The Girdle of Melian

ask me anything! That's what this month's exercise at thelitforum is all about: "This month’s exercise is: Ask Me Anything (AMA) ! It's based off the Reddit subforum in which posters are free to ask the host any question, which should be answered honestly and fully. This is a great way to help flesh out a character, whether discovering backstory, motivation, etc. Even though the assorted participants span different times and places, it's these spontaneous, interactive situations between characters that would never "meet" otherwise that let you turn over rocks in ways that you wouldn’t be able to otherwise. It’s been interesting to see how a character will respond differently to a question, depending on the asker's gender/social class/time period. ... Please remember that this is a spontaneous, off-the-cuff, get-'er-done kind of exercise. Don’t worry about making your writing all fancy and polished. Your internal critic has been banned fr...

isits to the Palais des Nations! I had a young assistant accompany me to work on three separate occasions. Here are some highlights: Sequoia! Georgian wine jug The Celestial Sphere Peacock! Where are you vacationing this year?

n vacation! Here's a repost from 19 May 2009 of an idea for if you need to take a staycation (back in the days when I used to post to the blog so often that a brief paragraph was sometimes all I needed!): HMS Sofa I discovered Anne and May's blog through Nathan Bransford (also check out his link to the 24-hour air travel satellite video on YouTube), and learned that my sister and I are not the only ones that create cruise ships on sofas! (Discovering a new author blog that I like is veery dangerous, since it adds to my Wishlist/To Be Read pile. The only trouble is reading the comments on the various posts; there're a lot of people out there for whom logical fallacy is a way of life. Back to the cruise ships...) In creating the HMS Sofa, you collect all the items you will need for an afternoon's sail (a cat or two, your favorite drink, some knitting, a huge stack of books, puzzles and magazines, etc.) and veg for a few hours. No getting up! except to repl...

ell, I've done it now. I keep going on and on about having no time, but I've just sent off a character to my first ever Ask Me Anything. This is a form of the monthly exercise on thelitforum that generally dissolves into a Writers' Houseparty event. It's the only houseparty-type happening on the Forum that I've ever missed out on, even for those of my characters (like Austin and Kedi) who have attended every houseparty. This time around, while Kedi might make a cameo, I've sent in a brand new character. The justification is that this might save me time and give me some buffer words when I come to write his story during NaNoWriMo. I know about his romantic life, but nothing about the sort of plot he might get involved in! His name is Simon Chevalley MacDonald. His story was originally meant to be called The Antipodean Time (working title), as it follows The Charm of Time , A Handful of Time , and A Stitch in Time , and was meant to take place possibl...

eans even less time for blogging! Even my ROW80 goals have fallen by the wayside a little, as we're moving apartments! Lots of time spent packing, and finishing up my final essay for school, in between work and family life, before we head off on vacation! Would you believe it, I still haven't shared the photos from last summer's vacation! I think about all you wonderful bloggers, and the posts I'm missing, and I keep saying to myself, just wait until school is over! Until then... Here are some shots from a recent walk through the Geneva Botanical Gardens: The language of flowers Absinthe! Cacti! The language of flowers, and Lady Wortley, who travelled through Turkey Do you have a botanical garden in your city?

hotos of Founex and beyond! And the promised snip... Rainy day roses Early morning roses Another rainy day Rainy days at the Palais des Nations Sunny day! Bus stop roses Spot the peacock... There he is! Food truck! Bastard burgers at the Hamburger Foundation A standard burger... Swaf beer! Swaf is a play on soif = thirsty in French An older view of Lake Geneva/Lac Leman Giant hourglass! Lunch near the giant hourglass Burgers at the United Nations Beach My main ROW80 goals-related writing lately as been my snip for the July writing exercise on the thelitforum . These are the original rules set by Barbara Rogan: "SHOE EXCHANGE: An Exercise in POV “You can never really know a person until you walk in his shoes.” An old saying, but one perfectly suited to fiction writers. We can’t know our characters unless and until we immerse ourselves within them: an act...