Molly Ringle's Blog, page 7

Summer depression report from Mordor - er, Seattle

While Texas drowns and another hurricane barrels toward the East Coast, wildfire smoke is filling Seattle’s sky, filtering the sun to a dim orange circle. We’ve had the driest summer on record, barely a drop of rain since mid-June. Heat and drought have rendered all the grass brown and the plants desiccated. Leaves are shriveling up and falling off trees. The “evergreen” Northwest looks not entirely unlike Mordor.

This is all wrong. By now we should have our first rains...

Following tropes or not in fantasy

Something I've been pondering: when reading fantasy, how far do you like authors to veer from established traditions for a supernatural creature? If we're dealing with vampires, say, then they can't NOT drink blood. They aren't vampires unless they do. But can the author change other traditions and still make it work for you? It seems to have been voted a bad idea to decide they sparkle in sunlight instead of burning up, so apparently readers do have limits. :D

I'm not actu...

Fantasy that isn't heavy on the weapons?

The more I read of currently popular fantasy, the more dismayed I am that there tends to be such a huge focus on weaponry and fighting and the protagonists being (or becoming) martial arts geniuses. I stick with some of these books anyway if, such as in The Hunger Games, they're written really well and the plot and characters are compelling. But I've got to admit that violence and weaponry and action scenes are really not my favorite things. They're never the parts I re-read for p...

Giveaway for Persephone's Orchard!

Go to Amazon and win a free ebook of Persephone's Orchard! There will be five lucky winners. And even if you don't win, Amazon's got the Kindle copy on sale for $0.49, so you can enjoy it that way easily too!
May the numbers game be with you.

Special note about advance edition of The Goblins of Bellwater

We have gotten lots of advance reviews for The Goblins of Bellwater, and I must sincerely thank those who have taken on the ARC for review, since we're now actually taking your views into consideration and making a few adjustments. As of June 16, we've posted a new ARC over on NetGalley. It's a new situation for us--like having another and very large group of beta readers--and in some ways it feels like cheating to change things based on prevailing opinions among them. However, wh...

Faery? Faerie? Fairy? A spelling conundrum

We’re down to the final edits of The Goblins of Bellwater, and those proofing it have pointed out that I need to pick what the singular of “fae” is. I mostly have gone with “faery,” though slipped into “faerie” a time or two. Or hang on, should it just be “fairy”?

Well. Not a straightforward “check the dictionary, duh” kind of question, it turns out. Merriam-Webster and others simply list “faery” and “faerie&r...

How to compare documents for changes made between them

Handy tool for writers using Microsoft Word who want to see what exactly they changed from one draft to another:

Tools –> Track Changes –> Compare Documents

Select the original document and the revised document. Et voilà! It makes a new document with your changes underlined/highlighted.

This does require that you save your drafts as separate documents rather than directly replacing the old stuff in the original document. But saving as separate files is a good idea anywa...

Mentioning birth control in romance? (Yes. Do.)

I've been getting early reviews back on The Goblins of Bellwater, and most of them are good (whew). And, as ever, I could not predict what people would say, and I've already been a bit surprised by some comments. For instance, the book got an unusual compliment in this review:

"One of the best things this book does doesn't actually have to do with the story, but the fact that each time any of the characters have sex, either one or both of them have condoms ready. It's expl...

TV rec: Versailles

Netflixing and enjoying lately: Versailles. I don't know my Louis XIV era history well enough, but I'm suspecting this is rather more historical fanfic than actual history. Even so, it's got all the intrigue and gorgeous costuming and insane sex and dreadful slaughtering you'd expect. So, it's a good time. Kind of like a slightly lighter Game of Thrones. (Just slightly. And with a slightly smaller cast. But that's not saying much, I suppose, since pretty much everythin...

Sunflower oil and also (unrelated) the "how to be less bloated" diet

A couple of cooking and diet notes that will be exceedingly boring unless you're interested in cooking and diet.

The cooking note:
Tried and love: sunflower oil for cooking. We've had olive oil, butter, and canola oil around for most of our cooking needs for years, like most people, and those do okay. But olive oil and butter both have low-ish smoke points, so they can get that scorched taste in the pan fairly easy. And canola oil tastes like, well, canola oil, which has never been in i...