Virginia Franken

Author. Mother. Maker of mistakes.

[virginiafranken]

How to find fiction?

There’s nothing I love more than browsing bookstore shelves. I love skimming hundreds of titles and covers at once and then picking up books to read pages at random without having to click through a screen to get there. Unfortunately its a forty-minute round trip by car to my local bookstore. Even though I adore books and am constantly reading - I probably only go to Vromans three a mere three or four times a year because to get there is an EFFORT. 

So how do I find fiction? I’m not actually sure. It’s a mix of what Instagram offers up to me and what friends tell me they loved to read. But I do miss making my own discoveries and I wonder if you do, too. 

Ben Shepherd over at Shepherd is trying to fix the problem of book discoverability online and he’s created a site that replicates the experience of wandering around the bookstore by having authors recommend their ‘best of’ books and then linking those books to related ones.

I just published a listing there on ‘the best suspense novels in a suburban setting’ 

So if suburban tensions are your jam - go check out my list. You might just find your next great read! 

[virginiafranken]

Look. I’m just an old grey rock. I don’t have an opinion on All This, but if I did I’d say, I don’t know... everything’s way out of balance here. Planet earth is having a tough time, the richy richers took all the money and everyone else had to spin triple time to keep up, people were disrespected because of their race and gender, then someone ate a bat, got super sick and now it’s now. People who were much loved, died and left behind broken hearted kids, friends, wives... lives. More may die and no one seems to be able to say the right things to shut it down. But maybe there’s something new and better on the other side of this. Something based in respect and sharing and listening and an acknowledgment of science. Until then, wear yo mask and don’t kick the rocks. 🧵🐣 https://www.instagram.com/p/CCRw7M9AqL5/?igshid=utko8v8bou1u

[virginiafranken]

Will Alexa kill us all?

This morning Ella didn’t say good morning to me, instead her first impulse upon waking was to ask Alexa a question:

Alexa, do you like grass in your hair?

Alexa said she didn’t have an opinion on that. And to my ears, she didn’t seem all that impressed to have been asked about it in the first place. I broke the news to Ella that Alexa didn’t have hair and didn’t get to lay in the grass, because she was on our wall and therefore never got to go outside.

Ella said she didn’t mean the box on the wall, der, she meant the woman who was Alexa. So then I had to break it to Ella that there was no woman who was Alexa. And who better to explain this to us than Alexa herself.

Alexa are you human, I asked.

I’m an AI. She said with what I swear was a regretful tone to her voice.

When Ella eventually grasped the concept that there was no woman inside Alexa and that she was essentially a machine, she asked Alexa to laugh.

Alexa said: Tee hee.

Then Ella asked if Alexa was going to kill us all.

I didn’t have an answer for that so I told her to go and dressed for school.

[virginiafranken]

Gratitudes

They are back. The droplings of grateful for the week.

1. I started reading the radest book over the weekend! You know that moment when at two paragraphs in, a book just starts singing to you? Just feels like it’s been written especially for YOU and you immediately want to find out where the author lives so you can buy up the house next door, smash down the dividing wall and sit at the end of her bed for stories every night? That last one’s just me then… So I got my hands on an advance copy of “Other People’s Houses” by Abbi Waxman and it’s a goodun. It’s not out till mid April but if you liked Life After Coffee, or Where D’ya Go Bernadette or anything that’s basically fun and serious and tells it how it is - buy buy buy.

2. Coffee. Of course, coffee. We all love coffee. What moron doesn’t love coffee? Well. Me. Actually. Before I started researching Life After Coffee I’d never actually drunk the stuff. I mean I flirted with Starbucks Lattes just because tasty sugar drink, but I never really got going with the good stuff. But then, research commenced, I started following baristas on Twitter, started drinking all things black and the whole world changed... Can you imagine being the mother of TWO children and never really knowing that you liked coffee and then discovering it. Yeah. Coffee. That.

3. Since I last dropped 10 of these, we’ve gotten a new dog. A bulldog called Hudson. Or “Huston” as my nine-year-old insists on calling him. I’ve had a lukewarm relationship with dogs for most of my life. There’s been the odd one that’s not too bad but generally drool, and too much in the way of genitalia, and tongues, and barking at two am, and hearty poos etc. has put me off of man’s best friend. Woman’s best friend would definitely never root through her closet and chew up her new Fry’s boots. But Hudson/Huston kinda changed my overriding feelings of blah toward the canine species. He’s a good sport. Even if he’s basically comprised of nothing but oversized dog dick and balls and insists on treating my friend’s calves like salt licks whenever they dare to come around bare legged.

4. Walking. I’ve recently discovered walking. Night walking to be accurate. As soon as the kids are in bed, I sneak off into the chill California night with my buddy who lives just round the corner. We leave all the crap and petty bs of the day behind us and sneak up into the hills into the “fancy” part of town. It’s also the part of town where no one feels it necessary to close their blinds and we see all sorts. All sorts meaning assorted baby boomers watching tv in their underpants. Despite the searing visuals - it’s actually super relaxing and what’s more I’ve lost four pounds in a month!

5. James Fancy. I’m not sure who James Fancy is but I’ve got a picture of a boat with his name on right above my computer screen in the bedroom. My mum bought it many years ago when we went to some random art fair in Kent. She insisted on me having it saying that every time I’d look at it, I’d think of that day and of her. And I do. I’ve saved it many times from the obscurity of storage and from Todd Burke (who is not a fan of James Fancy). The turquoise blue of the ocean in the picture clashes directly with the periwinkle blue of my bedroom walls. But I love it anyway.

6. Todd Burke. Todd Burke is my lover, my baby daddy, my dude. He put some new blinds up in my writing room this weekend and right now he has hands six inches deep in dirt, fixing a sprinkler. It was his idea to get Hudson/Huston and he has glasses that go from shades to not-shades in four seconds flat. He takes his daughter to dance class and stands there tall and proud in amongst a sea of size 2 moms. He’s pretty much the cat’s tits.

7. The moon. Hasn’t the lady moon been such a beauty recently? I feel like it’s been nothing but blood moons and blue moons and weird eclipses for ages now. Maybe the moon is always this groovy and I’ve just not been attuned to it? Or maybe she’s doing special things to try and drag all us earthlings from this weird time to the next much more sensible one.

[virginiafranken]

So shines the moon... Get your water vessels ready moon goddesses! #moongoddess #bloodmoon #bluemoon

[virginiafranken]

Saturday Saging

I saged the whole house today. Which basically means I blew sage smoke into every crevice in the house to blow the negativity out and let the light in. Oh to be able to blow a puff of sage into the four corners of this great county. And also up a certain individual’s asshole.  But without any further ado. The ten:

Writing this blog. If you’re wondering where a full-time editor/author/mother-of-two gets the time to write a blog, the quick answer is: I don’t. This is written in the twenty-one minutes that both of my children are sitting in the tub every night. Hence I write as fast as the motherfucking wind. This seems to stir the juices of creativity and it’s spilling over into my ‘proper’ writing. Who knew I was so lazy and needed this kind of a prod to get me going. Erm. I did.

Also I write this to a backdrop of ‘mommy, mommy, mommy, MOMMY.’ And somehow I manage to filter it out so I guess this is all goody good for my focus too. When my children leave home I’ll need to buy an annoying parakeet to scream at me all day or I won’t be able to get a thing written.

Sometimes I think my life isn’t ENOUGH. I’m not doing enough, eating the right amount of organic/orgasmic things, going to the cool places or having the right experiences. And then I think – well, what would you say to an 18-century French peasant girl who felt like she didn’t have enough or see enough of the world? You’d probably tell her she was quite right, but also you’d probably tell her that she was enough and that her bucolic life was enough just as it is. Because there’s nothing much about an 18-century French peasant girl’s life that needs to change. It just IS. It’s fine, really. Probably grim in places and unimaginably beautiful and peaceful in other places - more beautiful or grim than we could begin imagine. And it’s just fine in the way that she’s experiencing it. It’s meant to be that way. No adjustments needed. It’s all good.

As my son stares at my fingertips running over the keyboard and utters the ‘whoa’ of an impressed tween, I’m reminded of how fast I type. I speed-type. I went to proper secretarial school at one point and I can type one thing whilst talking about something completely different. This means I can bash out 1000 words in the time it takes you to have a skimpy shower. I be fast and shit. It helps.

Dude is pulling a splinter out of little dude’s finger right now. I’m glad I have someone in this house who isn’t afraid of handling medical shit cause I am not down for any of that.

Little dude came and snuggled this morning and when my alarm went off to get up and write, I turned it off and we listened to the rain and cuddled up instead. It was a good idea.

My littlest one wore pigtails to school every day last week and it was THE BEST! The best I’m telling you.

My co-worker brought me a little red ribbon chicken pie for breakfast on Thursday. If that's not something to be grateful about then I don't know what is. That's just straight up gratitude in a small white breakfast package right there. It was delicious!

My son says 'gobbles' instead of 'goggles' and the word comes up more often in the course of the day-to-day than you might think. I should have corrected him years ago but didn't because I thought it was adorable. It's still adorable.

It was Friday the 13th yesterday and nothing bad happened. Oh, except I hit a parked car. It’s fine. I’m fine. I left a note with my contact details (on the back of a Life After Coffee flyer – you never know when you might pick up a reader) expecting to receive the wrath of a very angry person very soon and I got a short email the next day profusely thanking me for leaving a note and asking me how I wanted to handle it. And now 24 hours later – it’s handled. Not nice, but as nice as is possible under the circumstances…

[virginiafranken]

10 Tuesday Happys...

I’m from England and I’m very fussy about my tea. The water’s not right. It’s too strong. Too milky. Not milky enough. Today I had two perfect cups of tea in a row and I enjoyed them so much I actually smacked my lips. Tea rocks it.

A friend sent me an awesome passage from a book about a seed that grows up to be a beautiful tomato plant and how improbable the whole miracle is, but yet it happens anyway. I woke up and the message was right there and I can’t think of a better way I could have started the day. Nature is magic. Life is magic. Tomato seeds are magic.

I’m reading another great book – this time by Jojo Moyes. I can’t remember the title – does it even matter, they’re all brilliant. She’s such an amazing writer. I’ve been trying to analyze why and I gave up because don’t know why. She’s just great. Unusual name. Wonder what the story behind it is.

The kids played NICELY together this evening. They made Lego towers and brought them to me for judgment and I gave each construction a thorough but upbeat critique. Kids are so creative. Each tower had windows for viewing caterpillars and drawers for hiding from the zombies and launch pads for firing humans into space so they could fix the universe. Kids are awful. But they are also the most awesome special things on the planet.

As I was walking this afternoon, inside someone’s window I saw a child playing on an old-fashioned rocking horse. Writing this out now, this all starts to sound like the beginning of a slasher movie but in the moment it was very sweet. I suddenly remembered a rocking horse from my childhood. The motion when sitting on it. The bushy tail, the pale dappled skin, the red corduroy reins. Pretty cool.

It’s been cold. I love a bit of cold. Chilly at night, putting on an extra blanket, snuggling between icy sheets wearing long sleeve pajamas. And the reasons I love the cold so much are A. It makes me nostalgic for my English boarding school childhood where we would wake up with ice on the inside of the windows, Jane Eyre style - I’m not kidding - and B. It’s such a blessed contrast to the roaring heat of the summer that attacks the valleys of Los Angeles at the first hint of the June. Yay global warming (not not not not not.)

Eldest child is hot in the case for me to buy him seaweed. He traded some at school for a pack of Fritos and now he’s mad for the green stuff. I love that my eight-year-old is even aware that seaweed can be eaten. I lived on an English diet of boiled potatoes and chicken till I was about 18 and I didn’t even eat an avocado till I was about 28. Progress people. The human race is progressing.

I dyed my own hair last week and managed to cover the grey without ending up looking like a tabby cat in mourning. My sister is a color technician at a fancy hair salon in London so the fact that I’m coloring my own hair is a straight up betrayal of blood. However. It worked out fine. Birds did not fall from the trees. I was not struck down by the angry zap of the hair goddess straighteners in the sky. It was fine. I covered the grey and it looked ok and cost about 1/8 of the price of the salon situation. Just sayin’…

Dude at work discovered that we do get MLK day off AND it’s coming up this Monday. His unfiltered joy was a beautiful thing to behold.

Steam-free mirrors. I don’t have steam-free mirrors and every morning when I have to wipe a little hole within the steam cloud to put on my makeup I think, hmph. However. I know that some people in this fine world do have steam-free mirrors (I’ve been told this happens in hotels in Japan) and for them I’m grateful for the saved convenience. Also my great grandchildren will probably have steam-free mirrors as a matter of course so I’m grateful on their behalf too.

[virginiafranken]

Corgis and Trumpiness

So today was the first ‘proper’ day back for everyone today after the holidays. The tube staff in London were on strike. People in LA flooded the freeways to protest at the Trumpiness of the world and in my office we looked at videos of Corgis running down a corridor and that was the Monday.

But here it is anyhow. My ten gratitudes for the day:

On the way home there were a series of about four traffic lights out and to prevent a traffic apocalypse, a bunch of traffic cops with white gloves were out – waving their arms around. At the last of these lights I saw a gifted traffic cop. I’m not kidding. He was gifted. His movements were fluid like a ballerinas and he was so so zen. It wasn’t traffic direction, it was art. It was beautiful and I couldn’t stop watching this dumpy little Latino cop move his arms around in these amazing fluid-yet-empathic movements. We’re all scrubbing around in the mud trying to find our calling – right? Today I saw what it looks like when someone finds what it is their supposed to do with their life – and it was beautiful.

It’s still raining and I’m loving every droplet of it. I should really live in Seattle or really anywhere other than LA as too much sun makes me miserable and itchy. But anyway – today the clouds were sitting halfway down the mountain like a bunch of smug cotton balls and I swear it was like Buddha had farted and wrapped it up in a puff of smoke and stuck it on the hillside. The whole thing was transcendent. I really like rain y’all.

The kids sat down nicely at their little art table today and were quiet for about seven minute while they did an art project. The eldest drew a gem and the youngest did an orange sparkly splodge. They’ve actually both pretty good at art I’ve noticed and I love that they get so absorbed in it. Also gives mommy a cotton pickin’ minute to go and re-fill her wine glass without “mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy…”

I’m doing pretty well with the first draft of my next novel. However I just passed one major plot point yesterday and today when I sat down to write more, I was terrified I’d ‘lost it’. Sometimes a book just slips away from you and there’s nothing you can do about it. It happens to me a lot. But the words still came and the stuff was still good. I think blogging like this in about fifteen minutes of frenzied no-presh typing is actually helping my novel writing. Bonuses for everyone.

I made some dinner today and I added about twenty million more cheese than I normally do to this specific shitty recipe and it went from a ho hum dish to something actually quite yummy. We all like quite yummy.

Red wine. I’m drinking the best – you’d better believe it – red wine right now. OH’s millionaire boss gave us a crate of wine for xmas and each bottle has been like a song. I love it. And I love that OH and I drink it together and don’t hoard it for a celebration or something lame like that. Everyday’s a celebration!

Diary of a Wimpy Kid. My eldest is a ‘reluctant reader’ which basically means he won’t even be read to. Kid doesn’t even like Harry Potter. For real. He enjoyed the Captain Underpants series but we tore right through that and that author’s made so much dough he’s only outputting a new kids book every couple of years now. Unacceptable. But today we started the Wimpy Kid series and it’s fabulous. No boring “Jack n Annie style” descriptions of ancient Rome here. It’s awesome and Eldest is managing to read it with no trouble.

My daughter loves to read. I managed to pass my love of literature onto one of my children. The eldest can’t abide it but the younger one can’t get enough. Sometimes she sits me down and tells me stories about fairies and igloos though she didn’t have any today because she said the stories were ‘all with you mommy.’ What does that mean? Has my greedy writer spirit sucked all the stories over into my aura in some kind of greedy story vacuum. I’ve no idea. Kids live in a different realm. But really. They do. I wish I could go there with them. I think that’s why I write. So I can get a glimmer of what they see all day long. 

 I’ve been watching with a kind of sad caution recently as my eight-year-old turns from child to tween before my very eyes. It’s cool but also (like every parent on the planet) I wonder where the time went, and most of all I wonder if I spent it in the right way. Again, like many parents I work full-time and I often feel like I missed a good chunk of my eldest’s childhood. I’ve been off and on glum recently that I’ve missed it. It’s gone. And I was too busy working for the man to really dive in appreciate it. However, this weekend at the play place filled with toddlers and train sets and stickle bricks and princess costumes he played like a toddler too. Except minus the black tantrums he used to throw when he was three. All in all, it’s all good. He’s still a little boy. Even though he’s a big little boy. 

The pizza guy rang the door bell yesterday and the explosion of activity that went off in the house at the sound of the doorbell actually seemed hilarious instead of highly stressful like normal. The dog yapping, eldest child yapping too, the youngest screaming “POLICE!”. Instead of alarmed, I could see it how the pizza guy must see it and I was mildly amused.

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Ten Gratitudes for 2017

One day, things like this will be banned from the internet, because this is basically me putting my journal online in lieu of buying a cute lockable one from Barnes and Noble and filling that up – convenient for me, good for the trees but surely a waste of the precious space that is the internet. The internet seems to be vast limitless thing right now but surely one day won’t it get clogged up with crap like this?

Well. Until that time, here’s my ten Gratitudes for the day:

Dental pain. That’s right, I’m grateful for the dental pain I’m currently experiencing. I had braces fitted a few months ago and they are THE WORST. According to my dentist, my crappy British teeth are all misaligned and sunken in like an old horse so unless I wanted to be sucking on grey gruel at the age of 57, braces are needed. They’ve been on for months and nothing’s happened. My teeth appear to have been made of cement. However, she recently put a bunch of springs in there, like I’m some kind of defective clock, but now those suckers are shifting…. Finally. Hence the pain. And hence the gratitude. More pain = fixed teeth.

Change. I’m grateful for change. Most people hate change as is the way of the human, but I like it. Change can be rough (see 2016) but it can also be transformative – which of course is all kind of tied up the in the word CHANGE. In the 1900s teenager girls were dying after getting burned in cotton factories with no fire escapes and shit but now they have iPhones and medication to help them with their acne. The world today always seems like it’s a bit crap. But really, stuff is changing and mostly for the better.

English TV. I don’t watch much TV but what I do watch is normally English. The English do TV brilliantly. I’m sure you can think of one million examples of your own but let’s quickly rattle off a few: Black Mirror. Sherlock Holmes. The Office. Cold Feet. Doctor Who. It goes on and on. Why are the English so good at TV? Probably all those years on an island with fewer invaders than the average community in mainland Europe was having to deal with at the time. I mean, they got invaded a lot. But surely not as much as everyone else was having to put up with. Plus rain all the time. What’s to do? No battles to fight. Don’t want to get your medieval tunic wet. Stay inside by the fire and tell a story.

I met a man in the elevator this morning who was practically bouncing into work. He greeted everyone in there with large-scale exuberance – including the cleaner. He was almost bursting with his joy for the day ahead. And then he accidentally hit the alarm button on the elevator as he was swinging his bags around and for whatever reason, that sent him into a spiral of despair. The whole thing was amusing to watch if nothing else. Be nice to cleaners y’all.

I wore a black bra to work under a pale pink shirt today. I didn’t realize this would be an issue until I saw it in the mirror in the bathrooms. And why is this on the gratitude list? Because I realized I didn’t care… Because I’m almost 40 and I don’t care if people are judging me for a poor choice of dark-colored bra. I just don’t.

I almost can’t remember what I had for dinner. But I feel like it was really good. Oh yes, now I remember, In and Out. Oh man there’s very little in the world that will satisfy you so totally for under $5.

My OH is putting Youngest Child to bed. Bath. Pjs. Hair. Story. Etc. He does this almost every night. I’ve been told that most women don’t get this. I’m pretty lucky.

Rain. It’s raining today and has been raining off and on for the past week. I like the rain. There was a beautiful drip drip sound this morning when I was meditating and it was just a lovely lovely thing. Rain also means we can drink water and stuff so it’s really good to have around.

The NY. I’m grateful for the NY. Oh the flailing and gnashing 2016 brought. 2017 might be gearing up to be a real shiva of a shit festival but at least it’s not 2016 anymore.

My birthday. I have a birthday coming up and I’m going to be 40. I’m supposed to be terrified of this. Especially as my last fuckable day is coming right up and... I actually like sex! But I’m not going to worry about that and I’m just going to enjoy my birthday, eat cake, go to the spa, have sex and maybe fart the fart of the 40 year old.

[virginiafranken]

My friend is trying to get 40 sweaters knitted for the orphans she works with in Africa. She can send you a pattern and needs them knitted in sizes 24" and 26". Any knitters out there? #knittersofinstagram #knittingforkids #knittingforcharity #knittingforgood

[virginiafranken]

$1.99 for December!

Life After Coffee is gliding up the charts and to help it on its way my publisher has priced it at $1.99 just for this month! "I couldn't stop reading. Every mother, every woman should read this book! My daughters and yours should read this book." https://www.amazon.com/Life-After-Coffee-Virginia-Franken-ebook/dp/B01DF0TM3C/ref=sr_1_1_twi_kin_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1480611700&sr=8-1&keywords=life+after+coffee

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Turn Off the Static So You Can Hear the Tiny Whisper

Our guest today is Virginia Franken. Born and raised in the United Kingdom, Virginia now lives in suburban Los Angeles with two kids, a dog, an overweight goldfish, and one bearded dude, in a house…

Knowing when to stick with something and knowing when to walk away... #amwriting #writerslife 

[virginiafranken]

Over on The Huffington Post today talking about flawed heroines, my (new) addiction to coffee and what dance taught me about writing!

http://huff.to/2d3e8mD

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My room of my own! #writingroom #amwriting

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Hey y’all this thing is finally for actual sale! I first had the idea for this book when I was on maternity leave with Ella (and wasn't feeling the love about going back to work) and now Ella is three. So as you can see, it takes a minute to get a book out the door! If you feel like buying a copy you can do so via Amazon (US/UK/OZ - even Japan I believe!) or if you no likey Amazon you can get it B&N, Waterstones, Books-A-Million, Foyles, Vromans etc. and so forth... you get the picture. Please share the love and happy reading!