What’s the Point of Blogging? (in 2024)
I experienced the height of the blog, back when everyone had their own personal blog and some people were making a six-figure income from it. If someone went on a trip, they might create a blog to share pictures. People created blogs to document their baby growing up, or their home renovation progress, or whatever. At the time, blogs were really seen as a kind of personal diary, and when some people made fun of them they’d mock “people who publish their diary online for strangers.” Everyone online would read them. Nowadays, blogs are still being created. But instead of…
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Why Writers Should Exercise: Cycling in Order to Write
I just got back from cycling to an appointment. The strangest thing is how good it can feel to rush through the cool air while exerting to get some place… for some reason, exertion to get anywhere doesn’t sound like fun. If I just sit back and think about it, I’d rather drive and let the car do the work. But I never, never feel happy after driving, and I usually do after I cycle. So exercise is good for mental health. It’s also good for creativity, as Ryan Holiday argues: “[I]n my experience, the physical practice is actually quite…
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Why “Just Do It” is Terrible Advice AND the Best Advice You Can Give
There’s a self-help book called Girl, Wash Your Face, that I haven’t read. But the title says it all, doesn’t it—just take that step. Get to work! Do something! When I say it to myself (even thought I haven’t read the book), I’m telling myself to get on with my day, to get moving. Or take one of the most famous of Jordan Peterson’s 12 Rules For Life: “Clean your room.” When you boil most advice down, it ends up at the same thing: Just do something. Take a step. Yet anyone who is paralyzed by depression or anxiety knows…
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Why Aren’t There More Novels Set in Montreal?
I’ve never read a book set in Montreal. There’s many books set in Montreal. There’s movies set in Montreal. I just can’t think of any. I haven’t heard anyone recommend any, or read any myself. This is in contrast to that other famous French city, Paris. Sometimes I just go to the library and search the catalogue for “Paris,” and read whatever book comes up (they tend to be fluffy romances). But when I do the same for Montreal, I get travel guides or books in French. There just isn’t that same long list of novels set in the city.…
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Freedom to Fail
It’s been a long time since I shared a “Quotables” post. But I came across a quote this week that reminded me of another quotable I wrote on years ago, about failure. That old post was about the incisive power of “what would you do if you knew you could not fail?” to clarify what you really wanted to do. The quote I came across this week is – rather than what would you do if you could not fail, it should be what if you were free to fail. “When you’ve been found, you’re free to fail.” When you’re…
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On Doing Things that Scare You
“Just because something scares me, doesn’t mean I won’t do it,” I told a friend of mine the other day, as a way of explaining myself—explaining why I might push back against an idea and make it look objectively from an outside perspective like I don’t want to do it—and yet I do it anyway. The truth is, almost everything scares me, and if I’d never learned to do things anyway I would never do anything at all. This doesn’t mean I always make good decisions about what to do. Part of why I have a fear response is because…
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My Frustrations Upon Rereading Sense and Sensibility
I was rereading Sense and Sensibility the other day, and suddenly realized it’s not my favourite Jane Austen novel. Any Jane Austen novel is a novel of the highest quality, so to say “not my favourite Austen novel” still means I love this book. But in the past I’ve found I keep forgetting to mention this one when listing off why I love Jane Austen’s works, and now I’ve realized why. The characters are hard to connect with, the relationships aren’t as fully fleshed out as in some of her other novels, and she glosses over some frustrating male behaviours.
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Looking Back on 2021: Author Update from Harma-Mae Smit
Do what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life. Well, it’s not exactly true, but if there’s something you’re passionate about and you can channel your creativity towards that, then you are really making the most of your time. It’s work, yes, but you also get to explore what you love. Over the past year, I had two different projects that really hit the sweet spot between my interests and opportunities to write, and so I thought I’d share them with you here. Besides writing, I have strong interests in both history and theology. And in…
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Why Tour Paris? Reason No. 7: Take in the View from the Sacré-Cœur
Where can you get a lovely view of Paris? From the Eiffel Tower, is one obvious answer (another landmark you can climb is the Arc de Triomphe). But there is another viewpoint that you do not have to pay to go up, where you can sit and enjoy for as long as you wish (perhaps with a bottle of wine). And that is on the steps of the Sacré-Cœur. The Sacré-Cœur is a church on top of the hill of Montmartre. It is the second most visited church in Paris, after the Notre Dame, but it is not nearly as…
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Why Tour Paris? Reason No. 6: Get Lost in the Louvre
In my novella, Paris in Clichés, the characters “race from the Winged Victory to Venus de Milo to the Mona Lisa in the Louvre, with barely half a glance at everything in between.” This is the only glimpse they have of the famous Louvre Museum, and it’s very similar to what many tourists see when they visit Paris, especially if they’re in a rush. But do I recommend experiencing the Louvre this way? No, no I do not. Some guide books recommend caution when visiting the Louvre, describing it as overwhelming. They recommend you ease into it–decide ahead of time…
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Why Tour Paris? Reason No. 5: Macarons at Ladurée on the Champs-Elysées
One image that Paris conjures up is definitely a narrow stacked pyramid of puffy, double-decker macarons in a rainbow of pastel shades: rose, lavender, mint green, cream, lemon yellow. Or these very same macarons nestled tightly in silver-embossed boxes. Why are macarons so deeply connected to Paris? You might have guessed it–this version of the macaron was invented in Paris. The shop they were invented in is named Ladurée, and it was first opened in Paris in 1862. So basically this bakery has existed longer than my home country of Canada. The macaron wasn’t there from the beginning though: in…
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Why Tour Paris? Reason No. 4: Don’t Miss the Eiffel Tower
Paris is so closely associated with the Eiffel Tower that when you see the Eiffel Tower you think of Paris, and when you see the word “Paris” you think of the Eiffel Tower. They’ve almost become synonymous with each other! The Eiffel is so well-known that it would be easy to overlook the experience of visiting it. But visiting the Eiffel Tower is not at all the same as fulfilling your obligation of going up the CN Tower or the Space Needle or some other high point when you visit a city with a tower. Obviously you get a nice…
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Why Tour Paris? Reason No. 3: Bateaux Mouches on the River Seine
Most of the major cities in the world have a river or a waterway nearby, and these can be a big part of what shapes and defines the city. Paris has the Seine, of course. Since Paris began on the Île de la Cité, as we talked about last time, the river actually goes straight through the centre of the city and right past many of the major landmarks. This means a great way to take a tour of Paris is to do it by boat! The boats that run these tours are called bateaus mouches, and they have wide…
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Why Tour Paris? Reason No. 2: Berthillon, an Astonishing Ice Cream Shop on the Île Saint-Louis
One fun way to start deciding what you’d like to see in a new place is to look at a map. You start to realize the layout of a city you had in your head doesn’t always line up with the layout in reality–Oh, the Notre Dame is actually on an island? Oh, the Eiffel Tower is south of the river Seine, and the Arc de Triomphe is north of it? And so on. As I was zooming in on various streets of Paris, I noticed there was not just one island in the Seine, an island which held the…
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Why Tour Paris? Reason No. 1: Shakespeare and Company, A Bookstore as Cozy as You Imagine a Bookstore Would Be
There are two kinds of tourist attractions in Paris: first, the sights everyone knows about, even those who have no interest in Paris (the Mona Lisa and the Eiffel Tower are examples); and second, the sights that everyone who’s looked into what to see in Paris knows about, but outside of that are not necessarily household names. I would place the bookstore, Shakespeare and Company, in the second category. It is internationally famous. But while the name might have a familiar ring to many, I wouldn’t expect absolutely everyone to know what is it without explanation. Image by Sierra Maciorowski…
Keep readingWhy is Reading a Good Story Set in Paris Still a Good Idea?
“Paris is always a good idea.” This was the title of one of my previous blog posts, a post written after I returned from a trip to Paris. It’s also supposedly a quote from Audrey Hepburn, though no one online seems to be able to trace when she might possibly have said it. Either way, it sums up how a lot of us think about Paris–if asked if we’d like to go, we’d say, yes please! However, this year is 2020, and the question remains–in 2020, is Paris a good idea? In a year of hardship and upheaval, is thinking…
Keep readingSomething Wrong
I stood by a street that was eerily peaceful. Four lanes of asphalt, and not a car in sight. I could jaywalk with impunity, which was good, because no one wanted to push the buttons of the crossing lights nowadays. In the park, the serene scene continued. Birds chirped loudly. The grass greened up. Everyone and their dog paced the long, multi-use paths. It was an artist’s impression of a perfect spring day, and yet standing in the middle of it, it felt ominous, oppressive, and wrong. No voices of children called out from the playground. No greetings crossed the…
Keep readingBeing Alone
In April of 2014, I traveled to Paris, France, alone. I mostly did it because I had not succeeded in several things in my life at that point, and I wanted to prove I was at least capable of taking care of myself on my own. Plus, who doesn’t love Paris? And I did learn I could carry myself on my own for two weeks, but I also learned how much resilience it takes to be alone. Before I left, I dreamed of wandering down romantic streets and drinking coffee in cafes, and getting lost in museums. What I did…
Keep readingCompelled to Speak–My Solution When I Feel the Urge to Talk
It is an interesting experience, walking around in the world with thoughts exploding inside your head. They flit by as flashes of insight into what passes before your eyes, or sudden connections between what you hear and what you know, or knee-jerk opinions to what’s happening. Thoughts can float up unpredictably, and seem profound and awe-inspiring. And when this happens, of course you want to speak them. There are times in my life where I feel like I’m going through the world while holding back a torrent of opinions springing to mind. But of course I could never speak them…
Keep readingDid I Achieve Anything in 2018? Top Posts
In 2019 I am starting an author newsletter–sign up here! It’s that time again—time to look at the most successful posts of this past year! You may have noticed this blog has been a little less active these past few years, but this year there is good reason for it—I’ve had several pieces published in other publications! Some of you fellow writers out there may be able to relate to plateauing as a writer for a period of time, and then suddenly making a breakthrough. Or, in other words, finally gaining a greater understanding of what would improve your craft.…
Keep readingReasons for Declining Ebook Sales: My Update on the Ebook Industry, and Musings on My Participation in it
In 2011, I wrote a blog post titled, “The E-publishing Experiment.” This was at the very beginning of my ebook publishing journey, and at the time the hype over the future of ebooks was high. Several ebook authors had begun to make enough money to be noticed by the publishing industry. Bloggers all over the internet were encouraging new authors to jump on this ebook publishing bandwagon. While everyone held some nostalgia for the printed book, the idea was that the ebook tide, spurred by the Amazon Kindle, would just rise and rise and rise—until almost all versions of the…
Keep readingWhat I Learned at my First Local Author Book Festival
When I was a teenager, I ran into a relatively well-known Edmonton author at the Fringe Festival. I recognized him immediately, because his picture was always in the Edmonton Journal newspaper. I was completely unknown to him, but for whatever reason I was compelled to duck and hide, my face burning with embarrassment. It was like I thought he could see right through me, see I wanted to be a writer too, and would laugh at me. Teenage emotions aren’t always rational, are they? I don’t know why I was afraid a “real” writer wouldn’t take an aspiring writer seriously.…
Keep readingGuilt When Reading Books
“Make sure you schedule a few hours a week to devote to reading.” What heavenly advice! Yet somehow the fact this was given as advice shocked me. I suddenly realized I am more used to hearing, “Stop reading and start doing something useful.” But the idea reading should be scheduled into your life feels strange and foreign to me. Reading is “fun”–this is what they repeatedly taught us in school. You’re supposed to do it because it’s fun, not because it helps you live. Maybe this contributes to us reading books less often. It was fair for teachers in my…
Keep readingFinding a Home for Your Writing–The Struggle for Publication, and My Latest Projects!
The way you’re supposed to know you’re a writer–or any type of artist, really–is if you just can’t stop creating. Even if you receive no recognition or payment or readers, you can’t help but write. In fact, the world is so overwhelmed by writers that you’re really advised not to dive into the world of writing unless you truly do feel this drive. Unfortunately, I am one of those people who writes incessantly, whether or not anyone cares. And I understand the struggle to launch bits of your work out into the world where other people can see and enjoy…
Keep readingThree Posts (and Books) Worth Reading
Blogs are supposed to end the year with a top-ten list. Looking back over my year, I realized there are a few posts whose messages really are worthwhile, but I don’t feel the necessity to list ten of them. Here are three, in the order of popularity: You Might Relate to Mary Bennett, but You’re Not Supposed to Imitate Her This is a post about a one-trait character showing all the reasons you shouldn’t be a one-trait character. As I said in this post, I myself have a tendency to view intelligence as my defining characteristic, but I found a…
Keep readingThe Books You Fight With
Jane Austen’s been in the news a lot lately, due to her death happening two hundred years ago. As with most occasions Austen is mentioned, discussion turns to ranking her books. Pride and Prejudice is apparently preferred by the popular vote, while Emma is lauded by the critical vote. And I have no argument with this—I’d put one or the other of those at the top myself, except—what book do I find myself meditating on the most? Which one do I wrestle with, and spend hours studying thematically and artistically? It’s not my favourite book, but it has the power…
Keep readingHow to Find Your Life’s Passion
Just do things. That’s my answer to that question. Just do things. That’s my answer to that question. Most advice about finding your passion tends to be either ‘follow your heart,’ or, ‘don’t follow your heart, they’re lying to you.’ What neither of these pieces of advice take into account is—how does your heart know what it loves? How do you know you’ll love being an astronaut if you’ve never done it? And how do you know a career as an archaeologist won’t surprise you? We all know people who from birth knew what their passion was, achieved it, and…
Keep readingLet the Children Grow Up–They Do in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
‘Neglectful’ was the word tossed around by one reviewer of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Apparently the Professor was neglectful of the children he’d taken into his house during the bombings of WWII, letting them run through his house on their own and not over-scheduling every minute of their day with dance class, extra tutoring, or athletics. Let’s leave aside the fact that a bachelor professor who appears to be entirely unused to children decides, out of the kindness of his heart, to shelter a group of four children seeking refuge from the bombing of London. Such a…
Keep readingYou Might Relate to Mary Bennett, but You’re Not Supposed to Imitate Her
Mary Bennett gets a lot of good press. In Pride and Prejudice, she’s one of heroine Elizabeth Bennett’s three younger sisters, and she’s described as the bookish one. Maybe because readers of Pride and Prejudice tend to be bookish as well, we tend to feel the story overlooks her, and write multiple blog posts and articles and sequel novels bemoaning this. This is in spite of the plentiful evidence Jane Austen herself did not like her. Despite her being bookish, Austen did not mean to point to her as a character that we should imitate. This is astonishing, as the…
Keep readingOut of the Silent Planet Awoke My Imagination – Let It Awake Yours Too
I’ve been meaning to read Out of the Silent Planet by C.S. Lewis for a long time, ever since I discovered Lewis really did write fiction besides the Chronicles of Narnia. Now that I have I can’t resist blogging about it, because it excited me so much to find out how good it was. I rarely review books here, but some books are worth it, and if you’ve been looking for a worthwhile book I’ll write down some things to consider with this one. Out of the Silent Planet always sounded like such an intriguing title, but I probably haven’t…
Keep readingA Few Classics That Are Not Hard to Read
Classics are usually heavy reading. Even if they’re short, the language is unfamiliar enough that they take a long time to get through. But every once in a while you find one that surprises you, and here are three that surprised me. Note: I’m not including any classics described as ‘children’s literature’ in this list. Around the World in Eighty Days, by Jules Verne I just really enjoyed the very punctual and methodical Phileas Fogg racing around the world with his comic French servant, Passepartout. They get into preposterous adventures of all sorts, some of which strain believability but are…
Keep readingMore White Male Protagonists in Scorsese’s Silence
I went to see Martin Scorsese’s Silence the other day and was curious about others’ reactions to it, especially considering the way it discusses Christian faith (and I am a Christian). Reactions to the movie were not hard to find, but scattered among these were many who pointed out Scorsese had made another movie about white male protagonists. And honestly, the movie is about Japan from the point of view of two Jesuit priests–this cannot be denied. However, I think to reduce it to that would overlook some of the value of the movie. Very often other cultures are only…
Keep readingOn Following Your Dreams in 2017
We’re told we should either pursue our dreams at all costs, or quit dreaming and face reality. It’s a new year now–what should we actually do? Open your eyes and take a look around. The truth is, many people do make a living doing what they love, and yes, this even includes the arts. Somehow they support themselves in painting, or writing, or pontificating on architectural theories—how, no one knows, but they don’t look like they’re starving. Many would tell you they knew this was what they were meant to do with their life. They couldn’t be happy doing anything…
Keep readingFirst Draft Depression
I’m doing NaNoWriMo this month–National November Writing Months–that thing where you try to write a 50 000-word novel in a month. It’s good to write a full novel again. But it also reminds me how excruciating the process of creation actually is. The minute you try put that thing in your head down on paper, it just sits there dry and lifeless and so, so far from what it was meant to be. The idea you had was good. That’s why you started writing it. But the reality of your ability to communicate this idea with others destroys all…
Keep readingNo, Let’s Talk About Being a Millennial
“Rhiannon’s life, compared with mine, seems very wobbly. She can never feel quite safe in her home or work; she is generally anxious and suffers from what her mum calls “impending doom scenarios”. … I’m not surprised. I’m only surprised by her and her friends’ general determination and resilience, and their lack of animosity towards people of my age. They confirm my belief that much of the “antagonism” between our generations has been whipped up by whoever labels us and lumps us all together as baby boomers or millennials in the first place. Those ridiculous terms are not helpful, and…
Keep readingDo People Fall in Love Out of Gratitude?
What’s going on here? A romance novel is seriously making the hero fall for a girl simply because she adored him first? “[T]hough Henry was now sincerely attached to her, though he felt and delighted in all the excellencies of her character and truly loved her society, I must confess that his affection originated in nothing better than gratitude, or, in other words, that a persuasion of her partiality for him had been the only cause of giving her a serious thought. It is a new circumstance in romance, I acknowledge, and dreadfully derogatory of an heroine’s dignity; but if…
Keep reading2015’s Top Posts at Stories and Stuff
I didn’t blog a ton, but I did get a few good posts out about stories and writing! So here are my best posts (judged purely on the basis of their popularity with the internet!) from this year: In Jane Austen, Nice Guys Finish First “Authors can easily write their ‘nice guys’ as Mary Sues. I’ve read many novels where the romantic hero is very, very boring. He’s supposed to be the epitome of good, and he is, to the point of dullness. The solution to this, it is said, is to add faults. But add too many faults, and you just…
Keep readingThings I Learned About Love in 2015
Things I learned about love in 2015: I can fall in love. I used to wonder if I could. Then this year happened. Multiple times, sometimes at the drop of a hat, which is not reassuring because: Love is blind. When you’re in love even serious red flags don’t look like flaws at all. When you come out on the other side of it, you’re suddenly terrified because – how on earth did you not notice? Love needs community. The above issue is at least helped by having other people who are not in love to see the person you are…
Keep readingWorldview and Writing
I thought I left off my last post on a rather hopeful note. Turns out people start worrying the minute you acknowledge the world is not a bed of roses, even though we all agreed on that point millennia ago. I think it’s just facing the fact that life is just a precarious teeter on the edge of misery, that’s so nerve-wracking for people to hear. Most of the time we are thankfully and blissfully comforted by being blinded to this. Most of the time, we don’t have to think about this. And if you straight out say life is a…
Keep readingWriting the Tragedy – As Hard as Living It
The place my writing comes from inside me is dead right now. Probably not permanently, but dead for now. I’ve always thought of writing – and reading – as a kind of escape from reality. I’ve blogged about this more than once. There’s a contrary theory of literature that says the good stuff comes from the bad experiences – the emotional turmoil – the realization that reality actually is incredibly ugly. This theory may be right, but I don’t have enough distance from the ugliness to put it in words yet. Maybe I never will. And I know the joy…
Keep readingWhen a Hurricane of Clichés Equals a Great Movie
Today, I’m going to talk about Casablanca. If you want to know more about why I care about Casablanca, check out my previous post, ‘Writing Reality – Or Escaping It’. “Thus Casablanca is not just one film. It is many films, an anthology… And this is the reason it works, in spite of aesthetic theories and theories of film making…Two clichés make us laugh. A hundred clichés move us. For we sense dimly that the clichés are talking among themselves, and celebrating a reunion.” – Umberto Eco (Travels in Hyperreality, and “Casablanca, or, The Clichés are Having a Ball”) For…
Keep readingIn Jane Austen, Nice Guys Finish First
Girls go for the bad guys, they say, and nice guys finish last. If so, then Jane Austen has achieved an amazing feat of literature by creating nice guys you want to cheer for. Nice guys many females claim they’d like to date. Nice guys who aren’t boring, but actually readable. I realized this while reading several people online insist Frank Churchill and Henry Crawford are far more interesting than their romantic rivals (the nice guys who actually get the girl, in other words) – George Knightley and Edmund Bertram. This is craziness, of course. You’d have to be pretty…
Keep readingWriting Reality – Or Escaping It
A quick thought for today: Writers write what’s real. They try to connect with some reality in the readers’ experience, and inspire emotions that complement the work they write. They try to represent the world as it truly is. That is one theory of writing’s purpose, anyway. The problem is, reality really bites. I wanted to improve as a writer this year. I gritted my teeth and tried to dredge up something of reality – bad experiences as well as good (though I’d be the first to admit my own real problems may barely phase anyone else.) I wrote down…
Keep readingJoin Mark Zuckerberg’s Book Club, Rediscover Why Books Matter
Mark Zuckerberg is starting a book club. A Facebook book club, which seems appropriate, considering he is Mark Zuckerberg. BUT he said one very insightful thing that should give everyone hope for millenials – we aren’t necessarily shallow, visual-obsessed youngsters with short attention spans. At least, maybe not if we join Mark’s book club. Here’s what he said: “Books allow you to fully explore a topic and immerse yourself in a deeper way than most media today. I’m looking forward to shifting more of my media diet towards reading books.” The thing is, he is absolutely right. How many times…
Keep readingMust-Reads at Stories and Stuff in 2014
I started this blog in 2009–wow, that’s a lot of blogging! This year was definitely less active for me in the posting department, as I’ve had a lot going on (see Paris, and my Job and Apartment update). However, I refuse to neglect this blog! I love to debate the joy of stories with you all–as both a writer and a reader. Stories need to be not just heard, but chewed over and hashed out between us all before they solidly enter the age-long human conversation. Let’s soldier on with this! So this blog will not die any time soon,…
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How to Catch a Man 101: Show More Affection Than You Feel
AKA Dating Advice from Dear Jane Austen “There are very few of us who have heart enough to be really in love without encouragement,” [said Charlotte]. “In nine cases out of ten, a woman had better show more affection than she feels. Bingley likes your sister undoubtedly; but he may never do more than like her, if she does not help him on.” – Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 6 Here’s the trouble with romance! Let me start off by saying this is not true in most books and movies out there. If you took the romance advice of…
Keep readingUpdate! And Quotes!
Whoa, haven’t blogged for a while! What’s been going on? Well, for one thing – I moved. A huge undertaking, as it turns also. Secondly – I got a new job. I now work in, wait for it… a library! How appropriate! (Where did I work before? Well, actually I sold computers for Microsoft. Turns out having a history degree is surprisingly flexible, and not just for honing your writing skills 🙂 ) Anyway, while I was moving I came across this, which I decided to share with you all. It’s my old high school binder! I (or some of…
Keep readingTell Me About Your Favourite Bookstore
Last Friday The Guardian published a wonderful list of bookstores worldwide – including one from Canada, woohoo! Any book-lover knows there is no shortage of lovable bookstores out there, so which is your favourite? I’d have to say, from The Guardian’s list, I want to visit the bookstore-in-a-van that sells Portuguese books translated into English. Leakey’s, in Scotland, looks worth visiting too. Shakespeare & Company, in Paris, is not included in this list – I have a feeling it might’ve been too cliche to include such a famous landmark. But in case you’ve forgotten, here’s my picture of the place…
Keep readingDo Spoilers Spoil Stories?
Spoilers ruin everything. They rip out ask the suspense and enjoyment, they wreck– Wait, you’re saying people actually like a work MORE if it’s been spoiled for them? Are you serious? This is what Derek Thompson argues in “In Defense of Spoilers.” Apparently, anticipation of a twist can take away our enjoyment of the parts of the movie or book that don’t lead up to the twist. Or maybe we just like predictability. Anyway, research by psychologists has shown people rate stories higher when all the plot twists have been spoiled for them ahead of time. Okay, okay, there’s truth…
Keep readingUseful Words English Doesn’t Have
Anyone who’s ever started learning another language has come across words that just don’t translate into English. My favorites are ‘saudades,’ from Portuguese (meaning a feeling of longing, melancholy or nostalgia), and ‘gezellig,’ from Dutch (meaning a nice atmosphere, but also belonging and time spent with loved ones). Today, Slate published an excerpt from Lost in Translation that lists many more. My favorite is ‘tretar,’ which apparently means a third refill of coffee in Swedish. This sounds like a very useful word! Go check out the original article to find some more useful words we don’t have in English. The…
Keep readingWhy Own Unread Books?
I used to never buy a book I hadn’t read. That was what libraries were for – I didn’t want to buy something that might be garbage. Only after I knew the quality of the book would I buy a copy for myself. However, I have started seeing the error of my ways. Two recent blog posts brought this to my attention. The first – ‘The Virtue of Unread Books’ – argues that unread books are not merely pages on a shelf, but collectively they express an idea. When you stockpile books you’ve already read, Scott James argues, you’re basically…
Keep readingDo You Hear Voices In Your Head? (While Reading)
Do you hear voices in your head? When you’re reading, I mean. Of course I mean when you’re reading. I’m not trying to suggest anyone is crazy… I mean, do you hear voices of narrators and characters speaking out loud in your head when you’re reading? I’d never thought about this before. I’m struggling to remember what I actually hear when I read, but I think I enter the fictional world so completely that it’s hard for me to pin down individual sensations when I snap out of it. However, many people do hear voices. And accents. This phenomenon was…
Keep readingIndependent Bookstores Have NOT Disappeared–They’re Doing Fine, Actually
So it was bad news for a while for independent bookstores–you know, those tiny neighbourhood shops crowded with books and run by a dedicated owner or two. Chain bookstores were swallowing up their business left and right. Thousands closed as big-box retailers like Barnes & Noble and Borders took over (or Chapters and Indigo bookstores, if you’re from Canada, like me). But, in case you haven’t noticed, it’s these very chains that are now in danger from online retailers like Amazon. While your local independent bookstore (the ones that survived, at least) has managed to hang onto loyal customers and…
Keep readingDo You Use ‘Alot’ A Lot?
Hopefully you realized there were two spelling of ‘a lot’ up there in my title, and hopefully you also realized one of them was not grammatically correct. Why not grammatically correct, you ask? I don’t know – the spaces lobby argued we should all use the space bar on our keyboards more often? That is why I was SO HAPPY to see someone finally speak up in defense of ‘alot’. James Harbeck argued today in Slate that just like ‘ahold’ and ‘awhile’ were finally somewhat accepted in English, ‘alot’ is likely here to stay. Whether it’s official or not, whether grammarians…
Keep readingJ.K. Rowling is Not Dead – But Why Does She Want You To Know What Harry Potter’s Up To?
J.K. Rowling, as the infamous Rita Skeeter, wrote a follow-up to Harry Potter. Harry has a new scar. He and Ginny might be having problems. Ron’s hair is thinning, while Hermione’s hair is – still not behaving. And so on. Heresy, you might cry. The Harry Potter series is finished. Who does this J.K. Rowling person think she is, going back and adding stuff? This is just as bad as the time she declared Ron and Hermione should’ve never gotten married, and that Harry was Hermione’s One True Pairing after all. She went and wrote a whole sappy epilogue, naming each…
Keep readingIn Defense of Typing
Whoa, whoa, whoa! Was not my last post about handwriting? How handwriting stimulates creativity and word productivity? Very true, but since then I’ve run across the article, ‘The Joy of Typing,’ which strikes back at the idea that typing reduces the quality of your thought. Typing, the author Clive Thompson argues, does not make us stupider. Handwriting is great for note-taking, he goes on to say, because it prevents us from robotically recording every word we hear, and instead makes us think about how to shorten what we’re hearing into something we can write down. But typing is better for…
Keep readingI Handwrite My Fiction, But I’m Not Stuck in the Dark Ages – I’ll Prove It
Remember back in November I said I managed to spew out 50,000 words in a month in order to participate in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month)? Well, I may not have mentioned those were handwritten words, so really my total of 50,000 was a guesstimate. I have recently been occupied in typing these words up. And the result… well, do you think I over- or under-estimated? Over. Definitely over. I’ve hit 46,000 words and I still have a third of the manuscript to go. Which leads to the question – why on earth would I use such an inefficient method…
Keep readingParis 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 for a least a couple of them, isn’t it? How cliché! A spontaneous trip to Paris to “find myself” – well, not really find myself, but at least learn new things about myself. Specifically, how brave I am to travel alone. And what it feels…
Keep readingWhy ‘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’ and ‘fanfiction’ is not that one is sadly ripping off other people’s characters, while the other is actually coming up with new stuff. Maybe the difference is – ‘original fiction’ is just much, much better at hiding what it’s inspired by. I started thinking about…
Keep readingHow 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 thought that, however good for the ‘human spirit’ athletic competitions are, Olympics costs are ballooning to an unreasonable amount. I mean, couldn’t humanity find something better to do with fifty billions dollars than build some amazing venues that might be only fully used for a…
Keep readingDeadlines, 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 I would. Anyway, I always loved the humour in this quote. Douglas Adams was known for missing deadlines, so it’s nice for all of us procrastinating authors to know we’re not alone. Also, he wrote several popular and famous books, so if your (and my)…
Keep readingObservations 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 there’s a gulf of misunderstandings between men and women that just cause frustration all around! Double-thinking what you do, and being cautious in what you say, are still so necessary… and yet they still build walls in what should just be easy, wonderful friendships. And…
Keep readingRant 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, because of the ignorance of grammar, complete unawareness of sentence structure, and the mangling of words. When “lol” is used commonly by the masses, is it not a sign of society’s decay? Wait, wait, wait, back up a moment. Is anyone seriously nodding along here?…
Keep readingEbooks 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 vinyl records are still being used by music lovers, why wouldn’t printed books stick around for all of us book lovers? And it looks like, so far, the evidence bears me out. I obviously have a vested interest in whether ebooks are read by anyone…
Keep readingWriting 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 good story. Which leads to a persistent belief of writers that writing itself should be easy too. That, when the words just aren’t flowing, something must be wrong with you, as a writer. I always get discouraged when writing gets difficult. Sometimes ideas just flow,…
Keep readingStories 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: 1.) Creativity is the Residue of Time Wasted Creativity – we all want it, we’d all like to know how to have more of it. This was clearly a pithy little quote that explained creativity in a way a lot of people liked. 2.) Ranking…
Keep readingTwo 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 mug? And yes, despite my admitted addiction to coffee, I will never say no to a cup of tea. Or to a long book, unless it is so poorly written as to not be worth the effort. What about you? Get any perfect gifts this…
Keep readingWhen Fantasy is Self-Indulgent
Note: This should’ve gone up Friday. In fact, it would’ve gone up Friday – was all ready to go up Friday – when my computer experienced internet connectivity issues. So, you get to enjoy it today instead! A major part of writing fantasy is world-building – everyone agrees about that. What’s the point of setting your plot on another world, if everything that happens could’ve occurred in the very city you live in without anyone blinking an eyelash? Characters have to act in a realistic other world, a world that is somehow different than the world we live in.* This…
Keep readingRebellion of the Starry-eyed Idealists–Let’s End the Irony!
The next real literary “rebels” in this country might well emerge as some weird bunch of “anti-rebels,” born oglers who dare to back away from ironic watching, who have the childish gall actually to endorse single-entendre values. Who treat old untrendy human troubles and emotions in U.S. life with reverence and conviction. Who eschew self-consciousness and fatigue. These anti-rebels would be outdated, of course, before they even started. Too sincere. Clearly repressed. Backward, quaint, naive, anachronistic. Maybe that’ll be the point, why they’ll be the next real rebels. Real rebels, as far as I can see, risk things. – David…
Keep readingThe Gap Between Your Ambition and Your Actual Terrible Writing
Everyone who attempts to be creative, and writers not the least, know the feeling of envisioning a super-awesome story or artwork or song. Excitement courses through your veins! This will be a masterpiece! And then… you try to create it. It sounds/looks/is terrible. There’s an enormous gap between what you want to create, and what you’re able to create with the skills you currently have. Ira Glass advises us that this is a good thing. I hope he’s right, because I know this feeling all too well. In the beginning, he says, you have to feel your work isn’t as…
Keep readingMy NaNoWriMo Update!
I finished my 50 000 novel. Yay! However, I clearly thought I could keep up with my novel and post regularly on this blog as well, and that… didn’t go as smoothly. But here’s a post to remind all you lovely readers that I have not forgotten you. 🙂 I learned quite a few things from writing a novel in a month (something I never doubted I could do, but still, something I’d just never done before). However, I’ll just outline two things here: 1.) It’s true you don’t have to feel inspired to write. Sit down with a pen…
Keep readingThere’s No Answer To the Question – Why Read?
Still plugging my way through NaNoWriMo (so far on track, by the way, thanks for asking), so it’s another shorter post this week! It follows up nicely to last week’s post on Neil Gaiman’s opinion on the value of reading, actually. Sure, why not fight this argument out some more? We all know reading is valuable, but it’s ironically hard to put into words why. The value of fiction, Gaiman says, is – it’s a gateway drug to reading, and a way to build empathy skills. Now, here’s another perspective on reading from Mark O’Connell, who argues against using the…
Keep readingRiding the Roller Coaster of Story Plots
Since I’m plugging along through NaNoWriMo at the moment, I thought it’d be appropriate to share this lovely illustration from the New York Times that a friend shared with me. Let’s hope there’s not too many unresolved subplots and plots holes in this manuscript, but hey – I guess that’s all part of NaNoWriMo, huh?
Keep readingNeil Gaiman on Reading, Reading Terrible Books, and Libraries
So, at the last moment I decided to sign-up for NaNoWriMo, which will significantly cut in the time I spend writing for this blog. (In theory, at least – I hope I can force myself to churn out terrible writing for a month – sometimes I’m too much of a perfectionist!) Since this is the first day, I’ll point you to another absolutely lovely piece of writing (well, technically it was originally a lecture, but it’s still lovely). It is Neil Gaiman, explaining the value found in fiction. I have trouble explaining to people why reading is so important, myself.…
Keep readingLet’s Call the Ebook Something Else – It’s Not Really a Book, Anyway
“We need a new word for ‘e-book,’” Ed Finn and Joey Eschrich declare in Slate – basically arguing that process of reading things electronically is so fundamentally different from reading the printed word that they shouldn’t be compared. Well, they do have a point. When I read stuff online, I frequently fall down a rabbit hole in a way I never do when reading a book or magazine. I follow link after link, and discover I’ve learned a truckload of information on, say, Les Miserables, when I did not intend to do so when I sat down at that computer.…
Keep readingLearn From the Pros – Read Like a Writer (Not A Reader)
When I teach literature I always tell them, these would-be writers (we don’t do workshops, we just read great books), I say, “When you read Pride and Prejudice, don’t if you’re a girl identify with Elizabeth Bennet, if you’re a boy with Darcy. Identify with the author, not with the characters.” All good readers do that automatically, but I think it’s helpful to make that clear. Your affinity is not with the characters, always with the writer. You should always be asking yourself, if you want to become an expert reader or perhaps a writer, you should always say, “How is this…
Keep readingPractice Makes Perfect?
No–No, It Really Doesn’t This is what we tell our children. Practice makes perfect. In other words–don’t give up. Keep trying, and the world guarantees you’ll get somewhere. It may not be somewhere great, but it will at least be farther along the path to perfection than you were before. That just isn’t true. I think you can hit a plateau, and be stuck there for a long while without getting any better. Why else do you have some authors that have written hundreds of books, with the last one just as clichéd as the first? There are some authors…
Keep reading“You Too?” What Friendship Is, and Why It’s So Hard to Find
“Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: ‘What! You too? I thought I was the only one.’ ” – C. S. Lewis, The Four Loves I’ve always found friendship a tricky thing – I’ve watched other people quickly and easily slide into friendship in a matter of days, and wondered why the process of ‘becoming friends’ always appears so daunting to me. It’d be simplistic and easy to blame it all on ‘extroversion’ and ‘introversion’ (me being the introvert, of course), but it’s more than that. I simply place too much emphasis on that magical…
Keep readingThe Book Doesn’t Exist? Then Write It
About time for another Quotable, don’t you think? “If there’s a book you really want to read but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.” – Toni Morrison I once read a book, hated how it ended, and started writing my own sequel. Now, this was when I was in elementary school, so I never finished this great Canadian novel – but it does show that what you want to read often drives what you write. It’s what still drives me, and often frustrates me as well when I let this get out of hand. For example,…
Keep readingAgainst Grammar – and Other Rules of English
“Why can’t the English learn to speak?” – Henry Higgins, from My Fair Lady I’ve been scaring all my friends lately by ranting on about grammar and how much I hate it. They come to me with concerned looks and say, “But doesn’t grammar help you understand what other people are saying?” And I tell them, “Well, that’s where it should stop. Once you understand a person, it doesn’t matter how they said it.” Why do I sound this extreme? (And, admittedly, I am not this extreme at heart, because the misuse of ‘your/you’re’ does annoy me.) I puzzled over…
Keep readingWhen You Identify With the Antagonist Instead
You usually know who you’re supposed to cheer for in a book. Miss Bingley is not the heroine of Pride and Prejudice. Inspector Javert is clearly in the wrong, clinging to an unworkable view of good and evil, in Les Miserables. Gollum is twisted and pathetic, and his better side does not win out in the end. But sometimes, we know we’re not Elizabeth Bennett. Our darker side is sometimes stronger, and we don’t really appear like a heroine to others. And the thought occurs to me that though I don’t like the antagonist, though I know I’m not supposed…
Keep readingAbusing Punctuation: The Ellipses…
I am reminded by my readers that I have been negligent in posting this summer–I blame it on a parade of weddings, the likes of which I have never experienced before–but you all still deserve my sincerest apologies. I hope a post on a Wednesday alleviates some of my blame. Recently I came across an article on Slate about ellipses… that series of periods, used in a row, like I just typed in this sentence. I was astounded–previously Slate had discussed the em dash, and I’d blogged about how much I love that particular piece of punctuation (as you can…
Keep readingTolkien’s “Take That!” to Shakespeare
Literary Fencing: Tolkien vs. Shakespeare While reading a book about Tolkien this week, I came across the fact that parts of Lord of the Rings were inspired by Macbeth.* Which I’d already known, and was super-obvious to me, especially in Eowyn’s most famous scene. But what I didn’t realize was how much of Lord of the Rings was a direct “take that!” to Shakespeare. Tolkien “rather enjoyed voicing the ultimate Englishman’s heresy of hating Shakespeare altogether.” Yay, Tolkien, join the club! Of course, Lord of the Rings is inspired by tons of other myths and legends as well. But in…
Keep readingIs the Paperback Really Dying?
Maybe It Isn’t E-books are taking over and traditional publishing is dying, or so the current narrative goes. E-book sales are going by leaps and bounds – apparently 2011’s sales were double that of 2010’s- and this clearly doesn’t bode well for the sales of cheap paperbacks. Readers might shell out for nice hardcovers if they want a physical copy of a book. But why shell out for a paperback? Enter the article, “Is the Paperback Dead? Readers Still Love Them, But Publishers Want Them to go Away.” And why do publishers want them to go away? “[B]ecause paperbacks are…
Keep readingWriters Who Don’t Publish Must Be Crazy, They Say
On Authors Who Don’t Publish They’re making a movie about J.D. Salinger – a man known for publishing The Catcher in the Rye, and then nothing else. Or, more excitingly, a man known for writing The Catcher In the Rye, a few short stories, and then reportedly a treasure-trove of unpublished works that could possibly be just as good as The Catcher in the Rye. Imagine if we could read them! Why didn’t he ever publish anything of it? That is what the movie is about. Apparently the idea that anyone could write something, and then never publish it, is…
Keep readingNo post this Friday…
I’m out of town this weekend, so no blog post today! Have a great weekend, everyone!
Keep readingIs Rebellion Necessary for True Art?
“Generally speaking, art is an expression of man’s need for an harmonious and complete life, that is to say, his need for those major benefits of which a society of classes has deprived him. That is why a protest against reality, either conscious or unconscious, active or passive, optimistic or pessimistic, always forms part of a really creative piece of work. Every new tendency in art has begun with rebellion” – Leon Trotsky Whoa, here I go quoting Leon Trotsky, of all people! Don’t worry, I haven’t turned into a Marxist/Trotskyist/whatever-type-of-communism-is-currently-fashionable. I’ve always resisted the idea that art is always…
Keep readingCreativity is the Residue of Time Wasted
Creativity is the residue of time wasted. – Albert Einstein* Sometimes time wasted is just time wasted. And sometimes time wasted ends up being creativity. Why is this? Well, creativity is a funny thing. You don’t always know where you’re going to end up when you start. You might find yourself in a lot of dead ends before you get somewhere interesting. And so your endless scribbling at your desk, or your doodling, or your songwriting might look a lot like time wasted to everyone else. This is the difficult thing about creativity, and it’s part of the reason the…
Keep readingPeck Out Her Eyes, She Deserves It!
Vindictiveness in Fiction Some versions of Cinderella end with her ordering her bird-friends to peck out her stepsisters’ eyes. Yes, the sweet, lovely Cinderella whom we all heard about as a kid – though clearly not the Disney version. Apparently she decided to take revenge and punish her sisters by blinding them in the most gruesome way she could think of. Or, in other versions of the story, exiling them to the wilderness, or forcing them to be slaves. I always preferred the endings where she invites her stepsisters and stepmother to live in the castle instead, and teaches them…
Keep readingHaven’t You Heard of Lincoln’s Doctor’s Dog?
Haven’t you heard of Lincoln’s Doctor’s Dog? It is the world’s biggest bestseller, or it should be, if this old saying from the publishing industry was true. Apparently book about Lincoln, books about doctors, and books about dogs all sell extremely well (at least before the internet came along, and fell in love with cats instead…) So clearly a book about all three of those things should be amazing. Everyone knows this is a kind of silly way to look at manufacturing a bestseller. I agree, and so does the Amrah Publishing House – their latest post, Manufacturing a Bestseller,…
Keep readingThe Pleasures of Not Writing
“The pleasures of not writing are so great that if you ever start indulging them you will never write again” —John Updike. This quote grabbed me because it is something I’ve been struggling with a lot lately – I’ve managed to keep writing a fair amount, but each step is a momentous struggle of motivation. This isn’t uncommon for writers, I don’t think. Every once in a while it just seems far easier to quit trying to pour out your soul on paper. And everything else starts to look more attractive than staring at a blank page – going out…
Keep readingHow a Non-Existent Word Got in the Dictionary
Last Friday, we have some fun looking at potential new English words, and how the English language is changing. Since then, I ran across the delightful story of the non-word ‘dord,’ a word you’ve probably never heard of – because it isn’t actually a word. But for eight whole years it was included in Webster’s New International Dictionary. ‘Dord,’ the entry read, ‘n, Physics and Chem. Density.’ But it wasn’t until eight years later that editors at the dictionary realized that neither physicists nor chemists used any such word for density. What actually happened was that someone suggested ‘D or…
Keep readingWhat, the English Language Changes? Literally?
First, a somewhat related note – check out my story ‘One House, Six Decades – Three Generations’ on the new CBC Hyperlocal site. The CBC, our venerable old Canadian broadcaster (for those of you who aren’t Canadian and didn’t know), wanted stories of change from Canadians across the country – change in people and places, not the English language, but still interesting. Since I have the rare and fortunate position of living a house that’s seen three generations of my family, I wrote about the changes its seen throughout the years. Please check it out, like it, or share it! …
Keep readingThe World Is Better On Coffee (But It Won’t Make You Write Better)
“Many people claim coffee inspires them, but, as everybody knows, coffee only makes boring people even more boring.” – Honore de Balzac, On Modern Stimulants Coffee won’t make you write better, but it might make you feel better. A large cup of coffee every morning, laced with cream and sugar and carried with me in a leak-proof travel mug, gives me just that extra perk to cross over from sleep to waking. It is the ever-so slow, ever-so steady infusing of euphoria into my veins. At its very peak, everything seems possible, every achievement looks within reach – and so…
Keep readingArgue Your Way to Knowledge!
“Where there is much desire to learn, there of necessity will be much arguing, much writing, many opinions; for opinion in good men is but knowledge in the making.” – John Milton According to Milton: the desire to learn -> opinions -> knowledge. In order to arrive at knowing something, you have to make the leap to where you think you should stand on a subject. It seems more logical to get the knowledge first, then decide what your opinion should be. But Milton is right – once you have to defend your position, write it in words, and fight…
Keep readingRanking Jane Austen – Is It Possible?
Emma Mansfield Park Pride and Prejudice Sense and Sensibility Northanger Abbey Persuasion Is this a sensible way to rank Jane Austen’s books? As far as I can discern, this is how Adelle Waldman ranks them, in “I Read Everything Jane Austen Wrote, Several Times: Here Are Some of the Many Things I Learned.” Fans of Jane Austen, of course, can argue for hours about which of her novels are best, and non-fans are probably just surprised she wrote more than Pride and Prejudice. But this particular ranking is unique enough that I feel compelled to comment on it. In general,…
Keep readingMaking Fun of Readers?
I would never make fun of anyone who loved to read. – Juliet Ashton, in The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society People who love to read get made fun of, sometimes. This is probably leftover from childhood, when the bookworms were thought of as kids who sat in the corner and had no friends, while the ‘cool kids’ boasted about how much of Animal Farm they didn’t read. So I would never, never make fun of anyone who loved to read. It’s too much of a life pleasure to make someone embarrassed about doing it. This is probably…
Keep readingI Wish I Could Write
I wish I could write well. What do you mean? you say to me. You’ve got a blog. Of course you can write. But I still wish I could write well. If you’ve been following my blog lately, you probably noticed I’ve been posting less. It’s not because I’ve run out of ideas. I always have ideas. It’s because I’ve run out of confidence my ideas need to be written. I can write as well as the average blogger, maybe better than some, and worse than others. I can write short, entertaining little stories that some lovely people shell out…
Keep readingAdvice for an Introvert in Fiction
“I certainly have not the talent which some people possess,” said Darcy, “of conversing easily with those I have never seen before. I cannot catch their tone of conversation, or appear interested in their concerns, as I often see done.” “My fingers,” said Elizabeth, “do not move over this instrument in the masterly manner which I see so many women’s do. They have not the same force or rapidity, and do not produce the same expression. But then I have always supposed it to be my own fault — because I would not take the trouble of practising. It is…
Keep readingConcerning Hobbits – Why We Love Them
“You do not know your danger, Theoden,” interrupted Gandalf. “These hobbits will sit on the edge of ruin and discuss the pleasures of the table, or the small doings of their fathers, grandfathers, and great-grandfathers, and remote cousins to the ninth degree, if you encourage them with undue patience. Some other time would be more fitting for the history of smoking!” – The Two Towers, by J.R.R. Tolkien I just really love how clearly hobbits’ character comes through here.
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