My 12 Days of Christmas Countdown: Twelfth Day

…And I’m back! We are finally at the very last post of my 12 Days of Christmas Countdown series, where we take a look at 2010 and make lists on all the highlights (and lowlights) of pop culture; from TV, movies to celebrity style. Now it’s 2011, time for us to plan ahead and make resolutions, goals, targets that we hope to achieve by the end of it. I don’t know what your resolutions are, but to start things off right in the new year, I thought I’d share My Top 10 New Year Resolutions with you. I’m probably not going to actually achieve all ten, but let’s just hope that at least one or two can be crossed off the list before 2012.

Thanks for sticking with me for the whole twelve days of countdown. I’ll be taking some time off to write another book, so I probably won’t be blogging too often, but I’ll be sure to check in every now and then. Plus, the award season is starting, you know I’ll be around for that. 🙂 Now without further delay:

My Top 10 New Year Resolutions:

1/ Write Another Book.

Ever since I decided to be a novelist, I have made a promise to myself to write one book a year. It sounds a little ambitious, I know, but for me it’s a good exercise to keep me writing. If I take too long to finish writing a novel, I usually don’t end up finishing it at all. Not all are going to be good, but if I don’t keep writing, “writing a masterpiece” will be just one of those things I’d say I do but never achieve. I’m not Proust, I can’t take 20 years to labor over one masterpiece. I don’t have the patience and let’s face it, Proust didn’t have the internet at his fingertips back then. In this attention-deficit era, the only way any author can stay productive is just to suck it up, get behind their laptop and write. And that’s what I’m going to do, first and foremost, this year: write, write, and write.

2/ Get An Education.

I don’t really have any major regrets in my life, because I believe that even the mistakes I’ve made have been valuable in helping me grow and mature as a person. But sometimes, I do wish that I had paid more attention to my education when I was younger. I didn’t know what I wanted to do or be when I was in High School so college was a blur for me. Now that I’m older and somewhat wiser, I kinda want a do-over. I’m not going back to school but I’m going to take online classes from Harvard University to catch up on all the things I wish I had learned in college. I won’t get a prestigious degree from the University, but who cares? I don’t need it to get a job and I don’t need it for status. I just really want to properly learn something for once, and increase my knowledge on various subjects while I’m at it.

3/ Eat Less Crap.

Or just eat less in general. 🙂 I used to be super skinny, back when I was younger and way crazier, but now that I’m somewhat sane and happy, I’ve gained a bit of weight. I’m still in my ideal weight so I’m not looking to lose weight or obsess about losing weight, I just want to eat less crap so I’ll be healthier this year. The thing is, I’m a very picky eater so it’s not like I eat everything I can get my hands on, it’s just the foods I actually like are not always good for me. I could do with eating less pork, dim sum and various kinds of noodles, for example. You know, starting tomorrow.

4/ Be More Patient.

I am a very, very impatient person. It doesn’t help that I do everything really fast. I can’t stand waiting, I don’t suffer fools gladly, and traffic jams drive me nuts. Which is a problem because I currently live in a city infamous for its insane traffic jams, and the general tardiness of its inhabitants. No one can show up on time in this city, while I’m always chronically early. So I’m always in a bad mood every time I have to go out and meet people, and when I’m in a bad mood, I scare everyone away. So far, my only solution is to be a hermit and avoid people but apparently that’s not so healthy. I guess the only thing I can do is to be more patient and not apply the same standard that I’ve been using on myself on other people. Though I still won’t suffer fools gladly, no way.

5/ Stop Trying To Control Everything (And Everyone).

By now you’re probably guessing that I’m some Type A, neurotic control freak, and you’d probably be right. Another reason why I prefer to be a hermit is that I am in an environment I can control. I hate not being in control. Being Bipolar means that there were days, months and even years when I couldn’t control my moods and I’d go from mania to depression in a matter of seconds, and it kinda sucks. So now that I’ve got that under control, I am starting to love being in control a little too much. 🙂 But that kinda makes me insufferable sometimes, for good reason, so I should learn to let some things flow and not try to control everything. I think.

6/ Stop Being Emotionally Attached To Fictional Relationships.

One thing that reminds the character Abed in Community of myself is the fact that he tends to be more obsessed with his pop culture life than real life. I’m kinda the same way. I think I invest more of myself in fictional relationships of my favorite TV shows than in my real-life relationships. And then the writers do the unimaginable thing, ruin my favorite couple, as in the case of Barney and Robin in How I Met Your Mother or Chuck and Blair in Gossip Girl. Realizing it’s ridiculous to mourn over the unraveling of fictional couples, I decided the best thing to do is to not be emotionally attached to these fictional relationships, and maybe invest more in my real-life ones.

7/ Complain Less.

Okay, I just realized that all these resolutions are making me sound like a Type A, neurotic, slightly deranged, and unpleasant control freak, in other words, a total bitch. 🙂 But I just can’t help myself sometimes. There are so many things that I find wrong about this world that I just can’t stop myself from complaining. However, I’ve come to the conclusion that no amount of complaining can actually “change the world” or whatever, so I best be reserving a spot to the haven known as “shut it”.

8/ Socialize With Real, Live, 3-D People More. Okay, Once A Month.

I know by now you are certain I’m no social butterfly. In fact, I suspect you think I’m one of those weird, geeky people who don’t really have a social life and am only comfortable with people when there are computers and internet involved. Your suspicions are not that unfounded. I am a hermit, and even though I’m not a creepy geek lurking around the net, I still feel more comfortable socializing online than in person. It’s not like I subscribe to online dating sites and regularly chats with creepy perverts or anything (ew!), but I’m nicer and friendlier online because I express myself better through writing than verbally. However, I know it’s important to have real, live, 3-D friends and to maintain some sort of relationship with them, so this year I vow to socialize more with what little friends I have offline. Well, maybe once a month. Or maybe once every two months.

9/ Wear More Colors.

I LOVE fashion. I love getting dressed up and looking good. I pay attention to style and I make sure I look fabulous every time I go out. But even though I know I have style, Nina Garcia or Anna Wintour probably won’t be so impressed by me. Hell, Joan Rivers would probably call me “boring, boring, boring” thanks to the fact that 3/4 of my wardrobe is filled with black, white and gray items. I’m the monochromatic queen, and the irony is I live in the tropics so by all accounts I should be bursting in vibrant colors all year long. But for some reason, I keep buying and wearing black, white and gray items. I know, they’re timeless and chic but they’re also quite predictable. So this year I will try my best to wear more colors, starting with this pair of fuchsia jelly oxfords from Alexandre Herchcovitch for Mellisa Shoes. Aren’t they just darling?

10/ Be Less Cynical.

Oscar Wilde once wrote, “A cynic is a man who knows the price of everything, but the value of nothing.” And I think it’s the right, and best, description of a cynic. I’m quite a cynic, which is weird because my mom, who is my best friend, is an eternal optimist. You’d think I’d inherit some of those optimistic genes, but no. I have to be the woman “who knows the price of everything but the value of nothing”. I’ve been a cynic all my life though, so it’s not like I can change overnight, but I am going to give positive thinking a try this year. Have a little faith and all that. Who knows, maybe it’d do me some good. Though it probably will bite me in the ass. 🙂

Well, that’s my Top 10 New Year Resolutions. Nothing grand or too major there, but if I can at least achieve one or two of them, it’d make for a fabulous 2011. And with that, I conclude “My 12 Days Of Christmas Countdowns” series. Thanks for sticking with me for the whole twelve days, it’s been fun.

Now I bid you adieu, see you at the Golden Globes!

xoxo

Binky Bee

Sara Beth and The Magic Nails: The Characters Part III

I’m still writing my new novel “Sara Beth and The Magic Nails” and now I’m going to continue sharing my process with you.

You’ve met four characters so far: best friends Cassandra “Casey” Goldstein and Evan Jones, quirky Torrence Adler and activist Elizabeth “Liza” Hoffman. Now it’s time to meet two other main characters: Irina Zelyaeva and the title character: Sara Beth Blank. Who are these two women?

Irina Zelyaeva was a former model in her twenties, and now in her late thirties, she still retains the stick-thin body and the beautiful face – now with dark circles under her eyes from years of sleep deprivation and faded lines around her full mouth. Irina Zelyaeva had lived in New York since she was discovered by a modeling agency at the young age of 15, and subsequently left her native Russia for a chance in the big city.

The Inspiration For The Character Irina Zelyaeva

Irina was one of those models that fell into the stereotype of growing up way too fast; she was familiar with alcohol way before it was legal for her to drink and had learned to snort coke when she was just 17. She quit the modeling world 10 years after her first big break, because in the modeling world, 25 is considered the age of retirement and she didn’t want to outstay her welcome.

Now she’s 39 and she’s pretty much tired with life. She lost her virginity at 15 with the first man she fell in love with, a much older man, then 34-year-old Costas Pappadakis, a Greek shipping heir who was in New York with a diplomatic passport and a taste for young, impressionable models. To her, Costas was the perfect lover; he was beautiful with a body that rival Michaelangelo’s David, and he made her feel like she was the center of his universe. Despite Costas’ insistence that they kept things casual between them, Irina found herself falling hard for the man, who decided he had enough of New York, and subsequently, her, after three months spent wining, dining and bedding her.

Heartbroken Irina never could get Costas out of her mind, and distracted herself with men and sex. She went through men like most women went through a cheap pair of stockings, she was gone before the man even had the chance to come up with a flimsy excuse to kick her out of his bed in the morning. By the time she turned 25 and left the modeling world, she has had countless lovers, none lasting longer than a fortnight.

In the morning of her 39th birthday, Irina woke up in her Manhattan studio apartment and suddenly felt suffocated when she saw the stranger sleeping next to her. She got dressed quickly and boarded the subway to Brooklyn for no reason, she just needed to escape. As she walked down the neighborhood streets of Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, she felt a strange attraction when she saw through the window, a dark-haired girl sitting by the register completely immersed in a book. She pushed the door open and walked into the small nail salon, where she met the quiet, shy manicurist with the dark past that would change her life forever.

Mood Board For The Character Irina Zelyaeva

Our title character, Sara Beth Blank had a peculiar life, to say the least. Her unusual last name “Blank” was from her mother’s stage name “Aurora Blank”. Sara Beth never knew her father, but she suspected that he was the reason why her mother put “Blank” as her last name instead of her real last name “Blavathnick”. She felt like it was her mother’s way of saying that she never had a real father. Not one who had the courage to raise her and love her.

The Inspiration For The Character Sara Beth Blank

Sara Beth is only twenty-three years old, but she felt much older than her age. Her mother’s health had deteriorated when she was just a baby and soon after she was too sick to take care of Sara Beth and placed her in a foster home. Despite being placed in the system when she was just a baby, Sara Beth never found a foster family that would take her in for long, and she kept going from one family to another, before she spent her teenage years in a halfway home until she turned 18.

Sara Beth had always been quiet and peculiar, and it was hard for her to fit in anywhere. After a series of odd jobs here and there, she finally found the one thing she was good at when she got a job as a manicurist in a small nail salon in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn. The customers like Sara Beth for some reason. They felt instantly soothed when she held their hands in her palm as she worked on their nails. They loved the calming effect that her soft voice gave them. They found it irresistible not to share the details of their daily lives with her, and she always listened without prejudice, and would flash them her smile that worked like hypnosis, they immediately felt better about their lives.

Mood Board For Sara Beth by The Beautiful Russian

But Sara Beth had a secret, Sara Beth had a dark life and a dark road ahead of her that she couldn’t and didn’t want to share with her customers. Not with shopaholic Casey Goldstein who chose to spend her last $50 to get her nails done while smoking profusely and complaining about her evil father who had just froze her trust fund, not with geeky Evan Jones, whose nails were always brittle from her furious nail-biting and who only came into the salon because she was fascinated with Arsen, the gay tattoo artist who ran an illegal tattoo parlor in the salon after-hours, not with her co-worker Torrence Adler, who would spend all her paycheck on make up and perfume, and who keeps talking about mushrooms for hours and hours, and definitely not with Liza Hoffman, the “mother warrior” who was reluctant about getting a manicure at first but ending up coming every week just to share her frustrations with life and her estranged ex-husband.

On the day when she was at her lowest point in life, in walked ex-model Irina Zelyaeva to her nail salon and she recognized her from the copies of old Vogue magazines that she sometimes reads when she’s bored at the salon. Something about Irina intrigued Sara Beth and as she sat across the table from her and held her hand, she suddenly realized that her life was about to change in the most amazing way…

Mood Board For Sara Beth's Purple Dreams by The Beautiful Russian

What will happen between Sara Beth and the five women?

Tune in for more on the novel. Follow me on Twitter to get the latest update.

xoxo

Binky Bee

Sara Beth and The Magic Nails: The Characters Part Deux

I’ve shared with you the two main characters in my new novel “Sara Beth and The Magic Nails”, and now I’m going to continue!

I told you I’m making good on my promise.

The two characters I am introducing to you now are not best friends like Casey and Evan. In fact, they don’t even know each other in the beginning of the story, but their lives are more alike than they think.

Meet Torrence Adler.

The Inspiration For The Character Torrence Adler

Torrence Adler is a strange girl, and she knows it. For one, she’s obsessed about mushrooms. No, not the magic ones, but all kinds of other mushrooms that we see in our food but never really noticed. Her love for mushrooms started from early childhood, when she lived in a small town in the Pacific Northwest. Her parents were hippies, and she was exposed to nature since she was a baby, and nothing makes her happier than traipsing around woods and forests, picking mushrooms.

After graduating from University of Washington, she met her husband, Jonah, a budding architect in a firm where she used to temp in. Two years after falling in love, they got married when he got a job in New York City. Torrence and Jonah Adler packed up their possession and moved to Brooklyn, where she had to adjust with the life in the big city, and not being able to pick mushrooms on a whim.

While working as a spritzer girl in a Department Store, Torrence developed a new obsession for perfumes and make ups. Frustrated at the lack of woods and nature reserves, she collects perfumes and make ups the way she used to collect mushroom. She took time in studying each different scent and colors, and spend most of her paycheck to build up her collection, much to the chagrin of her husband.

When she lost her job at the Department Store, Torrence felt a little lost and decided on a whole new profession altogether. She knew she had to get a job that would give her easy access to make up and perfumes all the time, so she started going to different salons in her neighborhood, looking for a job as a make up artist.

A nail salon wasn’t a place she expected herself to work in, but after weeks of not getting a job in a “real” salon, she found herself walking into a small nail salon a few blocks away from her apartment and applied for a job. It was then when she met the quiet and kind manicurist Sara Beth, who, unbeknownst to her would be the one who changed her life forever…

For more on Torrence, make sure you check out the novel when it comes out.

The Mood Board for The Character Torrence Adler

For now, let’s meet another woman in the novel: Elizabeth Hoffman.

The Inspiration For The Character Elizabeth "Liza" Hoffman

Elizabeth Hoffman was born and bred in New York City, but she never felt like a New Yorker all her life. She hated the cold weather passionately, she didn’t like that everyone in New York seemed to be walking too fast and too preoccupied with themselves to notice everyone else. She loved the beach and the sun, but not the cold, gray beaches of New York. She felt like a California girl trapped in a New Yorker’s body. Every chance she gets, she would travel to California just to soak up the sun. She’s also an avid surfer and a champion snowboarder, which makes her stick out like a sore thumb in the prestigious Manhattan prep school that she worked in.

Elizabeth Hoffman, or Liza as her family and friends call her, is also a passionate person. She was always fighting for a cause that she believed in. As a single mother of an autistic boy, Elizabeth Hoffman was passionate about educating people about autism, she was always actively campaigning for better health care, and she always tried to impart her passion for helping people to her students, something that frequently got her in trouble with the headmaster.

Liza was also a vegetarian, she recycled religiously, she was a fervent supporter of environmental causes, a non-smoker and her life basically consists of three things: work, taking care of her son and being an activist. She hated consumerism with a passion, and she refused to wear make up because she believed that beauty comes from the inside.

A woman like Liza wouldn’t get manicure willingly, but after her estranged husband suddenly appearing back into her life out of nowhere and demanded custody of their son, she found herself in Brooklyn with a voucher for a free manicure that the other teachers gave her for her birthday a few months prior. Feeling in need of a dire escape, she entered the small nail salon where she was greeted by a shy manicurist with soothing eyes that would eventually become the catalyst for change in her life.

Mood Board For The Character Elizabeth "Liza" Hoffman

Now I have introduced you to four of the women in my new novel. Make sure you tune in for more of the characters that I will be posting shortly.

I’m going to take a break from my novel to give my review of the new Melrose Place that premiered on the CW on Wednesday, but I’ll be posting more about Sara Beth and The Magic Nails right after.

Make sure you follow me on Twitter to get the latest update.

Hope you like what I have for you so far.

xoxo

Binky Bee