Bryn Colvin's Blog, page 3

Conscious Choice

For me, what matters most is action. While action comes from will and intention, those aren't always knowable. Action can be seen, judged, responded to. Action has a tangible reality in the world, far more significant than the interesting, ephemeral nature of belief and ideas. It is not enough to believe. It is not enough [...:]

Top Down or Bottoms Up?

Most thinking is top down, in terms of organisation structure, politics, and ideas about economy. Power and money accumulate at the top of the heap, and in theory, enough trickles down that the people at the bottom are ok. A fleeting glance at the world is all it takes to demonstrate that this really doesn't [...:]

Busker's Tales

I started busking when I was fourteen, taking a melodeon onto the streets of Gloucester, and picking up small change. I did pretty well, when I could afford the time to go. These days I either take the bouzouki or the violin. (anyone curious about what I do, have a look at www.youtube.com/mistressnimue for more [...:]

The Garden of Hesperides

The Garden of Hesperides http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hesperides is a mythical place from Greek legend, inhabited by nymphs and apple trees. It's supposed location varies, although I did find one reference that placed it as possibly being in Spain. The Garden of Hesperides is one of those Utopian places, full of beauty and delight. The magical apples are [...:]

Garden Ritual

I haven't used garden settings a great deal in fiction. Having written about divination in stories, I went on to consider what I do with this theme while making things up. Usually my characters are either in human environments or natural ones. The odd, inbetween state of gardens has discouraged me from featuring them much. [...:]

Cover Story

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While I don't always indicate that my settings are real places, usually I'll have somewhere real in my head as I write. It helps me keep the details coherent, and gives me a sense of location. Places I've visited, and lived in, frequently inspire bits of story.

When I was working on 'Dreams Come True,' the setting in my head was Gloucester (UK). It's a place I know well, having lived about 15 miles down the road as a child, clubbed there in my teens, and spent time visiting my father there as ...

Wild Gardening

Living in a house built (I think) in about the 1930s, I'm blessed with a lot of garden. Modern build in the UK tends to include very little in the way of private green space by comparison. I live on the side of a hill, on heavy clay soil, and my garden is a jungle. [...:]

Contest!

CONTEST: email cherilynn5@verizon.net a poignant, comical, tragic . . . or any anecdote that has something to do with being a mom, having a mom, trying to be a mom, or anything you want about mothers, and   WIN  A  FREE  eBOOK in honor of MOTHER'S DAY.  In Kumquat Did you Say? I ask: Who said having a baby isn't butch? Kumquat, Did You Say gives new meaning to the adage, "Be fruitful and multiply."

 Vicki may wear the pants, but this butch wants to give her wife a baby anyway. It's possibly...

Gotta Love a Werewolf! by Sarah Masters

[image error]There's something about werewolf stories, isn't there? The danger, the thrill that when the full moon arrives the man changes into the beast. In my series, The Unusual, my werewolf is just that. Unusual, because he can control his change times, becoming a werewolf at will. That's handy for him, because he's a killer out to take trophies from his victims and present them to Lee, the man he loves. In his warped way, he thinks the object of his desire will understand why he receives various...

Creating a psycho

I thought it might to be fun to share some histories of where my characters come from – some of them having enough story to be entities in their own right.

Jade, from Heaven and Hell, has been with me for quite some time. She first arrived in my life when I was about 17, via a magazine image of a blonde woman in a dark green velvet suit. Jade as a name, was there from the start. I tried writing her in a number of ways. I have embarrassing recollections of an angsty, bloodsucking vampire thing ...