Curtiss Ann Matlock's Blog, page 21
January 22, 2016
Book Recommendation: The Basket Maker’s Wife, by Cait London
$4.99 at Amazon. First of a series. I thoroughly enjoyed The Basket Maker’s Wife. The characters became very real to me, and this is my most ardent requirement. Characters are what keep me reading. This novel is filled with people I could like and love and really root for. Each night I looked forward to settling down in bed and reading, and I would read far too long, not wanting to put the book down because it took me away from the stresses of my own world.
The Basket Maker’s Wife is set in a...
January 16, 2016
Gleanings: Pearls from Ruby Dee and William Zinsser
During my rewrites on The Loves of Ruby Dee, I discovered I wrote a lot about dying and living and loving. I didn’t know I knew all this stuff, but I guess I do listen to country music. I found some pearls of wisdom to chuckle over and think about. With some I noted the location in the novel, but others I did not. Sorry.
She could tell Miss Edna things she would never have told anyone else, and she saw no reason to stop just because Miss Edna was dead. (chapter 2, The Loves of Ruby Dee)
She h...
January 11, 2016
Begin Writing With a Feeling
A friend of mine recently had an essay she had written critiqued by a creative writing professor.
“This is a fine piece,” said the professor, “but I don’t know where you would sell it.” His objection to the piece was not so much that there was anything wrong with it, but that it would be difficult to market. I’m sure teaching to write to the market is his job as a writing professor, and thankfully he offered suggestions as to how the piece could be modified to make it, in his view, more suita...
January 6, 2016
Gleanings: Gable, Cameron, and Kafka
In renovating my blog, I came across my Gleanings posts. This one encouraged me so much that I decided to repost it. Hope it does the same for you.
Clark Gable. Wasn’t he somethin’?
Montgomery Clift asked Clark Gable how he would approach his role in the Misfits. Gable replied: “I bring to it everything I have been, everything I am, and everything I hope to be.”
That is what we do when we write, or when we create anything. We bring all that we are in the moment to our en...
January 4, 2016
As a Blogger in 2016
I started blogging back in 2006 for no other good reason than a friend was doing it and strongly urged me to do it. That’s often how I’ve discovered some really neat stuff.
I posted only a few pieces, got distracted and dropped off. I was to do this pattern for a few more years, trying all the main blogging sites, never knowing what I was writing or why, until 2009 I returned to WordPress and writing this blog. There have been interruptions, long ones, but I’ve continued to blog more or less...
January 1, 2016
The Word for 2016…Tidings of Comfort and Joy!
So here I am on New Years Day, been thinking about my Word for the coming year. I’ve been choosing one of these focus words for the past few years. I like to put it on the blog, so that later I can look back and remind myself what my Word is. Along about March I forget. Perhaps I can remember to print it and put it several places around the house.
More than the value of the word, I think, is the process of choosing the word. It helps me to see where I am and what I truly want in my life.
The...
December 19, 2015
Thoughts on Where I Am as a Writer, and where I want to go
It’s that time again, the end of the year, a new one beginning. It tilts one toward evaluation of one’s life. Being who I am, I don’t need the end of the year to do that. Introspective and introverted, I go through it several times a year. Maybe because I always have a sense of getting lost and have to find myself.
I heard a piece of advice this week: “The most important thing a writer can do to help her creativity is to be in touch with herself.” I believe this and have been thinking on it....
December 8, 2015
Once Upon A Christmas…a little romance
With her unique blend of Southern humor and wise insight, bestselling author Curtiss Ann Matlock brings us the memorable character of Olivia Pritchett, a singular woman we love instantly, who is capable of baking biscuits sweeter than any two angels in heaven, make a heartwarming home out of a raw cabin, and to bring Christmas right along with her to the Texas frontier.
Upon arriving in the tiny rustic town, with her two sons and a t...
December 5, 2015
Book Review: Heart of Lies by M.L. Malcolm
I’ve been sick with a virus the past week, which provided a good excuse to lay around and finish a fabulous read I’d like to recommend: Heart of Lies, by M.L. Malcolm. I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and since I’m so hard to please these days, that’s as high a recommendation I can give. Go look for it.
Okay, you want more. Heart of Lies is a fast-paced saga that takes place from the 1920s through to the late 1930s, from Hungary to China to the U.S.A. It focuses on the life of one rare man and...
November 28, 2015
Trust, and the Writing Follows
…or how it turns out from last week.
I’ve been considering this word implementation since last weekend’s post and realized it isn’t a question of implementing or not, but what will I implement in any given moment. Am I going to implement going back to bed or getting up and going to the page? Am I going to indulge my elderly mother or myself and my writing need, my reading need, my puttering need? Am I going to implement trusting my process, or not? The choice is mine.
This week I’ve been thi...
