I’ve had a lot of Carrie Bradshaw moments over the last few years: walking away from the wrong man at the right time, falling for the wrong man at the right time and an amazing rescue by my Café Girls when I returned home from a disastrous foreign love affair – on Valentine’s Day with nothing but the clothes in my suitcase. They were there with food, shelter and friendship. What more could a girl ask for?
Carrie and I have the great good fortune to live in magical cities that we love – she in New York, me in Montreal. Writing is our shared passion. Carrie writes a column and I write regular posts on a variety of topics including sex in a few cities, travel, relationships, careers and cultural commentary for this blog which has steadily grown in readership over the last year.
And now I too have my own book, Any Color but Beige: Living Life in Color. In season five, Carrie agonizes over her image on the book’s front cover appropriately titled Sex and the City. It was all about what she should wear, how she should dress. For me it was about the shoes, and the challenge of securing permission to use the beautiful red soled Christian Louboutin shoes on my cover. We both succeeded in creating memorable book covers.
We each attended our respective book launches solo – but in my case, one was the luckiest number and not the loneliest number. While an eleventh hour rescue by Jack Burger gives her the plus one she’s been looking for. Stuff like that only happens in TV.
We’re both lucky to have loyal readers who support our efforts and show up at launches and public readings. Last week, I gave my first public reading at a The Munich Readery which is run by Lisa Yarger and her husband John. It was an especially fitting place for my first reading because I had read a few chapters of the then untitled and unfinished manuscript to some of the same people the year before.
An intimate group of friends and fans of the book and the blog attended. This official first reading ranked right up there with my book launch and my recent Girls’ Nights In cocktails moments pressed into the scrapbook of my memory.
Lisa did a thorough job publicizing the event through the store’s e-mailing list and the local English speaking online publications. She laid out a colorful counter of fancy cheeses, figs, beautiful German breads and jam and a variety wines. It’s times like this I like to step back and take in the scene as an observer of my own life. Sometimes I just have to pinch myself just to make sure I’m not dreaming. Friends and family have been enjoying the process as much as I have it seems.
Tucked in between floor to ceiling bookshelves (I thought I’d died and gone to heaven), I sat in an oversized chair surrounded by my own books, amidst the small group who listened attentively to two selections that Lisa had selected “Destination Paris” and “Chapter 12: Unfinished Business.”
I read Any Color but Beige aloud dozens of times during the proofreading process but this was the first time I “played” all of the people in each of the chapters. I had fun taking on different roles changing my voice, my accents and my tone to reflect the individuals in question. As I looked from face to face, I could see my audience as lost in my story as I was, laughing at the funny bits and growing quiet in the sad ones.
Moments like these made me feel like Carrie Bradshaw, with one huge difference for which I will always be grateful: all of my memorable moments are real.
Photo: © iStockphoto.com/digitalskillet
How exciting! Does this mean we might be able to buy audio versions of Any Color But Beige? The only thing that could top that would be….a movie!
I’m working both!! It’s my next project for 2012.
Oh yeah!
As I read the book, I picture it as a movie.
We’d film part of it in Cleveland of course! Hope all is well with you and that you received the bookmarks.
How wonderful. What courage it would take for me to do that–and you probably just… did it. I wish I’d been there.
It was a small group and I was among friends so that made it easy. The other part is that I was reading and not talking about the book, which I find much tougher (talking about the book) because you have to be quick on your feet. There are so many facets to it. I’m always afraid I’m going to sound like an idiot.
I think that being engrossed in your story, especially if it’s a Thriller, helps – you forget where you are. And it’s good practise for your audio book
🙂
Hello Cat
Its Emma from the reading at the Readery here in Munich. I have finished reading the book and I am now writing a small review for myblog. Thank you for your words of encouragement that night. I really appreciate them and for your help
Thanks again
Emma Ross
Emma! It’s really great to hear from you. I hope all is well in Munich. I’m happy if I can help. Thanks too for the review, I will be sure and look for it. I’ll drop you a note the next time I’m in the area and maybe we can catch up over coffee. Cat