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Author Archives: James
Buy the clothes off my back
Source: r.ebay.com via James on Pinterest I’ve given up on trying to make this vest fit my tiny torso. It’s a lovely vest, but it’s doing nobody any favours by hanging in my closet. Please, take my vest.
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Touched by Kiefer
When Kiefer Sutherland and FOX get together, it’s usually not a bad thing. I started watching Touch yesterday and I am completely hooked. This is the anti-24: life is awesome, people are awesome, people in Iraq are awesome, even Russian mobsters are awesome when given the chance to. Warning, the onion ninjas love this show. I’ve needed tissues for every episode. But if you want something to help you believe in humanity again, watch this show.
Charity’s Child–Dark Deed or Virgin Birth?
Charity’s Child by Rosalie Warren My rating: 5 of 5 stars The narrator plunges us immediately into the mystery of Charity’s pregnancy, then takes us back to how it all began, when Charity arrived in town and joined the ‘Crabbies’. Her religious fervour made her an instant favourite with the assistant pastor, and Joanne, the narrator. As the story unfolds and news of the pregnancy comes out, the Crabapple Christian Fellowship is tossed into turmoil. The story of Charity’s Child …
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What is this sorcery?
I was rating things on goodreads, you know, because I need more books to read. (I really don’t, but I have a problem.) I came across a book by ‘Richard Castle’. I asked myself, ‘Richard Castle? Is Richard the first name of the guy on Castle? I can’t remember…’ I clicked on the name and saw this: I don’t want this to be a rant, but my first thought was ‘with all the authors out there trying to make a …
Posted in Books, The Writing Life
Tagged authors, books, castle, pseudonyms, richard castle, tv tie-ins
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Braided, by Elora Bishop
Braided by Elora Bishop My rating: 5 of 5 stars Once again Elora Bishop rebuilds a classic fairy tale from the ground up, stripping back the layers to get to the soul of the story, the core that speaks to us of love and the human spirit. In ‘Braided’, a re-imagining of Rapunzel, Zelda is fated to spend her whole life up in the Holity (Holy Tree), listening to the prayers and wishes of the people of the town. Meanwhile …
Generation WTF
Random Fact About Me: The three most influential TV shows of my formative years were The X-Files, Star Trek: The Next Generation, and Mystery Science Theatre 3000. To this day, I don’t trust the government about aliens, I believe humanity can outgrow bigotry and greed and unite for the common good of joining the galactic community (through science!), and I can’t shut up during all but the most flawless movies.
Posted in Humanism, Humour, My Life
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New Book: The Day of First Sun, by Sheryl Steines
Please enjoy this guest post by Sheryl Steines, author of the urban fantasy novel, The Day of First Sun. Then read on to learn how you can win huge prizes as part of this blog tour, including $450 in Amazon gift cards, a Kindle Fire, and 5 autographed copies of the book. The Strong Female I am always amazed to hear that, in the year 2012, women are still talking about strong female characters. It’s funny that we’re always surprised …
Worldbuilding: Doing It Wrong
Worldbuilding is one of my favourite aspects of writing fiction. I love playing with the what ifs of history, inventing new civilisations and interesting lands. Normally, I spend months putting everything together even as I write, but with my current work in progress I now realise I cheated. I didn’t know I was cheating. When I started my YA book, Terra Paradox, I meant to combine two worlds I had already constructed for previous stories. I was ready to make it …
This Is Not A Cautionary Tale
I have met a few new people, online and off, in the past couple of months, so I thought it would be a good time to revisit the last eight months of my life. Don’t worry, I will sum up. I suppose I can start by pointing out that I’d been gainfully and steadily employed for about five years by June of 2011. And I was clinically unhappy, going from Celexa to Lexapro to Zoloft with a sprinkling of Lorazepam …
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The Place Where Dreams Live
My writing process is very straightforward, if anything about fantasy fiction can be described as such. A novel is born out of a character’s biggest fear or desire, which is usually gleaned from a single concept, image, or question. I usually know what the story’s about and who the character is before I start writing, but not much else. For example, my current work in progress, Terra Paradox, was in the beginning a story about a teenager who found a …
The Case of the Strange Fan Fiction
After a day of slaving over act two of Terra Paradox, I decided that I needed to do some more reading. So I took out my Munchkin (what I named my Kindle) and picked The Hound of the Baskervilles back up. Well, that was working out rather well until I decided I felt like reading some Sherlock fan fiction instead. I’ve made it ridiculously easy to feed Munchkin some fanfic, so away I went. The problem with going on a …
Deconstructing Stereotypes: A+E 4ever by I. Merey
Recently I was given a copy of YA graphic novel a + e 4ever by Ilike Merey from Lethe Press. I am not a graphic novel reader habitually, so I wasn’t sure what to expect. I read it in one sitting, and by the end of it two words came to me that described the experience. Heartbreaking. Beautiful. I found the art to have just the right level of impressionism to it – emotions exaggerated almost crudely, perhaps from a …
