Suzanne Strong's Blog

Been listening to Jane Austen on audible

Hey everyone,

It has been a while since I have blogged. I have lately been listening to Jane Austen novels on audible.com. It has been so inspiring for me as a write, especially in the area of dialogue.

I have been immersing myself into the language and dialogue of Jane Austen’s world. She is a master of creating perfectly timed, perceptive, insightful and character revealing dialogue. So, for me it has been amazing to be surrounding myself with this. Audio books are great as you can take them wherever you are and you can be enjoying a book while cooking or driving (obviously safely). It has been extremely inspiring for me.

I recommend reading Jane Austen or listening to her, if you want some inspiration. Or other books anything that gets you going. I definitely still love reading physical books and I do this all the time, but I am enjoying doing this at the moment. Thanks for reading. I am also finishing some editing and writing of my second novel and I am excited about this.

Have a great day!

Suz

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Using voice over for editing your novel…

Hey guys,

I wanted to just share that I am still doing editing on my third novel, Particularly, I wanted to share that a good method for this, if you are a writer is to hear your work read out aloud.

I have used a website named Revoicer.com and it has some realistic AI voices that can read with different accents. Or you can do it in word I believe and in some PDF programs as well.

What is really useful is to hear your words read aloud, as you can see if this flows, did your imagery work, the cadence of the sentence structure, was it jarring?

I just listened to my first chapter, and I don’t know if you have ever had this but if you haven’t read it for a while it sometimes surprises you what you have written. Haha….

Regardless, I feel like it is a really good way to edit and revise your work, if anything stands out that you don’t like you can go back and edit the text. These programs are good for this now, I mean they are stilted somewhat, but that’s okay. You are revising.

Anyway, I just wanted to share that. I am hoping to get some of this editing done soon and then I will be getting a final edit, as I have already done a process with an excellent editor Jordan, from Scotland. I found him on Reedsy.com. He was brilliant with developmental and copy editing for my next book.

Anyway, until next time, have a fab day!

Suz

Where the Sun Rises – no.15 Best Seller in Canada Amazon

Hey guys,

Nice to see Where the Sun Rises in a category I have not seen before, Syrian history, which I think is a great category for my book. I hope you are all well and having a lovely day.

Suz

Lola in the Mirror – what a brilliant book so far! Trent Dalton :)

Hey guys,

I am now reading Lola in the Mirror after finishing a Marion Keyes book called My Favourite Mistake. Trent Dalton is skillful at bringing the abstract into every day events and uses fanciful imagery to tell our human stories, ones of pain, love and life. Reality. Speculative Fiction. I am enjoying it a lot! I know it took a while to get around to it but I had to finish Les Miserable first which took aaagggges!! Haha…

I am still editing and rewriting my next novel and enjoying this process as well. I am looking forward to feeling like it is close to finished and sending it out.

Anyway, happy reading, writing and living!

Suz

A Creative Collection Review :)

My book Freedom Writing is available as an audio book on Google Play

https://play.google.com/store/audiobooks/details/Suzanne_Strong_Freedom_Writing?id=AQAAAEDypHHkkM&hl=en

Les Miserable – finally finished :)

Hey everyone, after about 18 months of reading I finally finished Les Miserable! It is 1220 pages long and he has written in detail about many aspects of France – the revolution, including sewers, slang, social customs, some of this detail I read and some I didn’t read. There was detail about the Napoleonic wars – so much detail – he felt he was a historian as well as telling an amazing story.

Hugo’s characters were very well developed, but also extremely nuanced and complex. I love the story, the characters and how he shows the story of grace, forgiveness and turning the other cheek so beautifully.

I felt a sense of accomplishment after finishing it, because it was written in 1862. Hugo’s sense of social justice, his comment on society, poverty, people from different walks of life I found compassionate and brilliant. His philosophical comments were very interesting – it is truly one of the best stories ever told.

Hugo also, was a campaigner against the death penalty and slavery, he was did more than 4000 drawings, he produced many short stories, poetry, essays and other novels, such as the Hunchback of Notre Dame. His career spanned 60 years. I really enjoyed living in his mind for all of that time and I see the world similarly to Hugo in terms of social justice and spiritual beliefs about God etc. It was a rich blessing to me but I am relieved that I can now read a more modern novel to just cruise through the language etc and plot easier. Haha.

I am now reading Marian Keys, she’s always great to read for a light read.

Thanks for reading! Suz

My book for free for the next few days…

Hey everyone,

Where the Sun Rises is free for the next two days, click on the link above if you are curious about having a read! Have a great day! Suz

My Review of Sometimes a Soldier Comes Home! Beautiful Book!

Freedom Writing – no. 6 Best Seller Amazon