Julie and Julia - How These Characters Inspired Me

Last night I watched the movie "Julie and Julia" starring Meryl Streep and Amy Adams. I cried. Seriously, I was crying during the movie and I had to keep from bawling. And I’m pretty sure it was not intended to be a tear-jerker movie.

I wouldn't have normally gone to see this movie (I thought this was a movie about being inspired to cook and I knew nothing could inspire me to enjoy cooking), but I was hang'n with the gals and I was just happy to get out!

Related to Julie Powell
Julie Powell is a blogger who set herself the task of cooking completely through Julia Child's "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" in a single year. I was surprised to discover I absolutely related to her in so many levels. I mostly related to Julie's blogging struggles.

In my efforts to be an author, it was recommended to me to start a blog to expose my writing to the world out there and to create name recognition before the “book” was someday published. I too set out to write a blog, posting on a weekly basis, for one year for starters.

It has not been easy, to say the least. I work almost full-time hours, have two active boys, married to a busy husband, live in a house that needs a lot of functional maintenance (can we say, “fixer upper”), try to volunteer at kid’s school, attempt to read a book a month, and I have had to give up any time at all I would have had for myself and exercise so that I can BLOG. Blogging is a sacrifice. I cried because I related to her early mornings and late nights and the sacrifice her husband had to make (and for me my children as well). Then I cried when Julie announced that she had 56 comments and I really started crying when news reporters started calling her and then her photo appeared in the paper and her life changed. Although she sacrificed, her blogging success came to fruition quickly.

Blogging and Social Media-ing Stuff
October will mark one year of blogging. I have discovered most people I know, and who don’t know me, don’t write comments on blogs. There are so many blogs out there that it is difficult to get new attention to my site. And, opposed to Julie, I read blogs after more articles on how to write a better blog, how to increase readership, how to write and submit a book proposal, and I follow several literary agent’s blogs. I have over 100 e-mails, currently in my inbox, informing me that those blogs have a new and latest posts to read.

As recommended by all those professional Social Networking types, I try to keep up my Twitter account and tweet at least twice a day as well as reply to others tweets. I keep up my Facebook and write daily statuses and respond to at least three status updates daily. I also read other blogs on life and being a mom and try to comment on their blogs on a weekly basis. So there is more than just sitting down at my computer and taking time out to publish a post – it is all that other Social Media commotion and learning how to be better that sucks up my other time like my lunch hour and after work time before making dinner.

No 56 comments and no prospect of newspaper recognition. I still sacrifice – but here I want to know why. Why should I continue sacrificing, for what?

Julia Child is Such an Inspiration
Then there is Julia Child. She was married at age 34, she had to wait eight years before her book was published, her manuscript was rejected before another publisher picked it up, she was 49 when her book was published, she moved around Europe for an entire decade, and she was 51 when she first appeared on television. On top of all that, she stood at 6’2” in height. (A bit sobering when I whimper at being 5’9 ¼”.)

Julia was full of life and didn’t give up. Russ Parsons from the Los Angles Times said this about her:

“… Child's reaction when she gets the letter informing her that her prospective publisher has decided not to go ahead with her book, something she has spent almost a decade perfecting, ‘Eight years of my life. It just turned out to be something to do, so I wouldn't have nothing to do,’ she says, obviously heartbroken. ‘Oh, well. Boo-hoo. Now what?’

Child was part of the generation that had seen Depression and war. She had known bad times, and she believed that the only way to meet them was head-on. You picked yourself up, dusted yourself off and got on your way.”

She didn’t fuss about not getting 56 comments, or that she spent a decade writing a cookbook, or that she moved around quite a bit (managing to mail recipes back and forth to her counterparts who together wrote the cookbook), and she didn’t moan about being tall for goodness sakes. She was a problem solver and she picked herself up and moved on.

Parsons also said in his article , that came out in The Herald, about the movie “Julie and Julia,” “Come to think of it — just pipe-dreaming here — wouldn't it be great if in addition to absorbing Julia Child's love of food and zest for life, a few moviegoers picked up on a little of that character as well?”

Well Mr. Parsons, I picked up on it and she is truly an inspiration to me.

Rachel Gardner, a literary agent, says in her August 21, 2009, post, "Don't get discouraged. Do the things you're learning. Keep writing. Keep reading. Keep learning about marketing. Read books. Read blogs. Go to conferences, meet people. Persevere. Because here's the thing: It can truly pay off.”

I love to write and this blog keeps me writing, researching, and (hopefully) helps me to become a better writer. And for some reason, topics keep coming to my mind. Sure it would be nice if more readers even said “boo” or burped or said, “Hey ya, keep it up,” but if they don’t I am going to keep on writing, keep on finding subjects that people can relate to (or so I think), and keep on entertaining at least one person out there (thanks, Sweetman, for reading my blogs). No moping around here. My head is up and I am continuing on. Here’s to you….

(P.S. Didn't you just love Julie and Julia's husbands!
I just wanted to give both of them a big kiss on the cheek!
And I'm going to give my husband a big kiss on the cheek too.)

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