.  sex  or f.   ______. CAFFEINE!!! Especially since the time that works best for my children’s schedules is to write when the older ones are in school, yet I’m naturally a night owl, I have to have two cups of coffee in the morning to get those synapses firing!

 

5.   Do you have a favorite genre?  If so, who are your three favorite writers? If not, who are your three favorite writers and how have they influenced your work? 

I love mainstream fiction just because it’s wide open. So many different types of stories and no set rules to follow like you might have in certain genre fiction. I read nearly a book a week and find that I love newer authors just as much as tried and true favorites like John Irving and Anne Tyler and Jodi Picoult. Really it just depends on my mood – do I feel like a weighty book or a lighter one? But even the lighter fiction I love still has a deeper theme so I feel I’ve gone on an emotional roller coaster ride with them. This last year I fell in love with Water for Elephants and Garden Spells; just magical books in my opinion. I also love great chick lit/modern lit like Beth Harbison and Jane Porter. My Husband’s Sweethearts was great, too

 

 

Does Sleeping With Someone Else Really Count?

My guest today is the author of THE FIDELITY FILES. 

The book's gotten great press:

"Alias meets Sex and the City...an excellent debut." -Bookluver

"Sensational!" -Literary Lotus

"You'll be hooked!" -Minneapolis Star Tribune

A USA Today Hot Summer Reads Pick!

Novelist Jessica Brody explores the thorny issue of infidelity in her dazzling debut, THE FIDELITY FILES, the story of a charismatic Los Angeles woman who goes undercover as a “fidelity inspector” to find out who's faithful and who's not.

 Well, given that it's time for end of the year resolutions and spiritual reconciliation, I feel it's only fair to acknowledge that even someone like me, married for decades, a mother of two, even someone like me can fall prey to temptation.

This Thanksgiving weekend I decided to let go of the rules, all the rules.  I'd given up beer to lose weight, making a solemn vow the first week of November.  I'd been faithfully warming up Lean Cuisines and working out to my newest infomercial DVD, which, come to think of it, I bought during a moment of exceptionally poor impulse control, too.  It's called something like Tony Horton's ten minute trainer and of course whenever my husband phones during the day and I'm out of breath, I delight in telling him that I'm doing Tony. 

All that to say that when I showed up in Atlanta for the holiday, I was rather full of my own virtue.  Well, you know what the Bible says.  Pride goeth before a fall.  Or something like that except it's in Arameic or Greek and probably illustrated with pictures of Spartans falling onto their swords...well, anyway..you get the picture. (Or you will.)

My sister puts out these huge bowls on her kitchen island, full of candy bars.  The wrappers are shiny and the labeling is all about making you think it's just not that bad. Adjectives like mini and my own personal favorite, fun-sized abound.  From there it was a hop, skip and splat, into the mud flats of debauchery, fun-sized martinis being the diving board from which the rest of the weekend found itself barrelling ahead, full-steam. 

By day two I was feeling bad.  My self-respect was at an all time low.  It just happened.  At least that's what I try to tell my loyal mate, who even now is curled up next to me, even as I make my confession.  The lack of any sort of reproach  makes me fully aware that true companionship includes the sort of acceptance for which best friends are famous. So just between us, I've decided to come clean, at least in cyber court. 

They say absence makes the heart grow fonder, and it's true.  But you know that song about 'love the one you're with?"  What can I say?  

I know now that going away for a weekend without bringing all members of my family, well, it just puts me in a place the nuns used to call an "occasion of sin."  Now I know why the teen pregnancy rate among evangelicals is so much higher than non-religious.  Because the girls and boys think they will be able to resist their primal urges, and when it comes right down to it, they can't.   

For me,  the spirit was willing and the flesh was weak.  Plus, well, I had no real choice in the matter.  My own sweet love was at home alone. I was in that drowsy state of low inhibitions.  When I realized what had happened, I could feel the beating of Bailey's heart next to my bare calf. Believe me when I say, much as I tried, I couldn't resist the allure of such a massive creature wanting me.  All of me, even in my decidedly disheveled state. 

While my own sweet love was at home with only the TV for entertainment,

I was straying, swept up in my own selfish need for comfort.

 

Now that I've confessed, I feel better.  Able to ask the beautiful Miss Brody all about herself.

.  If I had to offer two bumper sticker explanations for my novel, they’d be “Appearances are deceiving” and “Mean people suck.”  Tell me what your slogans would be, and why.

 

 

“The Truth is Priceless,” and “Life’s too short to live in the dark.”

 

My character’s main purpose in life is to tell people the truth. As a fidelity inspector, she’s hired to find out if a husband would cheat on his wife if given the opportunity. The motivation that keeps her going even through the hard times is her belief that “life’s too short to live in the dark.” That everyone who wants to know the truth should be able to find out. It’s this quest that gets her out of bed every morning.

 

2.    Your two favorite movies over the past twelve months and why?

 

Okay, this is hard. I see so few movies (I’m more of a TV person). But I just saw Memento recently for the first time and thought it was absolutely brilliant! (I know, I know, I’m just a tad bit late on that one).  And for my second movie, I think I’m gonna have to go with Twilight. Not because it was the greatest movie of all time, because it definitely wasn’t, but because I am so obsessed with the Twilight books that I can’t not include it!

 

 

3.    What was the one thing you learned in getting your book published that you were really surprised to find out?

 

How LONG it takes for a book to hit the shelves! Holy cow! I was a young woman when I sold that thing. I really wasn’t expecting it to take that long. I thought six months maybe, nine tops.  But from the time I got the publishing deal to the time it was actually available in stores was 19 months! And I recently sold a YA novel to another publisher and that one is going to take 24 months to release. I’m still not entirely sure why it takes so long but that was definitely an unpleasant surprise. Especially for someone like me who get frustrated when it takes longer than ten seconds for music to download.

 

4.     If you had to pick one and only one condition (beyond computer or pen and paper) that would allow you to write would it be: a. solitude   b. caffiene   c.  sleep   d. food   e.  sex  or f.   ______.

 

I’m gonna go with F. Quiet. Which kind of fits into solitude. But when I write, it has to be absolutely silent. No traffic outside, no one banging pots in the kitchen, no music playing…nothing! Otherwise, I get very cranky!

 

 5.   Do you have a favorite genre?  If so, who are your three favorite writers? If not, who are your three favorite writers and how have they influenced your work? 

 

My favorite genre is definitely the one I write in: commercial women’s fiction, or “chick-lit” to the well-informed. But I have to say, I’m inspired by a lot of different writers in different genres. If I had to pick three, I would say: