The Girdle of Melian

eekend away! Photos from a weekend jaunt, a couple of weekends ago, to Lac de Joux and the surrounding valley, up in the Jura mountains (home of absinthe, watchmaking, and the largest lake in Switzerland above 1000m): The Alps, seen from the Jura: Buffalo and bears at an animal park: They also had goat and deer! Lac de Joux, right outside our hotel room! Snails! A village in the valley: And a few more shots of knitting and baking: This is the finished version of the baby blanket begun here : And a new hat (which is actually an adult-sized hat, but I had a willing baby model...): This is a cheesecake blondie, from my sister's recipe : I found this scribbled recipe when looking for a recipe that didn't call for butter, because we were all out hat day (!). It had no title, so I had to google the ingredients to figure out what it might be: Apparently, it was muffins! I haven't been doing well on my ROW80 goals... But I have submitted a story to the Insecure Writer's Support...

ore books! Make You Feel My Love by Kait Nolan " Will danger catapult these lifelong friends to lovers? Autumn Buchanan has loved Judd all her life. Best friends since they were children, he’s been fulfilling her rescue fantasies for years. But years ago, her dreams of more ended in blood and a nightmare that nearly cost them both their lives. Now she’s ready to take the leap and profess all to the friend who’s stood by her through thick and thin. But before she can make her confession, their nightmare returns and secrets are revealed that threaten the very fabric of their lifelong friendship." A Wishful suspense! Having read all the Wishful books in order as they've been released, I feel like I know the town in that way you know a favourite childhood summer vacation destination. I love series where you catch glimpses of couples from earlier books, and hints at couples to be, along with all the other denizens of the town. Love the way everyone in this town stands...

ummy, yummy, yummy! For a while there, I was knitting and baking practically every day. Knitting in April Baking and knitting in May Baking and knitting and ice cream in May Knitting in June I didn't take photos of all my baking, but here are the main recipes I used. I also have my grandmother's recipe for apple pie. My version came out more as a crumble, and tasted really good, especially with tea (and would also be good with vanilla ice cream!). My sister has previously translated the apple pie recipe on her Desserts and Drawings blog! In other news, Tim's Twitter Listening Party is continuing apace! These are lots of fun, especially for the nostalgic albums. Two other music-from-home events: Mark Morriss of the Bluetones Martin Rossiter of Gene What's your go-to pie recipe?

Round of Words in 80 Days, round 3 ! My goals for this round: don't slack off! Edit something, anything. Currently, I have four contender projects: Captive of the Sea , research and yet another round of edits. Maybe on paper?! Blackbird's Song , short story to be entered in the Surrey International Writer's Conference contest At Bertram's Hotel (working title), WWII spy story to be edited on screen. I could at least fill in the missing scenes... Rome, Rhymes, and Risk (or Verse, Venice, and Viziers ): Possibly to become a screenplay? And the July writing exercise will be posted on thelitforum soon... June's exercise was bedroom scenes, in the dark. Here's mine, featuring Christianne and Rory from The Charm of Time . This is Christianne's pov. She and Rory have been together for a couple of years and have an 8-month-old baby. Christianne is a three-year cancer survivor. (All this to explain some of the comments she makes.): (Warning: The...

oday is Insecure Writer's Support Group Day! This month's question : There have been many industry changes in the last decade, so what are some changes you would like to see happen in the next decade? That's a difficult question to answer! Greater transparency in the financial aspects of publishing would be nice. Better ways of handling authors who are self-published and traditionally published at the same time. Some way of providing a bit more commentary from agents to authors on rejections would be a bonus, especially for those rejections that are solely based on not having a current market or easily identifiable genre. It would be a great help to know whether one was being rejected based on marketing or on the writing quality! The awesome co-hosts for the 1 July posting of the IWSG are Jenni Enzor , Beth Camp , Liesbet , Tyrean Martinson , and Sandra Cox ! Today is also Canada Day! Just in time, Jemi Fraser has some new releases, coming on 21 July: the Bloo Mo...