Author: harmamae
-
Paris is Always a Good Idea
“Paris is always a good idea.” – the internet would like to believe this quote is by Audrey Hepburn* It’s been a while since I updated, hasn’t it? And definitely for some of those weeks I didn’t have a good excuse, but I’d like to believe a spontaneous trip to Paris is a good enough excuse…
-
Why ‘Write What You Love’ Means All Fiction is Fanfiction
Fanfiction gets a bad rap. Some of it is deserved, of course, but what else do you expect from amateur writers scribbling basically for their own amusement? Of course you’re going to get purple prose, authors inserting themselves into stories as Mary Sues, and unrealistic and uncomfortable situations. But maybe the difference between ‘original fiction’…
-
How the Sochi Olympics Illustrate the Value of Books
The big news when this set of Olympics started in Sochi was how much the whole thing cost – fifty billion dollars! – and cue predictions of how these fancy Olympics venues would all fall apart in a decade or so from lack of use. Okay, okay, I can definitely get in line with the…
-
Deadlines, Oh Dear
“I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by.” Douglas Adams (author of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy) Apparently this is me as well, even with arbitrary deadline I set for myself! In other words – no post on Stories and Stuff last Friday, even though I promised myself…
-
Observations on Being Single, Revisited
I wrote a post for Valentine’s Day a couple years back, and clearly felt I’d said everything I’d needed to say about it, because I never wrote another one since… and this year, I thought I’d look back on it and see if I still felt the same way. I do. I still feel like…
-
Rant on “Ruining the English Language”
All those crazy kids on the internet, jibbering in text speak and handing in essays with hashtags in them, are a menace to the venerable old mother tongue, the tongue we all speak and most of the world speaks… a language known as English. A respected language that is beginning its slow slide into decline,…
-
Ebooks Have Not Killed the Printed Book (Yet)
Two years ago, I asked the question, will ebooks replace the printed book? Will we turn into a world of readers who stare at the glowing screen, instead of burrowing our noses in the musty pages of a hardcover? And I predicted that the good old printed book will never go extinct. Not completely. If…
-
Writing Is Difficult!!!
“A writer—someone once said—is a person for whom writing is difficult.” – peptalk from Lev Grossman, during Nanowrimo A writer with real genius makes writing a book look easy. When you read the book, you don’t feel all the blood and sweat and tears the author poured into the manuscript – you just follow a…
-
Stories and Stuff’s Top Posts in 2013
Three years in and this blog is still going strong! And that’s all thanks to all of you, my dear readers, who keep coming back and reading, commenting and sharing. Virtual confetti, balloons and champagne to all of you! Here’s a summary of the top five most popular posts Stories and Stuff had this year:…
-
Two Impossible Things to Get in Life
“You can’t get a cup of tea big enough, or a book long enough, to suit me.” -C. S. Lewis Don’t you love it when people know you enough to get you something for Christmas that’s just perfect? Here’s something that combines three things I love: C. S. Lewis, tea, and books. Isn’t it a great…
Hmm... 