On the Advantages of Schlepping Sketchbooks to Conferences

The advantages of taking a sketchbook to a conference are manifold:

A) You can draw the drink one of your friends has ordered to remind you that even though said drink contains alcohol, it's actually quite yummy (very useful info for people who normally don't like alcohol!!!.)

 B) You can draw the silly things your friends have talked you into buying at the stores in Disneyland.

 And the bestest, biggest, wonderfullest avantage of bringing a sketchbook to a writer's conference?

C) You can take note-taking during a research workshop to the next level. :-) The following pages from my sketchbook are the notes from Candice Hern's workshop on Regency fashion accessories at the Beau Monde Conference.

RWA National '12 in Anaheim, CA

The view from my balcony at the conference hotel

For me, another highlight of 2012 was attending the RWA National Conference. I haven't been to an RWA conference for several years, and let me tell you, I missed it SOOO much! There is nothing like sitting in a huge ballroom with 2000 other romance writers and listening to a motivational keynote speech from one of the top people in the business.

There's also nothing like meeting old friends whom you haven't seen in years and years! And, gosh, being back in the USA! :-)

After I had arrived at the hotel, I took a nice, long walk in order to stretch my legs, and fell in love with the wide avenues, lined with palm trees, around the Disney parks. (The hotel was a convenient 20-minute walk away from the entrance to Disneyland - wheee!)

During that walk I was once again struck how quickly a street can change in the US: pretty avenues around Disneyland, but a few hundred metres down the road things started to look somewhat shabbier. And here's another problem: in the US I find very difficult to tell in what kind of neighbourhood I am and when I should start worrying. I figured that the neighbourhood I was walking through wasn't that bad and besides, I was looking for a supermarket which was supposed to be on that street and - ooops, the sun is beginning to set already?!?!? ;-) (Note to self: The next time you might want to remember that the sun sets at different times in different parts of the world ...) In the end, I managed to find a supermarket, buy some fruit and stuff, and drag it back to the hotel before it was getting dark. (I received some very strange looks when I brightly walked across the parking lot and off the parking lot and down the road. *lol*)

The next day I discovered the delights of The Cheesecake Factory (also conveniently located within walking distance to the hotel.) Oh my! That place is like heaven for anyone seriously addicted to cheesecake!

 Of course, I also visited Disneyland: I met up with the lovely Eve Silver and a couple of other romance writers and together we went to "the happiest place in the world". We had so much fun that I even forgave them that they forced me to take the Space Mountain ride the first thing. I forgave them even though I thought I would die. (Note to self: Never EVER let anybody drag you on any kind of rollercoaster again!!!)

 The conference - or I should say, both conferences because I also attended the Beau Monde mini-conference, were lovely. Delilah Marvelle made us all cry with her luncheon keynote at the Beau Monde; Isobel Carr gave another of her fantastic clothing workshops; and this time around nobody torpedoed my Beau Monde workshop by sitting in the first aisle and saying (quite loudly), "WHAT? What did she say? I don't understand her! She's SO hard to understand!" The workshops at the "big" conference were a mixed bag as always, but it was nice that there were so many talks on self-publishing, most of which were enormously helpful. 

LoveLetter Convention 2012

For me, one of the highlights of 2012 was attending the very first LoveLetter Convention back in May. The conference was organised by the fantastic team of the LoveLetter Magazin and took place in Berlin-Spandau, which is about a 20-minute train ride away from the city centre. In other words, it's just close enough to enjoy the sights of the big city, but also small enough to make somebody like me feel thoroughly comfortable (I'm so not a big city girl).

Spending two whole days in the company of romance readers and other romance writers was a treat in itself. In addition, the trip presented me with the opportunity to test my new sketching skills: I only brought my new instant camera and a sketchbook. The advantages of bringing a sketchbook became obvious quite early on: back at home, I had covered the first pages with a map of Spandau and had marked where the station was, where my hotel was, and where the conference would take place. Thanks to doing this map, I didn't need to consult a map once I had arrived in Spandau.

The next big advantage of bringing a sketchbook became obvious when I took a walk around Spandau that first afternoon and did some quick sketches: not only does sketching make you look closer at things, but it also makes other people talk to you. It's amazing, really. Complete strangers will come up to you and start a conversation and tell you things about the stuff you're drawing. :-)

This became even more obvious when I went to Berlin the next day. My first stop was the famous Alexanderplatz (I can't say I was impressed ...), where I sketched the "Alex", the TV tower and then went up the Alex. I was lucky enough that the first view I had when I stepped up to the enormous glass windows was of the Brandenburger Tor - and so I started sketching, while around me people hastened around, taking picture after picture with their digital cameras and not taking in the sights at all. I received A LOT of funny stares, but when I moved on and started on the cathedral and then the "Fat Hermann" (a watertower), I suddenly heard somebody saying behind me, "Oh WOW, look what she's doing. She's drawing." And another voice, "What? What is she drawing?" "The Fat Hermann," I said and showed them. By that time, half a school class of fifteen-year-olds had assembled behind me and stared at me as if I were a two-headed calf or something. Then they took pictures of me (definitely two-headed calf!) and my sketches: I suddenly had become one of the sights of Berlin. *ggg*

But it didn't stop there: Once I was back down on the ground, I spotted a donut shop and decided to have a donut lunch. In the shop, a young woman started a conversation with me because she had seen me sketching up on the tower. The whole experience was just surreal. Nice, but surreal.

I spent the rest of the afternoon on a tourist bus tour, which took me past the most important sights of Berlin and several of the very cute Buddy Bears, which you can find all around the city. Of course, we also saw the famous Checkpoint Charlie and the remains of the Berlin Wall, and I covered several pages with quick, rather shaky sketches.

On Saturday, the conference started and because I was moderating panels throughout the day, I didn't get to do a lot of sketching. However, I did manage to squeeze in a quick drawing of our fantastic dinner at the restaurant in the Zitadelle Spandau, a Renaissance fortress. The next day more panels followed. It was fun, but hard fun: I had initially thought my task merely consisted in introducing the panelists. As it turned out, I was also supposed to ask them interesting questions. So I had to improvise (a lot!), which kept me on my toes (figuratively speaking). By the end of the day I felt pretty much wrung out, so it came as a wonderful surprise to find that two girls had left a whole box full of donuts in the conference office for the conference team. Wheeee!!!! I definitely needed that sugar rush! :-)

One of the best things about such conferences is to meet new people and people you've already met before; to chat with readers and authors and editors and publishers; to talk romance almost nonstop. So it won't come as a surprise to you when I tell you how much I'm looking forward to this year's conference. :-) I will once again moderate the panels and *fingers crossed* this time I might even have a new book to sign.

And of course, I will bring my sketchbook.

(Btw, if you'd like to take a look at somewhat bigger pictures of the sketches from the mosaic above, hop over to the Flickr album)

Traffic Woes in Victorian London

If you think that complaints about pot-holed roads, traffic jams, and incomprehensible bus routes are merely a phenomenon of our modern age, you couldn't be more wrong. Traffic, the state of the roads, and public transport caused already the Victorians countless woes. Londoners were well acquainted with traffic jams as the following picture shows:

Partly, this problem was caused by the sheer numbers of carriages, carts, buses and cabs that drove about London's streets each. In addition, the problem was exacerbated by obstructions that were erected and blocked roads, e.g. in Fleet Street in 1846.

 The thoroughfares in particular were so busy and so stuffed with vehicles that getting on and off the bus could present a problem, which is why Punch joked that omnibuses should be outfitted with emergency ladders:

 Omnibuses had been a common sight in London since 1829, when George Shillibeer's first two horse-drawn buses took up their service. Thanks to Shillibeer's success, other companies followed and within two decades serval bus services and routes had been established in London. Bus drivers and passengers were the butt of the joke in many Punch cartoons - and many points that the magazine ridiculed are certainly familiar to modern users of public transport. The following cartoon and article, for example, satirise the organisation of bus routes:

 The traffic problem in London was not helped by the state of the roads, as the next cartoon shows. Roads were often full of holes, which made navigating them difficult.(Naturally, this doesn't mean that they were quite as bad that - the cartoon below once again highly exaggerates the situation.)

Let 'em eat cake: My very first Victoria Sponge

Today I was in urgent need of some baking therapy and so I decided to bake a Victoria Sponge - my very first Victoria Sponge, that is (I blame the Great British Bake Off...). In the past few weeks I researched the topic thoroughly, looked at countless photos online and watched several videos on YouTube. Then I did some more research on sandwich pans. And then I orderd Alan Silverwood's Victoria Surprise set, which arrived yesterday. This is a very nifty loose-bottom pan set indeed: apart from the normal, flat bottoms, it also contains bottoms with insets (allowing for more filling to be stuffed into your cake) (this is, of course, a Very Good Thing indeed - think strawberries and cream. Yum!). Unfortunately, my pans arrived with a couple of scratches on the outside, and I seriously thought about sending them back, when the aforementioned need for baking therapy overcame my need to have spotless pans.

So I carefully lined the bottoms of the pans with baking paper, greased the pans, and dusted them with flour (dusting pans with loose bottoms is ... eh ... interesting). For the dough I used a 2+2+2+4 recipe (200g butter, 200g sugar, 200g flour, 4 eggs + baking powder for those who don't have self-raising flour + a bit of vanilla extract to taste), which made me feel very competent and empowered because I didn't need to check a recipe. (I LOVE recipes like that!) Thanks to the very thorough research I'd done I knew that I needed to cream the butter and sugar very thoroughly to create a very fluffy mixture (many thanks to Poires au Chocolat for her excellent post on creaming butter & sugar!). Furthermore, I knew that the mixture isn't supposed to curdle when you add the eggs (oops), so this time I was very careful with the eggs and kept beating and beating and beating and the dough got fluffier and fluffier and fluffier. Whee! :-) I also knew that I wanted to fold in the flour with a spoon rather than using the mixer (At this point, I kept hearing Paul Hollywood and Mary Berry's faintly disappointed voices, "You've overworked the dough." Oh dear. No, no, we wouldn't want to disappoint Mary Berry and Paul Hollywood.) So I folded, took a taste sample (yummy), then filled my lovely sandwich tins and put them into the oven.

Now if you thought this was the end of my worries, you couldn't be more wrong. What if the pans would leak and drip? What if the dough wouldn't rise properly? Luckily, the pans didn't leak and the dough eventually decided to rise. But then the next problem presented itself: when to take the pans out of the oven. (I kept hearing Mary Berry & Paul Hollywood again, "It's overcooked." Or, worse, "It's underdone." Aaaargh!) I checked Nigella's recipe in How to Be a Domestic Goddess, and then decided to use a good, old cake-tester. (Oh dear, what if the cake collapses when I open the oven door???) (Geez, when have I become such a baking wuss? Note to self: Start baking more often again.)

I poked and prodded my poor cakes several times before I was satisfied that they were most likely done (I could just about keep from digging a hole in one of the cakes in order to try the sponge ...). They came out of the pans like a dream, had a lovely light colour and looked very fluffy indeed. Yay!

For the filling I went with the traditional raspberry jam - and I have to say, I LOVED it. The cake tasted just lovely - it wasn't too dry - and the raspberry jam added a nice tartness to the sweetness of the sponge. My conclusion: this is a very nice cake for a Saturday afternoon tea, and I can't wait for strawberries to come into season. Filled with fresh strawberries and whipped cream, this will be the perfect summer cake!

(And if I could, I would totally invite you all for tea!) :-)

Doodle Days

One of the things that kept me sane this past year was sketching. After I'd stumbled across Urban Sketchers in early 2012 and fallen in love with the whole concept, I bought a Moleskine and started sketching. Granted, the stuff that ended up on the first few pages wasn't brilliant (it was pretty bad, actually), but gradually, I got back into the flow of drawing. I also bought a super cute mini-watercolour set, which you can easily slip into your handbag, and one of those amazing brushes that come with a small watertank - just perfect for sketching on the go.

Because, you know, I had a PLAN.

I knew I would be visiting various exciting places in 2012 on account of the conferences I had scheduled to attend. And instead of a camera, I wanted to take a travel sketchbook. So I did a lot of sketching this past year - not merely as an exercise for the planned travel sketchbooks, but also because it took my mind of other things. (The mosaic you see above are pages from my first sketchbook, which I called "Doodle Days". The title was supposed to serve as a reminder to myself that my drawings didn't need to be perfect. They could be just doodles, and that would be fine.)

To my surprise, I've also found that when you're travelling with a sketchbook, complete strangers will start a conversation with you. And sometimes they will tell you things about their city and the buildings and scenes you've drawn.

Sketching is also a very good way to create memories. It teaches you to look. You suddenly start to see the world with different eyes.

It's magical, really. :-)

Signs of Life

"Knock, knock, who's there?"

"Sandy."

"Sandy who?"

"Sandy who hasn't posted in ages."

As you can see, I still haven't been abducted by aliens, nor have I fallen off the edges of the earth. Instead, life hit me over the head.

Real hard.

Almost from the beginning, 2012 turned into an annus horribilis for my family: we lost three people from among our close friends and family, among them my sweet, dear grandfather. Shortly before Easter he became seriously ill. After a stay at the hospital, he moved in with us and was nursed by the family. We all hoped his health would improve again, but instead he became frailer and frailer. He died the day I returned home from RWA National.

I love this picture of me & my granddad - it was taken in 1994

As you can imagine, his illness and subsequent death hit us all quite hard. I had enormous difficulties coping with the whole situation. Indeed, all I could do was try and get through each day without breaking down. Consquently, I lost touch with friends, I no longer updated this blog, and I stopped writing. Well, I've never been able to write through heartbreak, so this was hardly surprising. But I also got bad at handling phone calls and e-mails (e-mails still present a problem ...), and by the end of the year I suffered from panic attacks. In addition, we lost Carlos, one of our remaining family cats, and Teh Kitteh's kidney problems worsened. Indeed, they're now so bad that she will die soon. So as you can see, 2012 was a shitty year all around.

Given this background, I doubly grateful for the good things that came my way:

• In May I attended the wonderful 1st LoveLetter Conference in Berlin.
• I returned once again to Freiburg for another academic conference.
• After years and years and years, I finally attended RWA National once again - and went to Disneyland as well! Whoohooo!!!
• After a long struggle, I finally got the rights to my three novels back. Yay! I plan to dip my toes into self-publishing and I hope I'll soon manage to get new editions of all three novels online - in addition to a brandnew novel. More about this soon!