My mind works in a spiral, moving through different topics over time. As I struggle to finish a story about sheep and shepherds several problems have been evident. This particular story involves a LOT of animals, and I am not and never have been an animal person. That’s a steep, if fascinating, learning curve. I’ve [...]
Category: books
Writing practice and a book recommendation
There’s a lot of advice out in the wild for people who are trying to write. Unfortunately, making this advice usable often requires figuring out what writing niche you belong in. Fiction or non-fiction? Poetry? Literary or genre? What’s the difference between the last two? Women’s fiction? Cozy mysteries? Why does ‘cozy’ sound so insulting, [...]
England or Australia, aka Nevil Shute, author
I just finished reading a Nevil Shute book, The Far Country, that showed up on Amazon for 99¢. Nevil Shute wrote novels in the evening. By day he was an excellent aerospace engineer. His career started in England but he moved to Australia after World War II. I have read Trustee from the Toolroom and [...]
Managing extra characters …
I like to pay attention to the way that other writers deal with certain common events in stories. One of them is the problem caused by more than one suitor. Fairy tales have one way of dealing with extra men… But it seems a little drastic in real life. L. M. Montgomery, author of the [...]
Thinking about writing by thinking about what I’ve read…
Sometimes I write Friday's post on Thursday morning because I'm often a bit tired on Friday morning, after playing with my grandchildren in 95 degree heat, but I had too many ideas this time and couldn't settle on just one. Meanwhile, I've been reading four different book series on Amazon Kindle and finished several new [...]
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