The Girdle of Melian

odge Podge post No. 3! I'm getting into the habit now of posting little tit bits in one blog post. Today's is all about the story I'm currently editing for the nth time -- Druid's Moon , a paranormal romance. First up, a long snip from the opening: “‘The Curse of the Octopus,’” Lyne read, translating the Middle English script as she went. Octopus had to be wrong, for a start. A sudden gust of wind across the mouth of the cave riffled the sheet in her hand. She held the paper closer, angled towards the grey afternoon light filtering through from outside, and reread the first line, this time out loud. “Octopus? Are you certain of that?” Professor Meadwell, her PhD supervisor, gave her one of his trademark try-harder-lowly-student looks from over the top of his glasses. From the moment she’d been accepted to his team on a dig at Afanc Cave in Cornwall, Lyne had secretly hoped for an exciting, mysterious find, or at least an item that might earn her a co-writing...

odge Podge post No. 2! Actor Peter Sallis has passed away at the age of 96. He voiced Wallace in the animated films of Wallace and Gromit and, among a slew of other roles throughout his career, played the character of Norman Clegg in the longest running comedy on television, The Last of the Summer Wine, from the first episode in 1973 to the last episode in 2010, when the series concluded (295 episodes!). Other characters have come and gone on the series -- and the gradually changing face of the Yorkshire Dales can be seen over the decades. Today is Insecure Writer's Support Group Day ! The question for this month is: "Did you ever say “I quit”? If so, what happened to make you come back to writing?" I've never quit! I've had at least one very long stretch of writer's block, and I've procrastinated a lot over the years on editing that I could have done, but I've never skimped on writing or research. Drafting is the best part, the most fun...

odge podge today! I'm in the calm before the storm, before work gets really busy for the rest of the year (!), not to mention various non-work projects I've signed up for... I have this summer to finish editing one novel, and then I might have to turn to other things in the autumn. Meanwhile, I'm behind-hand in blog comments! But I did find the photos I mentioned in my previous post, of Ayşe and Hakan from the short story At Summer's End that I'm currently editing for submission! That's still my ROW80 goal and work-in-progress for the next couple of weeks. I'm also editing The Charm of Time , but slowly. There are a few big scenes that still need to be written for that novel. The photos are screenshots taken from advertising -- I always feel badly for these models who, half the time, never get their names mentioned in an ad. Neither do the photographers. Such a shame! Ayşe Hakan Meanwhile, I'm cross-posting to my knitting blog , b...

ontreal! This year is the 150th anniversary of Canada, and the 375th anniversary of the founding of Montreal. Also the 50th anniversary of Expo 67 . I was actually in Montreal for a long weekend last week, for a family celebration. I didn't venture far outside of my parents' neighbourhood, and didn't really see anything worth photographing, oddly enough. The weather was great, and the trees and flowers were budding with that fresh, bright green of spring. Lots of new shops and restaurants on the main street, and happy crowds, but also lots of shuttered store fronts and empty spaces to rent. Great food, and bagels, of course. Most of my photos were from the plane! Roses in our village, taken the morning I left My gate! This photo doesn't really mean anything, except that my sister-in-law did the trip in reverse, coming to Geneva for a long weekend while I was in Montreal -- I saw the first photo she shared on Facebook just as I got to my gate, so...

uite busy this week and next, so today's post is going to be book heavy! Truly a mini book reviews post -- in a nutshell, I've enjoyed all of these books recently, and would recommend them! First we have Kait Nolan 's latest! "She thought she could never go home again. Kennedy Reynolds has spent the past decade traveling the world as a free spirit. She never looks back at the past, the place, or the love she left behind—until her adopted mother’s unexpected death forces her home to Eden’s Ridge, Tennessee. Deputy Xander Kincaid has never forgotten his first love. He’s spent ten long years waiting for the chance to make up for one bone-headed mistake that sent her running. Now that she’s finally home, he wants to give her so much more than just an apology. Kennedy finds an unexpected ally in Xander, as she struggles to mend fences with her sisters and to care for the foster child her mother left behind. Falling back into his arms is beyond tempting, but a...

t's time for some statistics! First up, reflections on the Blogging from A to Z Challenge in April: I loved it! Once I hit upon my theme, back in December, the rest was legwork. Or finger work... In 2011, I held a week-long contest to celebrate the fact that I'd reached my 500th post, after nearly four years of blogging. At the time, I sorted many of my previous posts into groups, which made for easy referencing, especially of story material. (Also because I've never tagged my posts!) When I celebrated reaching my 1000th post during last year's A to Z Challenge there wasn't time to sort all the posts between 2011 and 2016. What better time than now? I’m actually going to go over 1,000, and collate all posts to the end of 2016! And I’m going to link to every single post (except for the A to Z posts, which are mostly summarized), something I didn’t do in my original 500 compilation, or even in my 900th post compilation. I spent a few hours here and there...

an you believe the A to Z Challenge is over? It seems like lately, every time I stop to think, I find myself asking "where has the week gone? the month? the year?" Everything's moving so quickly! I think this feeling is coming over me more than usual lately, despite (or maybe because of?) the fact that I don't read as often, and spend many hours in a week just sitting and playing with the toddler. Look out for an A to Z Reflections post soon! Meanwhile, it's Insecure Writer's Support Group Day! The optional May IWSG Day Question is: What is the weirdest/coolest thing you ever had to research for your story? A great question. I like blogging about research weirdness! I recently wrote a post called Need Research Help ! Here are the items I listed for my contemporary romantic suspense The Charm of Time : What's a good midlife crisis sort of car for a recently divorced man in his late 30s? He's Scottish, living in Switzerland... This is...