C. Rene Astle's Blog, page 6

My road to running

Last weekend, I did a 10K run in my city. It’s become a yearly ritual with some friends: run then go for brunch. But despite the joke that I run for beer, that’s not really true.

My road to running

When I was young, we had something in Canada called Participaction: a series of fitness challenges where, at the end, you’d get a badge based on how you did. I hated it at the time. I was not an athlete and always got the “thanks for showing up” badge.

As for running…I could run up and down a socce...

Books and the joy of accidental discovery

Do you remember what your favourite book was as a child or as a teenager? I know this is an impossible question for many of us, but I realized that mine might not have been normal.

I could say The Velveteen Rabbit (though there was a love / hate relationship with that book…if you’ve read it, you know why). Maybe Island of the Blue Dolphins (based on a true story apparently — something I’m pretty sure I didn’t know as a child). Like many Canadian girls, I went through an Anne of Green Gables p...

Book review: Magic-Price (Crown of Stones Book 1)

Are you a fan of epic fantasy? What about well-crafted stories woven with threads of darkness and touches of adult content? Then Magic-Price by C. L. Schneider might be just the book for you.

It also has great cover art – I’ll admit I might have pre-judged this book by its cover (but in a good way)

Magic-Price is the first book in the Crown of Stones series. I picked it up as part of a “12 days of Christmas” book buying event to support Indie authors at the end of last year — I’ve mentioned t...

Book Review: The Backworlds

I’ve been connected with M. Pax, the author of The Backworlds, on Twitter for a while now (https://twitter.com/mpax1), and I love the articles she tweets. They’re right up my alley — science, archaeology, space…okay, that’s science.

So when I sat down to read The Backworlds, the first book in her Backworlds sci-fi series, I was a little bit nervous. You know that feeling when you really want to like something, but are afraid you might not?

Well, let me say right off the bat, there was no need...

Face blindness, or stumbling across story ideas

Have you ever met someone from work – someone you interact with every day – outside the office, and it took your brain a minute to compute who they were just because you were seeing them in a different context?

I realize it’s not the same, but I listened to one of my favourite podcasts today (Stuff to Blow Your Mind – check it out). This episode was on face blindness (a bit of a misnomer), technically called prosopagnosia.

What is face blindness?

Face blindness is a cognitive disorder where a...

Ghastly words: suggesting sickness with language

I’m a bit of a word nerd. Maybe it comes with being an avid reader and nascent novelist. While writing A Scarlet Fever, it was a great opportunity to put that to use. I kept a running list of my favourite sickly, icky words that hinted at death and disease.

Now I share those disgusting words with you – I’m generous like that. Enjoy!

(Okay I actually think those little fungi are cute, despite their moist, viscous, oozing slime).

Phlegm

Respiratory mucus (mucus makes the list too).

Why is phleg...

Looking the other way

I met someone on a hiking trip once who made the very accurate observation that you often see completely different things walking back along a path you just walked. All it takes sometimes is a slight shift in perspective.

This isn’t a post about travel. It’s not about writing, except insomuch as all writing is about the human experience. It’s about an opportunity I had today that got me looking at things, and people, slightly differently.

My new workplace takes a turn sponsoring breakfast at...