Jennifer Malin's Blog, page 9

Building Houses — Fictional Ones, That Is

I wonder if other writers have trouble envisioning the rooms and floorplans of houses and other buildings in their work, because I do. Usually, I end up thinking about places I know in real life and move the characters around in those spaces. The...



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Napoleon's Hundred Days

By no stretch am I a military history buff, but it turned out that As You Wish wanted to be set during Napoleon Bonaparte's Hundred Days comeback, so I did some background reading on it while writing. Here's my brief summary for other...



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To-Be-Reread: Salinger's "Seymour: an Introduction"

A couple of interview questions that a book blogger sent me got me thinking about how I write. An inspirational quote that comes to mind is something I jotted down way back in high school while reading JD Salinger's "Seymour: An Introduction."...



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Fade In: Screenplay Opening for As You Wish

A couple years ago, I worked on a screenplay adaptation of As You Wish. Learning the formatting presented a challenge, and since I didn't own scriptwriting software, I did all the formatting by hand in WordPerfect. Not recommended. (A Google search...



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Why Do I Write?

On the Amazon Kindle forum, someone started a thread asking indie authors why they write, when most don't even make minimum wage for their efforts. (Most traditionally published authors don't either, by the way.) Every book I've written has taken...



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Feminism in For the Love of Lila

Originally, For the Love of Lila was titled The Liberation of Lila with a nod to feminism. When Leisure Books agreed to publish it, they wanted to change the title. I agreed because I liked the new title they suggested, and I could also see some people...



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All Books Now Available on Nook

A few quick updates: Hubby and I recently self-published all five books as NOOKbooks, so they're now available through Barnes and Noble at $2.99 each. Check them out on BN.com here. On Nookboards, an independent forum for Nook users, I also posted a...



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Does Cressida Get a Bad Rap?

In college, when I read Troilus and Cressida (known as one of Shakespeare's "problem plays" because it's neither comedy nor tragedy), I felt Cressida got a bad rap as the epitome of infidelity. To summarize the plot, with the Trojan War as backdrop,...



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A Peek into Medieval Minds

For over a year, I've been on a Rome/Italy kick, and after reading a couple of novels set in Renaissance Florence (George Eliot's Romola and Sarah Dunant's The Birth of Venus), I decided to tackle the copy of Boccaccio's The...



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The Nude Napoleon in Wellington's House

A few years ago, my husband and I toured Apsley House in London. The 18th century building (renovated in the 19th century) once belonged to Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, famous for beating Napoleon Bonaparte at Waterloo (and for wearing...



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