inspiration

Beware the Headless Horseman! — Sleepy Hollow Country in NY State

My childhood was shaped by an eerie scene of cattails alongside a road that were beating, in the rising wind, a tattoo like ghostly hoofbeats upon a dark and lonely road. I’ve loved Disney’s The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (1949), an animated adaptation narrated by Bing Crosby, from the moment I first watched …

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Fall adventure: road trips

Crisp fresh air, the colours and scents of autumn, funky small towns and eateries you wouldn’t discover any other way – it’s hard to beat a fall road trip for an all-encompassing travel adventure.   Post-pandemic, there’s not much planning required for a road trip – decide the general area, throw some clothes in a …

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Liminal spaces – fascinating thresholds

Apparently “liminal spaces” are having a moment.   I’ve been aware of them for a long time after reading a lot of Celtic mythology. The ancient Celts believed that there were many liminal places, thought of as ‘thin’ spaces, where the veil between worlds was fragile and we could sometimes get in touch with those …

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Are you ‘Dark Academia’, Neo-Victorian, or even Cottagecore at heart?

These days there’s a label for everything. Our society seems unable to function unless it’s categorized a trend and given it a designation. I suspect there are people quietly living their own way without knowing that their lifestyle falls under a certain ‘aesthetic’. The poor fools 😉   What’s most interesting to me is our …

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Historical research – a wealthy 1800s estate

While I love doing research online for historical authenticity — let’s face it, I could get lost for hours — there’s nothing to beat actually visiting a historic site to give a writer all the fine nuances of life on a grand estate. To that end, hubby and I spend some time at the locally-famous …

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Hot tips from my first Book Launch Party

My launch party was a mixture of greatness and controlled chaos. I’ll explain that. I’ve done a lot of event planning in my time, and had every detail worked out, on a substantial spreadsheet — or so I thought. Actually, all my planning went…well, as planned 😉 Where I lost some control was in the …

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Code like a Victorian

Where did criminals, blackmailers, jilted or illicit lovers post their coded messages in Victorian England? Why, in the Agony Column, aka Personal Ads, of the venerable The Times newspaper. Without any censorship or disclosure of the identity of the ad-placer, and widely read by everyone, including the Queen, the column was ripe for intrigue from …

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Great webinar for budding authors

A quick post to share a terrific opportunity for anyone interested in writing a book. Reedsy is an online organization that offers editing, designing and other services for authors, but they also have a fabulous blog with an enormous amount of information for writers at any stage of their journey, as well as excellent free …

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