Terry Shames's Blog: 7 Criminal Minds, page 18

Writing in a Winter Wonderland, by Catriona

 How does winter affect you and your writing?

Could be either - but it's CA

Scottish Me: I love winter. It's my favourite season. The light is beautiful. The shrubs in flower are all scented - daphne, witchhazel, forsythia . . . There's not a lot to do in the garden, so you never feel like you're scrambling. 

California Me: I love winter. It's my favorite season. The light is beautiful. How the frilly hat can there be flowers on lavendar and rosemary and gerbera and pelargonium and snapdragons . . ...

A storm's a-coming. Can't ignore it. by Eric Beetner

How does winter affect you and your writing?

In live in Southern California about a 4 minute drive over the hill to the beach. I play beach volleyball all year round. I haven’t seen snow on my front lawn in the 33 years I’ve lived in L.A. I grew up with actual seasons, both in the midwest and New England. Brutal cold winters, blizzards, shoveling out the car to get to work or classes. I know the suffering. I also know the coziest place on earth is to be warm by a fire while the wind howls outside...

Winter, the most misunderstood season

 

Howdoes winter affect you and your writing?

If you’re awriter, you are familiar with the fact that the seasons are metaphors for thestages of life. Winter is the time of scarcity, a time of stasis, a time forsilence, and a time for reflection. The repetition in that last sentence isboth rhetoric and an echo of Ecclesiastics. With the dying of the light comesreckoning, and we are uncomfortable with it, but for reasons I think most peopleignore.

 

I’d argue that weha...

Baby, It's Cold Outside, by Angela

 

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How does winter affect you and your writing?

Sister Souljah wrote a book called The Coldest WinterEver, a classic in the Black community. This is not the winter she meant,but I’m guessing plenty of folks would prefer her version at this point. It’scold! That’s a bit of an understatement. There was a time where only weNortherners understood the brutality, joy, and yes, beauty of the frigid wintermonths that could start as early as October and linger well into April,sometimes even May...

Who’d Want to Hide Such a Beautiful Face? from James W. Ziskin

Is there a movie better than the book? And name a book that you think defies adaptation?

When I was a young man, I was a film buff. A cinephile. I loved watching movies, especially foreign films and classics. Somewhere along the line I lost my enthusiasm for the seventh art, at least to the extent that I no longer enjoy sitting in movie theater seats that have been sat in by people I don’t know.

Anyway, back when I was a devotee, I used to say that great books rarely made great movies. And not-so-...

Roll ‘em or read ‘em

Is there a movie better than the book? And name a book that you think defies adaptation?

by Dietrich

I think it’s a tall order for a movie to be better than the book. While it’s a visual experience and can be well-acted and executed, the adaptation is a shortened version and many tasty parts found in the book often have to be left out. For instance, a novel can tell the reader what’s going on inside the characters’ heads, revealing their deepest thoughts and what their words aren’t saying. 

And vis...

Books vs. Movies

 

Movie V. BookTerry here, with our question this week: Is there a movie better than a book? And is there a book that defies adaptation? 
I have to go with “better” being an undefinable concept. Books allow the reader to use imagination to visualize characters and to gain insight into their thoughts and emotions. Movies rely on the screen writer’s and director’s interpretation of those elements. What may strike one moviegoer as an appalling interpretation of a book, another viewer may fin...

Books Adapted to the Big Screen

Is there a movie better than the book? And name a book that you think defies adaptation?

Good Monday morning - Brenda here.

A subjective kind of question this week. I'm often amazed at how one person can love a book or movie that another avidly dislikes. For me, the book and movie experiences are completely different kettles of fish. As a rule, I prefer to read the book before seeing the movie and have been excited to see the adaptation for those books I've really enjoyed.

I remember reading Gone W...

High Resolution by Poppy Gee

What areyour literary resolutions for 2025… as a Writer, as a Reader?

Great question!I love this topic for my first post on this blog. Making a to-do list alwaysgives me a surge of energy. Whenever I write down my goals, no matter how bigor complicated they are, the path to them becomes clearer.

This feels especiallytrue for resolutions made in January. Here in Australia, we’re in the middle of delightfully long summer school holidays. We’ve shared the timebetween Tasmania, staying with...

New Year, Same Old Me, by Catriona

 What are your Literary Resolutions for 2025…as a Writer, as a Reader?

I'm quite big on New Year's resolutions. Making them, that is. Not so much keeping them. But that doesn't stop me.

I don't have any reading resolutions, beyond carrying on reading exactly what I want. And giving up on page 50, if I'm still checking page numbers at 49. Right now, I'm reading this:

It's a 1920 domestic novel about middle-class Scottish life written by John Buchan's sister. (He wrote The Thirty Nine Steps.) Imagine...