On Writing (in Paris)

Elmore Leonard’s Ten Rules of Writing (as posted on the underside of the stairs in Shakespeare & Co.)

1. Never open a book with weather.
2. Avoid prologues.
3. Never use a verb other than “said” to carry dialogue.
4. Never use an adverb to modify the verb “said”…he admonished gravely.
5. Keep your exclamation points under control. You are allowed no more than two or three per 100,000 words of prose.
6. Never use the words “suddenly” or “all hell broke loose.”
7. Use regional dialect, patois, sparingly.
8. Avoid detailed descriptions of characters.
9. Don’t go into great detail describing places and things.
10. Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip.

“My most important rule is one that sums up the 10. If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.”

Elmore Leonard, screenwriter behind Get Shorty, was born in New Orleans.

Writing Advice from Raymond Chandler

 (as posted on the backside of the stairs in Shakespeare & Co.)

1. A writer who is afraid to overreach himself is as useless as a general who is afraid to be wrong.
2. Technique alone is never enough. You have to have passion. Technique alone is just an embroidered potholder. The moment a man begins to talk about technique that’s proof he is fresh out of ideas.
3. The most durable thing in writing is style, and style is the single most valuable investment a writer can make with his time. It [style] is a projection of personality and you have to have a personality before you can project it. It is the product of emotion and perception.
4. The challenge is to write about real things magically.
5. The more you reason the less you create.
6. Don’t ever write anything you don’t like yourself and if you do like it, don’t take anyone’s advice about changing it.
7. I am a writer, and there comes a time when that which I write has to belong to me, has to be written alone and in silence, with no one looking over my shoulder, no one telling me a better way to write it. It doesn’t have to be great writing, it doesn’t even have to be terribly good. It just has to be mine.

Shakespeare & Co.

Like many landmarks in Paris, legendary bookshop Shakespeare & Co. was on my list, but I had no idea how to find it.

A British girl moved into our hostel room on our last night’s stay. Excited as always to meet another native English speaker, we got fairly chatty. She asked Louise and I about the best landmarks to see – she “had visited Paris maybe three times, but I always end up walking around random streets and spending entire afternoons at Shakespeare and Company.”

She – Gemma, or some other distinctly British female name – told us the shop was by the Sacre Coeur, but perhaps she was spending too much time with her head in the books. The bookshop is a landmark of the Latin Quarter, which also houses the Cathedral Notre Dame de Paris. With the amazing Jeremie Huteau (more on him later) as our guide, we found it. 

It was love at first sight. The original shop’s location at on 8 rue Dupuytren served as a gathering place for such famous American literary ex-pats as Ernest Hemingway, Ezra Pound, James Joyce, Gertrude Stein, et al. Owned and operated by (Maryland native!) Sylvia Beach, the shop closed during the German occupation of Paris in 1940.

George Whitman opened a bookshop called “Le Mistral” at 37 rue de la Bucherie in 1951, renaming it “Shakespeare and Company” after Beach’s death in 1964. 

Meandering through the cramped foot space of Shakespeare & Co. inspired me to be a reader again. The Lost Generation has always fascinated me – for the romanticism of the World War, for the ballsiness of saying peace out to America for a foreign land, for the larger-than-life persona than Ernest Hemingway in particular cultivated.

One of my projects for 2014 is to read all of Hemingway’s works – Full Disclosure: I’ve never read any of his books. I spark notes-d “A Farewell to Arms” in high school and was never assigned him again. The closest I came was a Gay Talese magazine profile on the famous bull rider…

I bought “The Sun Also Rises” at the bookshop and since my return to the States, have finished that and just started “The Garden of Eden.” Now there’s a book I would have liked to discuss in a college classroom…

A Treat for the Cold and Weary Traveler

After exploring the D-Day landing beaches in Normandy, it was 6 p.m. and we had two hours to kill before our train back to Paris. The wind was rushing, rain was starting to fall again and of course it was dark already. I had fallen asleep on the bus ride back to the train station and was still feeling lethargic, content to go sit in the cafe with a couple beers. It was Louise’s idea to go wander back down the mountain into town and I’m glad we did.

Normandy refers to a northern region of France. We were in Bayeux, about two hours’ train ride from Paris. Bayeux is also famous for housing the worlds’ largest medieval tapestry, called – fittingly – the Bayeux Tapestry. Our original plan was to get to Bayeux early to check it out, but we were too busy being stupid Americans and missing the train. Oops.

The Normandy region is also famous for a number of locally produced delicacies.

Clockwise from the top left: Madeleines. Calvados liquor. Confiture – “Les Delices” or “The Delights.”

The store first struck my attention with the bottles of calvados in the window. Calvados is apple brandy; the liquor takes its name from the Calvados department in Lower Normandy. I prepped for my trip by listening to as many Rick Steves’ podcasts about France as I could find. One of my favorites was his suggestion of a sojourn through Normandy in a rented car, stopping along the way at the D-Day beaches and random farmhouses to partake in the sharecroppers’ personal stash of French moonshine.

Sounds romantic for someone who can drive a stick shift. If we had actually attempted that adventure, we’d probably be stuck harvesting apples for the next season’s calvados run to work off the rental car security deposit.

The saleswoman let us sample several different forms of calvados – there’s an aperitif (before dinner to stimulate the appetite), digestif (after dinner to aid digestion), creme de calvados (my favorite – tastes like dessert!) and various other forms of pre-mixed and stand-alone apple brandies. I bought a small bottle of what I believe can be ingested alone as an aperitif or mixed with cider – Sante!

They also had a ton of wine, champagne (all from the Champagne region of France), confitures and pates, caramels and more artisan treats.

It was Louise’s idea to get a bag of madeleines. In the U.S., I’ve seen madeleines as a crispy, light cookie. The ones we bought were akin to mini oblong pound cakes. Dense and fluffy with just a hint of butter, the madeleines were our breakfast and snack for the remainder of the trip.

I spent the longest time examining the different confitures – fruit preserves.

J’irai revoir ma Normandie (I will return to Normandy) is a blend of pomme (apple), cidre (cider) and caramel, what I’m guessing is a traditional regional mix.

Joyeux Anniversaire (Happy Birthday) is a blend of pomme (apple), framboise (raspberry) and chocolats (chocolate). I bought this one with the intention of mailing to my mother, who celebrated her birthday (51?!) on Dec. 29. Still have good intentions on that front, but probably need to get it out of the fridge before it gets broken into…. hi mom 🙂

“Une carafe d’eau, s’il vous plait.”

French restaurants give you tiny glasses (“carafes”) of tap water for free, you just have to know how to ask.

“Une carafe d’eau, s’il vous plait.”

Since I speak approximately negative four words of understandable French, I entrusted most navigating, ordering and hey-mistering to Louise. We thought these glass Vittel bottles were really adorable until we saw them again – later, on the check.

If I’m going to pay 5 euro for artisan water, I am damn well going to keep the glass bottle. It’s still stuffed in my luggage somewhere. Maybe I will start bringing it to work with me and tell people it’s what Parisians use to drink from the water fountains.

They don’t have water fountains in France.

Kinder no Bueno

How does America not have coffee vending machines? The tiny espresso shots are adorable.

I used to always furtively eat pop tarts on my way to work in D.C. I don’t think eating on the subway is a criminal offense in Paris because these vending machines are all over the terminals.

The foreign words and pretty wrapping had us drooling through the glass all week, but we finally tried some. The Lion bar was sort of stale but reminded me of a Snickers. The Daim bar tasted like a Heath bar. I bought a box of Kinder Buenos to share with my roommates. They remind me of Ferrero Rochers. Lion is British and the other two are Belgian.

They seemed more special when they were inside a vending machine.

In the beginning…

On Nov. 9, 2013, I bought my plane ticket. But let’s fast forward to Dec. 23.

I found a good deal on a flight that most people may find unsavory… A 7 a.m. arrival in Paris on Christmas Day after a 20 hour layover in D.C. The soul-crushing layover suited me just fine as my parents and two youngest sisters, Jeannie (15) and Gracie (13), live 20 minutes outside the district in Maryland.

My dad and Jeannie picked me up from the airport around 9 p.m., and whisked me home where I enjoyed my mom’s homemade Mac n cheese, my dad’s pork chops and the typical Gretschel Family Christmas Smorgasbord of baked goods. Apparantly my sisters aren’t scared of the kitchen anymore, as Jeannie kept trying to shove her Nutella cookies down my throat…

“yeah, they’re really…good…”

“Just eat the cookie!”

In the morning, we rose early for a Christmas Eve breakfast- sausage, eggs and cheese, pomegranates, chocolate pilfered early from our stockings (shh…) before opening a few presents.

One Direction was the theme of the morning as a surprise package for Gracie yielded a giant cardboard cutout of everyone’s favorite Irishman, Niall. We popped in the One Direction DVD but as quickly as I had arrived, it was already time to leave. With my Directioners thirst hardly slaked, it was time to fly to the land of Brie cheese and Booba.

On Waffles

Waffles are better in Europe. I’ve never been to “Waffle [Awful] House” but I’m going to assume at the very least that the people who work at the Texas chain are not gorgeous Belgian waffle models with perfect skin.

We took this photo at the Les Halles subway terminal, which is also an amazing mall and tres chic neighborhood. This was our last evening in Paris. Good call, Weezie.

We didn’t actually eat here, but took the photo in honor of the best waffle ever eaten (camera was dead, sad face). We spent a morning earlier in the week sampling things at the markets underneath the Eiffel Tower, called Trucadero Place, and one of our favorites was an apple cinnamon infused waffle doused in creme fraiche.

And the vendors were legit waffle models. Swear.

i am the christmas present

Jet lag still hurting my head and bruising up my sinuses – but I’m back stateside for better or worse. With a couple days of work under my belt, the whole trip is starting to feel like a dream. I’m tasking myself with the duty of recording everything before the stories and moments really do disappear from my memory like the wispy clouds from 30,000 feet up…

Europe has always felt like an unattainable dream. Distance runners don’t exactly have an “off season” to study abroad in university. So when my sister announced a year long Erasmus in Lyon, France, I figured this was my best excuse and opportunity to get over there. After three months sacrificing time, health, social life, mental stability.. I made it! “I am the Christmas present.”

Joie de Lyonnaise

Finally got Internet on my phone! Turns out blogging via Europe is harder than I thought. So is fueling my caffeine addiction- no venti size to-go cups of coffee anywhere. I did make Louise try expresso for the first time and watched her eyes pop out of her head. Above pictures are from our jog this morning through Parc de la Tete D’or in the 6th arrondissement of Lyon. Right now my laundry should be about done, going to finish up packing to head to Paris early tmrw morning then out to dinner for some of this world famous lyonnaise cuisine I keep hearing about. Au revoir!