Cate Russell-Cole's Blog, page 23

Computer Hell: I’m Offline Thanks to a “Poisoned Apple”

We’ve been with Apple for years and they have always been rock solid. So when Mavericks became available, we automatically upgraded. Why wouldn’t you with a proven track record? It was a mistake. When I took a trip to the Apple Genius bar for help, the guy looked at me with despair and nearly cried. […]

Computer Use: Minimizing the Strain on Your Neck

I can spend fifty hours a week at my desk easily. My work depends on it; then when work is done, there are the usual tasks such as paying bills online and keeping in touch with distant friends and family. Quite often a day has flown by and I haven’t moved position much. That not […]

Stephen King: Short Stories and Novels, How they Form

“Stephen King was born in Portland, Maine in 1947, the second son of Donald and Nellie Ruth Pillsbury King. He made his first professional short story sale in 1967 to Startling Mystery Stories. In the fall of 1973, he began teaching high school English classes at Hampden Academy, the public high school in Hampden, Maine. […]

Stick Up For Your Truth: Dealing With Differing Family Memories

Shortly after I wrote a post about Truth, a reader, we’ll call her Jackie, sent me an e-mail about a memory. The way she remembers things, she paid for half the cost of her first bicycle, a blue Schwinn. In a conversation with her mother some years ago, she mentioned this memory. “I don’t know why you […]

Financial Freedom: Kissing Amazon Kindle Select Goodbye…

As of November 24th, I am kissing Amazon Kindle’s Select program goodbye… it is expensive, limiting and my intention is to sell books in bundles and as cheaper deals directly from my web site as protected .pdfs so anyone can read them on any device. I am getting financial control back and increasing my audience. […]

Starting Research for Historical Fiction, by Carrie Wilson

Historical fiction allows stories from the past to be retold and characters that would otherwise be forgotten, brought back to life. It is a rewarding genre to write, but one that requires thorough research in order to accurately recreate details from an era long forgotten. I am currently working on a historical fiction story set […]

Generating Topic Ideas in an Unusual Way

I devour books which re-use words in an unusual way. When I discovered Douglas Adams’ “The Deeper Meaning of Liff,” I loved it. Douglas takes place names and gives them definitions, creating words which we need in our language, but don’t have. For example, DORRIDGE: Technical term for one of the lame excuses written in […]

Blue Nights by Joan Didion (A Review)

From one of our most powerful writers, a work of stunning frankness about losing a daughter. Richly textured with bits of her own childhood and married life with her husband, John Gregory Dunne, and daughter, Quintana Roo, this new book by Joan Didion examines her thoughts, fears, and doubts regarding having children, illness, and growing […]

Indie Authors: Take Action Now to Stop Book Return Scams on Kindle

I have been hit by this several times. Please sign this petition at change.org and pass it on! We are losing money here for no good reason. Amazon has sample pages so people can see book contents before buying. This is simply theft. Petition Link: http://www.change.org/petitions/amazo... under: What's On Tagged: Amazon, author, book, change.org, fraud, Kindle, […]

Five Critical Components of Any Successful Novel's Plot

Reblogged from Creative Writing with the Crimson League: Today, I wanted to continue my plot series by introducing five of the toughest aspects of plotting. These are things that are rarely, if ever, good to get wrong. They are, in some ways, the "biggies" of plotting errors. They're kind of obvious, but that's only because […]