Michelle Athy's Blog, page 12

Romanovs Part 3: House Arrest and Tobolsk

Last time on the Romanovs... Nicholas II, former Tsar of all the Russias, has abdicated and finally arrives home to the Alexander Palace. The Alexander Palace, main home of Nicholas II and his family By Alexei Troshin. Nicholas returned home to be placed under house arrest. No longer the tsar, he was addressed as "Colonel Romanov" or "Citizen Romanov." Nicholas II in 1917, during house

Happy 10th Birthday, blog!

I cannot believe it's been ten years since I essentially pulled an all-nighter, made an account on Blogger, and wrote my first blog post. At the time, I just wanted a central Internet place to post a story I was working on so my friends could read it at the same time. That was it. Happy 10th Birthday to the blog!! via GIPHY via GIPHY via GIPHY In 2009... -Blogging was pretty popular

A Plot Bunneh Question

Guys, I have a quick question: Okay, so as stated in a past post Stately, Country English Houses, part of my latest Plot Bunny involves a smallish country house built in the Victorian era. The house belonged to an old woman, who inherited it from her parents. Now, the old woman's family is trying to decide what to do with the house. Do they try to build up a case to get it listed in the register

IWSG February 6th

It's time for IWSG Wednesday. The Insecure Writer's Support Group posts their writerly insecurities out to the world every first Wednesday of month! Check out the group here. February's question is: Besides writing, what other creative outlets do you have? Writing is my main creative outlet. Sometimes, I think it's my only creative outlet since I can't draw, can't dance and can't sing on

Romanovs Part 2

Part Two of my Romanov-related blog posts! Nicholas II at military headquarters. Courtesy of: Romanov Family 1915: Nicholas II is at military headquarters, commanding the Russian army. He's left his wife Alexandra in charge of the governing of the empire. Alexandra hates Nicholas's ministers, appoints her own ministers (at the advice of Rasputin), and the extended Romanov family pick

Romanovs Part 1

It's occurred to me that there are probably people who aren't familiar with the Romanovs and since I recently saw Anastasia on Broadway, read a novel a few months ago which was an alternate history of the Romanovs, and yes, the FrankenIdea has a Romanov-related strand in it, I may as well blog about 'em. The Winter Palace, St. Petersburg. By Alex Florstein via Wikimedia Commons What follows

Anastasia The Musical

Tonight I went to see Anastasia The Musical! I've actually been wanting to see the show for a while, but kept putting it off, figuring I already knew the actual history of Grand Duchess Anastasia and her family and I knew the animated version from my childhood. I've had a fascination with the Romanovs from about junior high school--probably just after the animated film came out. There's

Two Weeks into 2019

It's exactly two weeks into 2019 and this is what I've been up to: -a sinus infection, yay! -I haven't finished reading a book yet, but I'm 40% into Midnight Riot and 112 pages into Becoming. -My FrankenIdea continues to FrankenIdea away! -I've been watching Marie Kondo's program on Netflix ("spark joy!") as well as Midsomer Murders -The Midsomer Murders episodes are because of this guy, the new

Stately, Country English Houses

My plot bunny--which has been hopping around since about October, I think--is sort of shaping up to be a historical fiction/alternate history/contemporary dual storyline/time slip/romantic elements kind of mishmash thing. As my friend Krystal Jane Ruin says, it's turning into a FrankenIdea. I don't have a ton worked out about said Plot Bunneh--I don't even have characters' names yet--but I do

IWSG: January 2019

It's the first Wednesday of the year, so it's time for the Insecure Writer's Support Group! It's a new year! The Insecure Writer's Support Group is a large group of writers coming together on the Internet to discuss, support, and promote the craft of writing! Check out the group at the website here. With a new year, there come some new things and then old things, right? A person and their