Writing and reviews with an environmental, science fiction, and fantasy touch
Sometimes when I’m doing my book sales, my reaction sometimes has to be ‘aren’t people funny?’ It’s part of that shell you need to ward off the comments and reviews that hurt your ego. JS Pailly, Rebecca Douglass, Pat Garcia, Louise-Fundy Blue, and Natalie Aguirre
Writing is today’s, and Toast was the prompt for Friday. I had an interesting couple of days last week with machinery going wrong, including my heating system. Not the right sort of weather for heating problems, but I’m beginning to
November already, and it brings NaNo to plenty of minds and keyboards. It’s this month’s question, too. PJ Colando, Jean Davis,Lisa Buie Collard, and Diedre Knight! Question of the Month November is National Novel Writing Month. Have you ever participated? If not, why
Finishing the Hat is the first part of a review of his work by the genius composer-lyricist Stephen Sondheim, who died last November aged 91. There is so much I wanted to discuss about it! I toyed with the idea
Settings that feel like Characters are what the literary agents are looking for. So says J Lenni Dorner in his introduction to this short book, aimed at authors. The good news is: readers feel your settings more acutely if they
Thank goodness January is over. I’m not sure how much of my attitude for the last couple of weeks has been down to the start of the year, Covid, hiding away in my little lockdown space and wondering what the
Character wrangling is a term I put together when writing my guest post for Ronel Janse van Vuuren today. I was writing of the discovery I made when I started writing the Princelings series, that characters do what they want,
Hello IWSG-ers. Welcome to August. I know, how did we get here so fast? This month’s IWSG newsletter poses a very long question. The end of it was: Have you ever written a piece that became a form, or even
Excuses today for the silence from me most of this month, except for the moon landing post. Did you notice? I haven’t been out much either this month, failing to visit just about everyone. Book reviews are generally prepared soon
Rebekah Loper wrote a book as a result of her A-Z Challenge one year. Her theme – worldbuilding. Since I did the same some years later, I was delighted to see what she’d made of the subject. Answer – a
The most miniscule details can make or break a book. Well, if you’re as picky as me, anyway. Since it’s Insecure Writers Support Group day, you can tell me whether I’m right, or too finicky, or should just lighten up
I’ve not done any Friday Flash Fiction for a few months now. You may (or may not) have noticed. I started doing a regular flash fiction on Fridays way back… I have 301 posts tagged as ‘short stories’, the first
I’m still at Camp NaNoWriMo, and I’m still editing Curved Space to Corsair. Even better news, my illustrator has got to the window of opportunity she had to do the cover device for it! My Darlings Darlings are those things
Spring! It’s finally here, maybe. And the Insecure Writers Support Group hint of the month is (roughly): Do you find it easier writing in spring when everything is growing and things are looking fresher? What I usually do in spring
Story ideas arriving out of the blue is something most authors dream of. I dream of lots of stories, the trouble is remembering anything about them long enough to write it down. Last week I went to an event as