About stories of all kinds
I kept picturing that time, alone during the gloriously slow, unscheduled days surrounded by the muffled snow-quiet, in my parents' house... I sat at the family desktop computer in the living room and watched my words reach out into the world. That was seven years ago. Today.
Frances Hodgson Burnett was born Frances Eliza Hodgson in Manchester, England on this day, November 24, in 1849. If you thought Francis Hodgson Burnett exclusively wrote heartwarming children's stories, that was me not long ago. The Secret Garden, A Little Princess, Little Lord Fauntleroy... even if you haven't read the books, you've likely seen one… Continue reading The Ninth Daughter: A Lady of Quality Review
160 years ago this week, Richard Harding Davis was born. He became an American war correspondent for over three significant wars in his lifetime, also writing short stories and championing Theodore Roosevelt's campaign for the United States presidency. I stumbled upon his work accidentally, finding a copy of Once Upon a Time in a thrift… Continue reading “the one charge you cannot deny”
On this day, March 28, in 1944, Stephen Leacock, humorist and professor of Political Economics at McGill, died. One day last summer, I was possessed of the need to determine where the phrase “he rode off in all directions” originated. A quick Google search introduced me to Stephen Leacock, writer and economist of the last… Continue reading “rode madly off in all directions”
As I was thinking about this season, I decided to post a retrospective of three of my previous blog posts that feel autumnal to me, whether they were actually designed that way or the topic just happens to fit.
I'm not going to come out and pretend I am different from any other person who fell for the fan favourite Eddie Munson from the most recent season of Stranger Things. I knew the actor who played him, Joseph Quinn, from the short-lived run of Dickensian.
No, not Christmas. If you think I am one of those people who eagerly await the Yuletide season with shining eyes and heart of hope, you can rest assured that after the last several such holidays I had, it will take a lot of doing to get me to anticipate Christmas with anything more than… Continue reading It’s the most wonderful time of the year
Challenge yourself. Get out of your comfort zone. Do Hard Things™. Anyone else tired of hearing these mantras and ones like them? It’s not that they’re bad ideas, it’s just that I find the effect of hearing them all the time kind of paralyzing. Let me explain. The mindset of “overcoming” is everywhere in our… Continue reading Don’t Do Hard Things: Just Do Something
All writers are vain, selfish and lazy, and at the very bottom of their motives there lies a mystery. Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither… Continue reading ‘Driven on by some demon’
I am not an outliner or plotter when it comes to my writing. I usually start with a pretty vague idea, or perhaps one scene or detail that is specific, and then just start writing and see where it goes... Which can be a problem when it’s translated to life.
Fictitiously Yours 