I am a contributor to the infinite stream of information that gets poured into the web each day. This is my official blog. In addition to blogging, I publish ebooks, write articles, and volunteer my editing skills to non-profits. But this is not your typical writing blog – I talk about what I like and don’t like in books, and you can take from that as you will. The how-tos of plotting, characterization, grammar and all the other nuts and bolts of writing have already been covered endlessly, so let’s stake out some new territory at Stories and Stuff, shall we?
I originally set up this blog to share my stories, which is why you’ll see a ‘Stories’ tab up there at the top. But otherwise I blog about stuff: books (mostly), ‘Why Healthy Romance Makes Bad Novels‘, ‘The Lost Art of Reading Dictionaries‘, the frustrations of writing, and the phenomena of singleness.
One last note – being a good little history student, I’ve had it banged into my head that I have to talk about what perspective I’m writing things from. So what eyes am I looking at the world through? Well, I am a Christian, a female, a Canadian, and a current university student. If you’re interested in my Christian perspective on stuff, check out my other blog, Somente a Deus. But this should give you some idea.
Harma-Mae Smit is currently surviving your typical tumultuous twenty-something years, but through it all has clung to three constants in her life: God, travel and writing. Despite her strong Dutch-Canadian roots, she’s discovered a small piece of Brazil in her soul after venturing onto the South American continent. Her love of travel, though, is rivalled only by her life-long love of writing. Her fingers felt the itch even before she could spell, requiring the conscription of her mother to spell out every word of her story that had to be written.
Top 10 Posts:
- The Case for Ugly Romantic Interests
- Breaking the 10 Simple Rules for Writing a Novel
- Do You Need to be Younger than 40 to Write Great Novels?
- The Trouble With Modern Romance
- Healthy Romance Makes Bad Novels
how did you learn the craft of story telling..i need any advice or tips.
Hmmm, well, I mostly learned by trial-and-error. I read a lot of different authors, decided why I liked some stories and not others, and tried to put that into my writing. My first writing was awful… the only way you really can improve is to keep at it and write lots and lots. There’s also plenty of writing tips online if you google it, eg: “show, don’t tell,” etc.
Hello, Harma. Thanks for “Liking” my whimsical little poem about talking to the animals, especially since nonfiction, rather than poetry, is my principle genre. Anyway, I have a lame question for you. I’ve noticed on your site and a few other blogs that you have a Blogroll in your sidebar, and I cannot figure out for the life of me how to add it to mine. Also, I like that your Recent Posts (and your Blogroll) are bulleted, which I also like. Any tips for a 65-year-old author who is still fighting his way into the electronic world?
You are so awesome…I am happy to meet you…Its nice to meet a writer around my age group…:) cool blog.
Thanks for visiting! According to your blog, you have quite a few things on the go besides writing. Good to have a variety of skills to sell
I’m so happy about you and your blog. I do realize you’re improving your skills as a writer day by day. Keep writing while i keep reading your stories! Greetings from Brazil!
Hello Marcel! Glad to know you’re reading my blog, and thanks for your comment. I miss Brazil and everyone there
This is so cool Harma! I happened to notice a link from facebook and have thoroughly creeped your blog for the last hour! Awesome stuff – of course I fell to reading your little addition to Emma – great! Oh dear… I seem to have gone a little exclamation mark happy… it does happen…!
Thanks for coming to look around! I wouldn’t post publicly online if I didn’t want people to creep around, so feel free to look away! I’m glad you enjoyed it!