I’m a fiction writer. Till this point in my life, I have written fantasy based on myth and legend. Two years ago however, I decided to write a historical fiction based around the legendary Sir Guy of Gisborne from the Robin Hood saga. Those who know of the book and who are followers of this blog will know it derived in part from watching the BBC’s Robin Hood series.
It’s only a few days till Mothers’ Day here in Australia and it prompts me to think about my own mum of whom I’m so proud and who is a bit of a role model!
My mother went to a small Quaker school called The Friends School for all of her academic life. In her time it was an intimate campus but now it is the biggest Quaker school in the Southern hemisphere. One of her favourite classes at that time was art and she showed some dexterity and facility. The images below are from her sketchbook which takes pride of place in our family treasure chest. I always thought it was such a shame that she never followed up on her ability after leaving school before the war. I think the images speak for themselves.
Melissa Smith’s story sent shivers down my spine. Grief is the most profound emotion. It often features in my novels in various ways and I dig into my soul and recall the feelings I had when Dad died. I think you should just read on and see what she has to say…
I’d had a good morning. Dressed in my city jeans, city shirt and city shoes (favourite camel JP Tods bought from the USA), city perfume, city makeup, jewelry, clean hair … you know, the sort of thing you do when you are going shopping. Not dressed up to the nines but a damn sight better than the last five months of aged shorts or farm jeans.
This post was prompted by an idea a friend (EA West.com) had for a trip around the feature settings of various novels. She asked me where I would go and I chose a special place from Gisborne: Book of Pawns and decided to write a travel diary…
Happy Easter everyone!
(NB: Image before photoshop courtesy of BBC/Tiger Aspect Productions)
Moving around the world can do one of two things, it seems to me. It can inspire or it can pull you apart with sadness, longing for the place you call home. Julia Crane managed to make moving work for her. It gave her the time and space she needed to create the book she had always wanted to write. Julia is an Indie Chick, another of that group of women who have not taken setbacks lightly in order to further their careers as writers. Read on…
Last year was somewhat of a milestone birthday and as it passed, I made a mini-Bucket List (sort of child’s beach-bucket size) of all the things I want to do between now and whenever.
It involved things like a helicopter ride to my favourite place. A light aircraft ride to a world recognized wilderness area. Visits to all the parts of this absolutely beautiful state that I have never seen because I’ve been too busy visiting overseas places, or too busy looking after family, or too busy living in cities away from Tasmania, or too busy ‘being’ on the coast. Scuba-diving lessons. (Not sure about this one as I am claustrophobic, which come to think of it may affect the helicopter and the light aircraft, but on the plus side I love swimming underwater.) Climb to the top of Mount Maria and so on…
It’s been over five months since my OH, dogs and I moved to a tiny coastal village to live through the summer. It’s only 30 minutes from our farm and so it hardly made a dint in that side of our lives and from the POV of writing, it made no difference at all because laptops travel … amazingly!
What is a villain?
If one looks up #904 ‘villain’ in Roget’s Thesaurus, it will list a plethora of alternate names ranging from ‘malefactor’ through ‘snake in the grass’ and ‘rogue’ to ‘knave’ and ‘cutthroat’ and many more besides.The word derives from the 1300’s from the term villein from the Anglo-French http://bit.ly/yPB6uF No doubt the upheavals of the peasantry during the Middle ages created a far more sinister meaning to the word.
