Bonjour tout le monde!
It’s been one hell of a ride. The last eleven months: oh. my. word.
Living in two African countries and then in Paris, France? The memories could fill a thousand books, which brings me to my exciting news/old news (for those of you who know me well). I have decided to write a book about my travels. By decided, I really mean that I started writing it six months ago, am half-way done, and realized that it’s time to distance myself from blogging while I commit the next six months to finishing it, polishing it off, and embarking on the long journey of getting it published.
I know what you’re thinking: Kim’s writing a memoir? Let’s be clear. I hate the word memoir. It sounds so…self-important. Technically speaking, yes, I’m writing a memoir (definition: “an account of the author’s personal experience”), but this is the only time I will ever willingly use this word to describe anything I do.
Instead of memoir, I’m thinking more along the lines of my book as a love-child between Martin J. Troost and Elizabeth Gilbert, with Bill Bryson as the weird uncle; think lots of laugh out loud humor (clearly from the father), mixed with nice scenery, a tiny amount of romance, and a catchy title (think: Gilbert). Yeah. I know you feel it.
Basically, I want my readers (even if this just ends up being my dad, and the crazy guy who has taken to looking in my window at night) to laugh out loud from the start to the end of the book. This is exactly what I did when I read Troost’s ”Sex lives of cannibals.” The book should have come with a warning label for your abdominal muscles; his ridiculous banter was the only real work-out my pathetic stomach-region was forced to undertake during the whole calendar year of 2009. Great read, good inspiration, and I like to think the fact that we’re both half-european means I’ll be as good as writing as he is.
Writing a book has been simultaneously easier and harder than I thought it would be. It’s easier because there are days when I just brain dump the funniest moments of my trip, and boom…you’re looking at six rough-draft chapters. Sure, half of them will get erased, but 90% of the time when I re-read them, I’m laughing hysterically…and not at how bad my writing is. Basically, I have no problem writing a lot of pages of text.
The hard part about writing a book is finding time to do it. There’s never enough time. Not to mention, I’m not exactly getting paid to write about how a pregnant hooker tried to pick up my friend in an African nightclub or about the time I realized I was driving in a taxi where the fuel tank was really a used water bottle . No, for now, this is being driven by pure will-power, which I apparently have in excess.
So that’s the exciting news I’ve been dying to share! In other goings-on: The employees at Societe General bank are a bunch of wankers. I have over 1500 Euros in my account, and still cannot withdraw money from an ATM. After pondering this for several minutes with a bank employee, he simply shrugged his shoulders and offered, “Je suis desole,” as consolation. Clearly he had used all of his available brain power to help me out of my situation, and was able to come up with nothing. The quest for an answer continues tomorrow.
Also, I have decided that I love Pim’s biscuits, BBQ chips, and white wine. With their power combined, these items are the ying to my yang, the sprinkles to my cupcake, the sugar cube in my tea. I am so set in my ways that the nice man who owns the closest corner store had my regular order ready for me yesterday when I stopped by. If that’s not customer service, then I don’t know what is!
Finally, tonight I will be embarking on a climb up the Eiffel Tower. Yes it’s freezing and I think the “climb” is actually an elevator, but the fact remains: I shall be carried high above the ground where the twinkling lights of paris shall stretch out as far as the eye can see. On a side note, I am going with an attractive, musician ex-boyfriend. The last time I went on the Eiffel Tower, I was with my female best friend. Surrounded by the worlds most in-love people (or at least, by dozens of couples just yearning to copulate), it was a little awkward to say the least. This time,. I figure if I am going to visit the most romantic place on Earth, I should at least make an effort to go with a guy…it’s one step in the right direction.
So, that’s all that’s going on right now. I’ll keep you all posted about how life goes for me.
Over and out,
-Kim
