Ruth Buchanan's Blog, page 7

How to Tell If It's Fall in Florida

How to Tell If It's Fall in FloridaHomes sport seasonal decorations. No, wait--those are just storm shutters.School is back in session. Unless there's a tropical weather event. Then it's pretty much Summer, Part 2.Trees turn brown and leaves litter the walkways. Because Hurricane Irma killed them. Pumpkin Spice Lattes have returned. If you don't mind sipping hot drinks while sweating profusely, have at it.It's getting dark earlier. Either that or you left your hurricane shutter...

The Opposite of a Whirlwind: Release Week Ramblings

This coming Friday, September 29, 2017, my novel Collapsible finally releases. 
To say that the whole experience has been a whirlwind would be the opposite of how it's felt so far.

Things So Far
I wrote the first draft in 2014, started sending queries in 2015, signed a three-book contract and completed the trilogy during 2016, wrote and rewrote the story about eighty gazillion times throughout, and now here we are, finally on the cusp publication in the fall of 2017.
So the word whirlwind do...

Ruth's Rules for Hurricanes

Charge all devices! You might blow away in the storm, but at least you'll have enough battery to call home from Oz.Give the house a manic cleaning. If you're going to be trapped inside for 36 hours, you might as well not be stuck in a sty. Take final shower AFTER cleaning but BEFORE filling the tub with emergency water.Drill at least one peep hole in your hurricane shutters. How else will you witness your neighbor's palm tree uprooting itself and flying through the air like a javelin?Log...

If I Wrote the Poems, Part 1 - "The Riddle of Strider" by Ruth R.R. Tolkien

The Riddle of Strider by Ruth R.R. Tolkien
All that is cold is not bitterNot all the condors are lost The old and confused often dither Teeth roots are not touched by the floss
The silence at last shall be brokenA tiny white rabbit shall sing Set fire to the bed you awoke in The soundless Big Ben shall then ring
* * * * *

Click Here to read the original poem,
which is supposedly "objectively better" or whatever,
and tune in next week for Part 2 in the series.

I have great pl...

A True Story by Bethany Buchanan

Guest Post byBethany Buchanan


I thought it was a sweet gig. And it was at first.

I had lived in the barn apartment for almost a year, and things were going well. It had always been a dream of mine to live in a barn and take care of the horses. High aspirations, I know. But I was finally living the dream. My landlords, John and Priscilla, lived in the main house, and couldn’t be nicer.

Every summer they went away for about two months to go sailing in and around Europe. As part of keeping things g...

How Not to Make Your Own Solar Eclipse Glasses

There seem to be a lot of crazy ideas floating around about how to view the solar eclipse without sizzling your retinas.

Perhaps this should go without saying, but no matter what you've read on the internet, it is absolutely NOT safe to view the eclipse through any of the following:Fake nose-and-glasses setsRolled up federal tax formsTwo doughnutsLight mist from a garden sprinklerClear plastic spoonsA coconut bikini topBladder of a Portuguese man o' warAntique monocle and/or pince-nezTwo mason...

The Fault in My Stars: My Problematic Book-Rating System

"The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,But in ourselves, that we are underlings."Cassius, Julius Caesar, (I, ii, 140-141)William Shakespeare

I've been reviewing books online since 2011. In the last six years, I've read and reviewed over 1,200 books on Goodreads, writing short assessments and assigning star ratings for most of them.
I do have a system for assigning stars - though, admittedly, a subjective one. Since writing is both art and science, there's simply no way to assess a book ob...

Notes from the Back of the Pack

This past weekend, I ran a 5k with my favorite running partner, who is currently thirty-four weeks pregnant. Having decided ahead of time to let her race-day condition dictate the pace, we planned a quick 5-minute warm-up walk and then some tight little run/walk intervals for the duration of the race. We started at the very back of the pack so that we weren't immediately trampled.
As a solid middle-of-the-pack runner, I'm accustomed to a race start quickly giving way to the rhythm of slapping...

10 Book Quotes Guaranteed to Make You Feel Feelings

10 Book Quotes Guaranteed to Make You Feel Feelings:
"It's not time to worry yet."~"The rain, it raineth every day."~"We shall meet in a place where there is no darkness."~"Kiss me, Hardy. Kiss me quick!"~“I have come home at last! This is my real country! I belong here. This is the land I have been looking for all my life, though I never knew it till now...Come further up, come further in!” ~"I have been loved," Edward told the stars.~“In this hour, I do not believe that any darkness wil...

A Well-Edited Life

This has been a summer of edits for me. This week is no exception. As soon as I finish this post, I plan to start working my way through a manuscript fresh an editor's metaphorical red pen.
No matter how good my editor is, I'm going come up against some edits that I don't like. What I see as perfectly good phrasings will be rejected. My seemingly-logical thought progressions will be questioned. Entire chapters might disappear. (It's happened before. It could happen again.)
But I'm not wholly dr...