Image by Katerina Kerdi, Unsplash Taking a page from an article I read on The Writer blog: Resurrect your darlings: How to recycle deleted material from your manuscript, I decided to ‘resurrect’ some of my deleted material from the original MISTY DREAMS draft and post it here. This is the second in the series. For… Continue reading An Unexpected Visitor
How many times do we come across an image that reminds us of something we experienced in the past? Imagine a vast green field scattered with bright red poppies as far as the eye can see. It may sound unoriginal and travelblog-ish, perhaps, but for me it has great meaning. Poppies represent one of the… Continue reading Fields of Poppies and Other Childhood Memories
The Midnight Library, By Matt Haig (Spoiler alert!) As a fiction reader, I want to read books that are all-absorbing and make me forget the negativity of real life, stories that even if they aren’t all smooth sailing, pull me in and uplift my spirits. It has never crossed my mind to read a book… Continue reading Book Review
Photo by Mishelved from Pixabay Dad, I thought of you today, and for some reason my memory whirled back to the first few days we settled in a new country, after mom and I joined you there. We were so happy to be reunited! We hadn't seen you in ten months, but it had felt… Continue reading THE DESK
Photo: Artem_Apukhtin from Pixabay There are so many things I was unaware of when I started writing my romance novel, things that would have saved me a lot of time. But at the time I was writing for my own enjoyment. Not that I didn’t aspire to become a published author; I just didn’t think… Continue reading Things I Wish I Knew Before Writing a Book
"Cape Town, 22nd June, 1974: My life changed the minute I boarded the M/V Europa on a cold Saturday in Cape Town Harbour, on my way back to Italy after thirteen years in South Africa. Laden with coats and bags, my family and I made our way through the crowds, followed by the group of… Continue reading A Writer’s Nostalgic Musings
Image by Ylanite Koppens from Pexels As a self-published author, I have developed a new appreciation for book reviews. I have always been a voracious reader, but before I became a published author I seldom left a review. The books I usually read were written by established authors, authors whose books amasses hundreds, if not… Continue reading OUR WORDS MATTER
As a young girl I wanted to be a flight attendant so I could travel on the cheap. But I got as far as working briefly for a travel agency that, alas, offered no travel perks and paid badly. Perhaps the failure to fulfill my dream is the reason I've always loved writing about places… Continue reading Embrace the Stillness
Writers love using pets in their novels. Not only is it great for character development, but it adds an extra element of emotion and makes the story more enjoyable. Even some book or movie villains are dog or cat lovers, though they tend to prefer cats, perhaps because cats are not as heroic as dogs,… Continue reading Monkey Business
How many authors or aspiring authors have a pile of unfinished manuscripts stacked in a drawer or on their computers? How many of them were so sure each one of these would be their best work yet, only to lose interest after a few thousand words?
I’m in danger of becoming one of those. A serial discarder. A quitter.
Experts say it’s hard to get back to writing fiction when you’ve been away from it for some time. In my experience, I find that the opposite is also true. I spent so many years writing the same book and now that it’s finally published and I’m ready to move on to my next one, I find that it’s more difficult than I had anticipated. I’ve been hit with the infamous writer’s block. My problem, though, isn’t not being able to write; it’s not liking what I write…
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