Years ago I got the call from Hollywood — but it’s not what you think. I nabbed a job as an Internet editor for Variety.com, the entertainment news daily.
I was honored and thrilled, even though that little voice inside my head kept saying, “I thought you weren’t happy in web work, missed the people and writing stories.” It was true. I had spent years working in entertainment writing for newspapers but got talked into going to the Internet side.
Still, I took the job. After all, it was Hollywood!
You will probably see this coming. The job and I were not a good fit. Down the line I took a position at a newspaper that better accented my personality and then moved back to Louisiana to be a features editor at a daily newspaper.
Hollywood paid off, though. During that time I lived in this sweet community northeast of Los Angeles. Santa Clarita would become the basis for my novel, “Ticket to Paradise,” the first in my Cajun Embassy series.
My main character, Lizzy Guidry, is a Louisiana transplant. Even though she loves living in the town of Santa Helena, California, she’s a bit homesick, probably because everything seems to be going wrong these days. It takes newspaperman Martin Taylor, having his own set of troubles, to cheer her up. And it all revolves around a California Lottery ticket.
So many times we wonder why life puts us where we are. I was miserable in that job, even though everyone kept telling me how lucky I was to work at the world’s greatest entertainment publication (which made it worse). I kept thinking, why was I there and what was it all about?
And yet, I learned a lot from that job, my kids were in good schools, I met amazing people who are with me today, not to mention my son later met through a friend the love of his life and I got to live in Paradise for a while.
And, of course, I wrote a book.
Hope you enjoy my “Ticket to Paradise.” Don’t tell anyone it’s really Santa Clarita.
Cherie Claire is the award-winning author of several Louisiana romances.
Her “The Cajun Embassy” series of contemporary romances – “Ticket to Paradise,” “Damn Yankees” and “Gone Pecan” — follows several Columbia journalism coeds who become friends over a bowl of Cajun gumbo. Because love — and a good gumbo — changes everything.
Originally published with Kensington, Claire’s “Cajun Series” of historical romances follows a family of Acadians (Cajuns) who travel to South Louisiana and start anew after being exiled from their Nova Scotia home.
Cherie lives in South Louisiana where she works as a travel and food writer when not indulging in Cajun culture. Visit her website at www.cherieclaire.net and write to her at CajunRomances@gmail.com.
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I’d like to thank Cherie for visiting the blog today and sharing her story. So, have you ever taken a job because you thought you should, regretted it BUT learned something or gained something special from it?
I know. Long question and you know you don’t have to answer it all. But please, share something! Because I love comments so much that I pick a favorite to receive my monthly AnaBanana gift basket ($25 value). (And don’t forget that once a quarter I’ll be tossing in something fun from the Perilously Fun Shop!) Recipient is announced the first blog post of the new month.
Perilously yours,
Pauline