I’m doing this week’s post a day early because I’m sharing a time-sensitive deal for anyone who might want to try their hand at writing a Romance novel: a bundle of tools, resources and training by The Romance Writer’s Super Stack that expires 11:59pm PST tomorrow, April 11th. The package is one heck of […]
Fancy a little romance? Read More »
Have you ever battled a dragon? Or a demon? Or performed a ritual to place a hex on someone? (If you say ‘yes’ to the last one, I don’t want to know.) One of the oft-spouted maxims of writing novels is ‘Write what you know’. For science fiction and fantasy writers, that’s often impossible, because
Method Writing – is it like Method Acting? Read More »
Are you a fan of magenta, aka fuchsia? It’s a striking purplish/reddish pink, a strong colour that I suspect invokes strong feelings in many of us. But this year, Pantone® Color Systems has named it their Color of the Year. If you’re not a graphic designer, fashion designer or other kind of artist, you may
Colours, glorious colours Read More »
You may find this paradoxical, but I’ve never been a good letter-writer. I just didn’t like the medium, which was in vogue when I was a child and teenager; once I sat down with pen and paper, my mind invariably went blank. In those days, there didn’t seem to be much in my life that
Did you/do you write letters? Read More »
My laptop has been fixed (problem with the charging port) and I though I’d post what I’d planned for last week, in celebration of the many great women throughout history – and in this case, a writer. In the late 1800s, at a time when the majority of women had few options other than marriage
International Women’s Day and Nellie Bly Read More »
Tip of the iceberg. Skating on thin ice. As cold as ice. Ice in your veins. For the most part, the form of water or precipitation known as “ice” doesn’t connote good things. Some people, and some animals, feel differently. Bartenders, for example. Ice-cream manufacturers. And as famous marine biologist Sylvia Earle so eloquently put
The idea for this blog post arose from a very dreary, blustery day last week, full of rain and chill – the kind of day where the best thing to do is make a steaming cup of tea and curl up with a good mystery, whether in book form or its filmed version. I think
Tea and a Mystery – Mystery! on PBS Read More »
When I was little and feeling unwell, my mother would make me a bowl of porridge sprinkled with brown sugar and cinnamon. To this day, I make it for myself when I’m under the weather – healthy, comforting and evocative of a time when I didn’t have to worry about myself, when my parents would
Aromas that move us: Cinnamon Read More »
Sci-fi and fantasy writers get to use our imaginations and inflict strange scenarios on the inhabitants of the worlds we create. After all, what’s an interesting story without some chaos or conflict? We might imagine distant planets that are constantly storm-tossed, or vast deserts strewn with enormous skeletons of unidentified beasts (like Tatooine in the
Science fiction could become real-life Read More »
The British monarchy just can’t seem to stay out of the news lately, between tell-all books, rumours about Prince William’s sexual preferences and elaborate ‘cabinet’ shuffling. For 70 years, Queen Elizabeth II epitomized the power and subtle glamour of an institution that’s been around for about 1200 years. The entire system was founded on the
Over a millennium’s worth of influence Read More »
