Sasha A. Linderson's Blog, page 3

Writing Outside Your Comfort Zone

WriteLife

This week, I wrote a short story for the first time ever. You heard me right! A short story.

One about love, loss, and being forgotten. In other words, a story way outside my usual writing space. I write novels. I write YA fiction. I write historical fiction. A short story about a romance languishing with the passing of time is not my usual topic of choice.

And until this week, I had never even tried to write a short story (at least not one on my lonesome). Not ever. I always told mysel...

Hello, Beautiful

Personal Update

First of all, happy New Year everyone! At the turn of another year, it feels like a good time to finally let loose the little secret I’ve been keeping and tell you why I’ve been a bit distracted from my writing.

I’m pregnant! Nearly 22 weeks, in fact. My husband and I are obviously overjoyed, but I want to share the story of how it’s been so far. Pregnancy is hard. It’s hard for everyone—don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. The pregnancy ‘glow’ is a total myth, and I’m convinced t...

Christmas Reflections

WriteLife

The festive season always provides a good opportunity to reflect on the year that was, and look forward to the year ahead. A lot happened this year. Some of it good, much of it a continuation of the themes from 2020.

Before writing this, I dug up my Christmas post from a year ago. What struck me most, was my optimism.

To quote myself from Dec 2020, “All we can hope for is that 2021 is better than 2020. And, quite frankly, I’m optimistic that it will be.”

Obviously, the pandemic rages on...

The Age-Old Question: Amazon KDP or IngramSpark?

Spotlight on Writing

As many of you already know, we were unbelievably excited to finally release our book, When the Rain Falls, this past week. It was so amazing to be able to share our work with the world. Since then, I’ve been thinking over the experience and decided for this post I would talk about the age-old debate:

Ingram Spark, Amazon KDP, or some other distributor?

A lot of people have shared their various experiences about this, but there were a few key things that were missed which I t...

Hard Work Pays Off

WriteLife

It’s finally happening. Finally. After over a decade, our first novel, When the Rain Falls, is releasing soon (1st of December)! And we are so fricken excited. Between getting the cover back from our amazing designer and receiving the first proof of our book in the mail, we can barely contain ourselves.

All these milestones got me thinking about the journey we have been on to get to this point. The ups, the downs, the twists and the setbacks. And, I sit here (still in lockdown), writing...

The Perfect Book: Prepping for Publication

Spotlight on Writing

There’s a lot happening at Linderson Creations this month. Some of you might have heard that we FINALLY got our cover design for When the Rain Falls back, which was probably the highlight of my month. We had been patiently awaiting this since June, so it has been a long time in coming. Though it took a long time, we knew this from the outset and were willing to wait for a beautiful cover. After all, it’s taken us fifteen years to get to this point with When the Rain Falls, so...

Writing with Momentum. Finally.

WriteLife

Momentum. It’s a funny thing.

One day you’re wallowing the frustration that comes with the dreaded writer’s block. Words fall onto the page in drips. A word here. A sentence there. Maybe on a good day you’ll get a whole paragraph. Some days, you won’t write anything at all.

A few weeks or months go by. And all of a sudden, something clicks. A switch flicks in your brain and the words flow. It’s hard to pin point exactly what changes. But like fresh air filling your lungs, words fill the...

New Beginnings: Starting Fresh with every Chapter

Spotlight on Writing

This week, on our upcoming podcast we talk about beginnings, which seems appropriate as I attempt to forge ahead with a new chapter. Sometimes, it can take several tries before getting the right tone, and for this chapter, I’ve had several tries already.

I often find imagining that first scene of a chapter quite tricky. Where are they? Is it better to start here, or there? What is the most interesting point to begin this scene? How do I move from the opening to the first plot...

Chaos Reigns Supreme: Writing without your Usual Routine

WriteLife

This past month has been tough for me, writing-wise. Our lockdown continues to drag on, with a stubborn tail of cases trailing on into what feels like eternity. And all my usual routines are gone. A typical day for me would consist of waking up and getting to work for 8am. Then I’d float between lab work and desk work until home time. On the way home, I’d hit the pool. Then make dinner and settle into writing—a nice change of pace from my busy day. My mind would be clear and ready to re...

Facing the Fourth Wave

Personal Update

Calgary is currently in the middle of its fourth wave of covid-19, and this has made work life hard. We’ve closed all but two of the operating rooms, and are now running emergency cases only, with all elective cases cancelled to free up space in the wards and (importantly) beds in ICU for covid patients. Many of my colleagues have been redeployed to help ICU, and others to the wards. I have been fortunate enough to remain in the operating rooms for the moment, (which I am grateful...