Let’s Start At The Very Beginning ~ @oddlynn3 #rndrobn0921

Welcome to our monthly Round Robin with the Night Writers gang. Follow the trail this month and you’ll see us all talking about new beginnings. Sometimes they’re fantastic, sometimes they’re so-so and sometimes they are downright disastrous. Follow the link at the bottom to go to the next author and see their take on new beginnings.

The Sound of Music has always been one of my favorite movies of all times and the Do-Ra-Mi songs the best ever. See when I was in 3^rd grade I was So, a needle pulling thread. I can remember the day, my favorite dress and the song I loved so much. I don’t remember much about the performance but I do remember I was happy it was all over.

So moving to Austria in May 2011 was a new beginning to an old song. True, I live in Vienna, which is a long way from Salzburg but I was in the same country where one of my favorite movies actually took place. Now I didn’t know when I would be able to see any of these things but imagine my surprise when my in-laws came to town and wanted to do a tour of the country including Salzburg. What was even more exciting for me, I got to walk the steps where the song actually was filmed, Mirabella Gardens. I really wanted to do the Sound of Music tour but they wouldn’t’ let us take pup Harry, so that’s left for another time. Here are a couple of things that we saw.

The story of Sound of Music is all about new beginnings for a family who didn’t believe in their country's decisions any more. Now that wasn’t my case. I do believe in the US and all it stands for but I also know that goodwill needs to be spread across the globe. So when my husband got the choice to move here, in many ways it was a no-brainer.  While here, I’ve interfaced with people from many nations. I live in a building with three embassies, Albania, Dominican Republic and Paraguay. Also in the same building are the OSCE  residences of Finland, Ireland and Spain. Up the street is the Turkish embassy and down the street is the huge embassy of France.

Sure, I didn’t, and still don’t, like the fact that I’m far away from my family but this time has provided many new beginnings in the form of my writing. Since my time here, I’ve been able to consolidate my social media and get totally on track with it. I’ve also started a whopping 13 books, finished 3, reworked some older ones and have been with a new critique group.

New beginnings can come in many forms and none have to be as drastic as what the von Trapps and I’ve done. One doesn’t have to move far away to get a new beginning. Every time we read a book, it has to start at the beginning. Every time we, as writers, write a book, it has to start at the beginning. And every time we start a new character that character has got to start somewhere be it a murder scene, something totally unexpected or just a normal but different day.

Beginnings abound every day. We as writers just need to embrace those new beginnings and use them to our best advantage. What about you? How do you embrace new beginnings?

Now let’s keep this round robin going. Please go to Connie Vines blog and see what she has to say about the subject of new beginnings.

Thanks and see you all next time!

Lynn

Living The Fairy Tale

            When I was a young girl, I wanted to live in a castle in some far away land. Now that I’m older I find myself living across the street from a castle in a one-hundred and fifty year old building complete with ghosts and so very, very far away from home. To be honest, I never thought I’d say I miss the desert but I do: I miss my children even if they are dependent upon me far past the time they should be, I miss my animals who couldn’t come to live with us in our far away adventure, and I miss seeing my grandchildren grow up.

            In May of this year as you all know, we said goodbye to our house and family and everything I have ever known to run away from home, moving to Vienna, Austria. Needless to say, I wasn’t happy about what was happening but I understood it. I understood that it was a fantastic opportunity to live somewhere and visit all those places I only thought about when I was a kid. I knew it would be great for my husband’s career. But knowing and understanding didn’t matter to my heart in the beginning and now with my first Christmas in my new foreign home fast approaching I can say this is still the case.

            First I would say to those who envy me, be careful what you wish for but that would be a lie because it’s all a matter of perspective. When we are young, everything looks cool because it’s different than what we have or where we are. When we’re older, we look at things differently like what’s the economic impact it might have on our lives. My thought process was ‘how can this make my writing better’ and a million other things concerned with writing. Then as in now, I am trying to focus on the positive though some days it is very, very hard. So let’s look at some of the basic reasons a move like this could make a writer better:

            1) A look at different cultures – Living in a place that isn’t where you grew up may be uncomfortable at first but it will also make you realize that the world is a big, big place. Here people watching takes on a whole new meaning as one can see things here they will never see at home...like a big bike race on the main street with over three hundred bikes...or a political rally on the very street you live on. In any given day, I will see people from Indian, the US, Turkey, Greece, Ireland, Paraguay, and the Dominican Republic to name a few...those are just the ones who live in the same building as I do...imagine what’s outside those doors.

            2) Broaden one’s horizons – Living in a foreign country means I have to learn a different language to communicate to those around me. It means I have to understand a socialist system because that’s where I’m at right now. I also have to realize the way things are done where I come from aren’t the way things are done here. I also have to learn a public transit system, why Vienna is divided into districts and why people here don’t seem to change very much. This can be translated into some very interesting things for my stories.

            3) Teach my native language – I have been asked by several people if I would be interested in teaching English to upper level students. Boy, if this won’t make you hone your skills in writing, I don’t know what will. I really find it interesting that they want me to teach American slang as opposed to learning the Queen’s English. In order to teach here, I need to get permission to work and that will be a whole other adventure to address on another day.

            4) Make new friends – Now this has been the most difficult for me as writers are pretty reclusive and I tend to be that way myself. Matter of fact, as you all know I was so lonely I got me a puppy and in the process gained a whole new group of friends who own the same type of dog. People over here can relate to those with dogs better than those without or even those with kids. This is making me put myself out there and in some ways I cringe and in others I excel.

            5) The place oozes history – This place has an incredible history. Like I’ve said many times before, I live across the street from the Palace Belvedere and the Palace Schwartenberg. Belevedere was once a summer home for the Habsburgs and in particular Prince Eugene. I’m still trying to understand where Palace Schwartzenberg figures into all of this but I do know there’s a house on the grounds for rent. We’re actually thinking about checking it out. Now the street I live on is named after after Prince Eugene and called Prince Eugen Strasse. That’s just the start of everything: there’s the Hofburg, Schonnbrunn, Carnuntum which is a Roman ruin, Stephensplatz, Karlsplatz and churches like you wouldn’t believe. Early man lived here as did the Celts. Just reading Wikipedia to get the overview can be overwhelming...but...think of the opportunity for historicals, for contemporaries or for anything a writer can think up. Here’s a few more pictures to show you what I mean.

            While this is the view out my office window, I should make note that not only do  I see the guard quarters for Belvedere as well as part of the grounds, but history. If I look a little harder, I’m sure I can see the Emperors and Empresses of a day gone by, of kings and queens and their children.



             Here’s some pictures of Carnuntum, the Roman ruins.







            And finally, one of my favorite places to see, Schonnbrunn.





            There’s the museums.






            These pictures don’t even begin to do the place justice. I’m going to be putting in things from my travels to other places as well. Like Italy. If we can get it all together, we’ll be trying to go to Italy between Christmas and New Year’s. We’ve already visited Bad Ischl and Salzburg, some of which you’ve already seen in the birthday weekend post. And I promise to bring you more and more of the historical perspective on living in Vienna, Austria.

            Yes, this place has plenty for a writer to learn, plenty for me to figure out and understand. Even though the perspective has changed a lot from when I was younger, living the fairy tale can and does have its own perks.

            See you all next time!

     Lynn

The New Addition

Yeah, there are a few more blogs to post from the old ones but I wanted to get this one up so you’d understand just why I haven’t posted for a whole week.

A few weeks ago, my dear husband had made a comment that he would be traveling off and on for his job in the upcoming months. The days without him stretched ahead of me and he wasn’t even gone! Getting into the society here is not easy because most of the people I met have nothing in common with me nor do many of us live in the same district, so visiting can be hard.

While we were coming home on the tram one day, I happened to see lots of people staring in the direction of a young woman. On her lap, she had the sweetest little puppy I had ever seen. I knew it was some sort of Jack Russell Terrier. I made the comment to Gordon on how cute the dog was and that I missed mine. Our dog, Jasper, can’t be crate trained as it terrifies him and according to the vet, it probably will be detrimental to his health therefore he won’t be joining us as planned. This left me in a quandary as I was planning on him being my companion when my DH was gone. So seeing the puppy had really, really tugged on my heartstrings.

When we go home, I started to do some research to see what type of small dogs I might like to get because I didn’t want to get a dog so large that I couldn’t have it as carryon luggage. This caused quite a few days of me and the DH going back and forth because he felt a dog would limit us. Then I wondered why he even agreed to bring the dog in the first place. The more I thought about it, the angrier I got as he’d told me when I first discovered we were truly going to move, he wanted to bring all the animals.

But I did what I always do when he’s being unreasonable: I ignored him and continued my research. After many days, I found a group in Vienna that not only told me about Jack Russell Terriers but another breed called Parson Russell Terriers. The dogs were fairly small and could actually be carried on a plane. This made me leap for joy and I went to my husband with my findings. It took me a couple of days to convince him just how lonely I was here without family and friends. He finally came to grips with the fact that the people he knows here, he’s known for almost fifteen years or at least some of him he has. He’s got a good support base here for himself but because I had never come here with him, I am far, far behind the curve.

Now that doesn’t mean I won’t catch up, I probably will but until then I’ll be a pretty miserable person and alone every time he travels. It finally dawned on him just what I was talking about and he got it.

Last Sunday, we went to a town near Salzburg to look at a puppy. Not just any puppy but one named Harry Potter. After spending an hour with the pup, my husband was as enthralled as I was. Yes, this is a puppy and it will take six months to a year to get him to be everything we want but I’m betting it will be much sooner than that. The pup is box trained, similar to a cat but not quite, which makes it very nice on rainy days and the fact we’re in a flat. No mad dash to the grass for us while he’s little. Just point him in the direction of my office and the majority of the time, he’s perfect.

But the best thing about this little dog is the fact that he brightens our day and makes it a little easier to be so far away from home and everyone and everything I love. I’d like to present you all with the newest family member, Harry Potter. You’ll be hearing lots about him in the coming months as he’ll be teaching me all about Vienna and how they handle hounds. To give you a little overview of how things are first, dogs are allowed on all forms of public transportation though a muzzle is required. They are allowed in all restaurants, most parks and hotels. We don’t know about the licensing yet but have already found a vet. Another cool thing is that I’ve made more new friends in the last few weeks than I’ve made in all the time I’ve been here. This is one special dog!

Lynn

The Birthday Weekend

Yes, this one is written today but I’ve still got a few more to catch up. And this might be the last for a few days as it is the husband’s birthday weekend and we’ve already started celebrating. 

I’ll be post more on the whole trip later but wanted to leave these impression for you. First, we decided to go to Salzburg on Saturday, October 1 as we’d not taken a train trip nor been away from the city. So, off we go. When we get there, we realize the error of our ways as it is in no way like Vienna. There isn’t a hop-on-hop-off version of a tour bus, so we felt out of place immediately.

What we ended up doing was our own walking tour. Here you’ll see a few of our photos that we took and believe me there are a lot more. You’ll see the castle high on the hill, the inside of a church and a monastery  that is built right into the hill. I’ll give all the details later when I do the research but right now, I’m off to catch another train to a place called Bad Ischl. Bad means bath and this is somewhere the Romans were.

This is going to be fun! Hope everyone had a great weekend like I did!

Lynn