Victoria Ray's Blog, page 18

Aspects of the Novel

No book worth its salt is meant to put you to sleep, it’s meant to make you jump out of bed in your underwear and run and beat the author’s brains out. Bohumil Hrabal, Czech novelist There’s a book called Aspects of the Novel, a series of lectures from E. M. Foster, written in 1927. I haven’t read it myself yet, but I saw a mention about it in the...

Author Interview – Sabina Gabrielli Carrara

I spoke with Sabina Gabrielli Carrara, the author of The Last Witch, about her tricky plot progression, whether she hates this century or no, and what comes next.  CAUGHT BETWEEN MYSTERY and CRIME 1: We tend to know you as the author of the blog Truly Madly Ordinary and thriller/crime novels Field of Lies and Black Souls. At the end of October 2020, you published your next book, the Seacross mystery...

What makes a great reader

Read everything – trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You’ll absorb it. Then write. If it’s good, you’ll find out. If it’s not, throw it out of the window. William Faulkner In every book or story we are reading – we are facing ourselves. As the great J. Joyce said: any novel...

I write what I can write, when I can write it

What do you think about the title of this post? It does sound like you, doesn’t it? Well, why should you stress yourself with all that bloody writing when there are millions of amazing things online – movies about witches, horror series with zombies, historical romances to-die-for, political chats, blaming humanity tweets… Who is creating all this stuff? How do they do it? You don’t have a damn minute to...

Visionary fiction. What kind of world is possible?

Written by OGUNWUMI ABIMBOLA Visionary fiction is a genre that inculcates the idea of science fiction, magic, fantasy, horror, spirits, alternative timelines, and so much more. It’s quite different than just average science-fiction because of the inclusion of spirituality, mysticism, paranormal themes, and psychic phenomena. We can say it’s the combination of science, magic, and spirituality. Esoteric Ancient Metaphysical Visionary fiction also crosses consciousness expansion themes, which have to deal...

Three spooky stories from Lagos

written by OGUNWUMI ABIMBOLA I grew up in Lagos. There was never a lack of spooky legends and myths to keep us in shape; most likely, they scarred us into behaving properly, but who cares? As long as we behaved well, right?

Book Cover

Book cover design is more important than ever, they say

Book Review. Eternal Road: The Final Stop by John W. Howell

Time is endless in thy hands, my lord.  There is none to count thy minutes. Rabindranath Tagore The idea of eternity as it relates to God is an essential concept in any religion. We all know that God is eternally existent = God exists outside the human concept of time, but also inside of time. If eternity can be as long as you desire, this means that life after death...

Being creative is hard

I believe that creativity is some kind of human magic because AI and robots still can’t achieve our imaginary level. However, being creative isn’t easy and doesn’t come naturally. The problems with this kind of magic: it isn’t random, it has nothing to do with inspiration, you aren’t born this way; you can train your brain to be more creative. How? By doing creative work (in your field) over a...

One who seeks

My destination is no longer a place, rather a new way of seeing. Marcel Proust I love this quote. It spreads extremely high energy. It inspires. It shows that new growth is all around us, we just need to expand our ideas, thinking, or outlook. We have to remember – creativity is endless power. And you are the spark needed to fuel a massive fire of truth. Do not doubt this...