Winter days and nervous doggies
Plus I'm writing on my next book!
Hello friends,
Daphne and Chloe love the concept of going for a walk in public, but they get so nervous with all those people, cars, other dogs, noises... it can be stressful!
We only go for an hour or so, and they are happy to hop back in the car. When they first came to live with us from a foster home via the SPCA I thought they needed to be more confident in order to go out and be happy.
But a dog trainer I hired for a two hour session to help me understand what they needed from me, told me it was the opposite: they needed to go out in public in order to be more confident.
Makes total sense! His words have always stuck with me, even though it was seven years ago that I had that session with him.
(And I appreciated the message for me too: you don't get confidence so you can do the thing, you do the thing and get more confident as a result.)
They may look hot in this photo but it's just their nervous panting, bless them 🐕🐕
In any case, they lucked out coming to live with us. They have a warm, cosy bed, yummy food, a stay-at-home mum... life is good they said.
Cozy winter days, perfect for rugging up and going for my pre-breakfast walk. Some mornings it's barely above freezing, those are some *bracing* walks 😂 and others it's mild and breezy, like today.
It really does pay to check before I leave the house if I need my gloves and scarf or not!
And I always cue up a good audiobook.
At the moment I am listening to Christie Brinkley’s memoir ‘Uptown Girl’ (of course it’s called Uptown Girl!) and I love it. She narrates it herself and is an excellent narrator. I had to check it was her because she sounded like a professional voice artist.
It's really long – 14 ½ hours! – yet is keeping me gripped, and we’re not even up to her Billy Joel era yet.
I didn’t realise Christie was so into the French culture, having gone to a French speaking school as a teen, and then moving to Paris to become an artist before she started modelling.
She comes across as kind too. She doesn’t speak badly of people, and is always positive.
She often references her dad’s mantra: ‘You write your own script, Christie baby!’ (he was a prolific and well-known television writer in Hollywood.
I love that! I’m all about writing your own script too.
I really appreciate all the lovely messages and comments about my newest book Elegantly Chic on a Budget released last week. I’m thrilled to hear of happy reading being done!
Please don’t think I’m tooting my horn too much sharing my screenshots. It’s just so exciting as an author to see your name up in lights at no. 1. Toot toot!
Currently I’m playing around with a new book concept. I say new, but it’s another one I’ve written more than half of (additional to the other partially written book I’ve mentioned previously).
Honestly, I start these books and squirrel them away into my ‘New and exciting ideas file’ and forget about them! It’s only when I think ‘oh I feel like working on that book’ and find A LOT of words already written 🤣
It’s a nice surprise! So that’s where I’ve been, happily writing away. I do some admin, then reward myself with some writing 😍
How is your new week going? I've been recording chapters for my newest book 'Elegantly Chic on a Budget' and it's going well.
I should have the narration completed this week and then it's just a matter of everything filtering through the system (which takes 2-6 weeks depending on the platform you listen to your audiobooks on).
I hope you have an excellent week!
xx Fiona
PS. You can find all the links for my other books and audiobooks at fionaferris.com.
(Some of my Amazon links are affiliate, which means I may make a small commission if you purchase using them, at no extra cost to you. I appreciate it if you do choose to use my Amazon links!)