Lance Greenfield's Blog, page 78
July 28, 2015
Writer’s Quote Wednesday – Speak to your Readers
This is the second time that I have participated in Silver Threading’s Writer’s Quote Wednesday, so I can now call myself a regular! Next week, and the week after, I shall be on holiday on the Greek island of Kos, so I don’t intend to post. Maybe I’ll return later in August.
My choice this week has long been a favourite of mine. I have always circulated in a society that is deeply technical. Some of my friends and acquaintances can’t speak to people who are not part of the scientific society. Well, that’s not quite true. They can speak, but they are not understood. I find that appalling.
I have taught courses on good communication. One of the exercises that I set is to present the students with a technical article or paper and ask them to put themselves in the place of the author; the researcher.Then I ask them to write a postcard to their grandmother explaining what they are working on in words that she will understand.
While we are writing, authors should be thinking of our audience. We should be speaking to them, telling them our story. Speaking to them in words that they will understand. Do not be afraid of complex plots or characters, but tell the readers the story as if they were sitting there in the room in front of you. Always be asking them, “Do you understand?”
“Think like a wise man but communicate in the language of the people”
W.B. Yeats
My trousers revolution.
Lucie is a one woman revolution.
Read this blog post, then read her book: A Woman with (No) Strings Attached. You’re sure to enjoy it.
Originally posted on Lucie Muses:
I listened to Radio 4 today, driving to the gym. There was an American female politician talking about the dress code in the senate.
Apparently, it was only in 1994 when women on US Senate committees were allowed to wear trousers. She said “pants”, but I live in the UK, and not wearing pants is something entirely different. It is not impossible to imagine that some of those male chauvinistic senators would not mind that… sorry- back to the point.
It made me remember my own small dress code revolution.
I grew up in Prague, in a communist country. My American partner claims the only freedom we used to have was sexual freedom. Not for me, I used to be pretty repressed that way. Things change, ha?
But freedom for women to dress in trousers??!! I think that MIGHT have been a problem in my country before the First World War. Not…
View original 555 more words
July 26, 2015
Review: Deception
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This is much more than a suspense thriller. There is romance, there is deceit and double-crossing, there is mystery, there is hot sexual tension, and there is fear.
Amanda returns to her native Harare on a work assignment. She tries to unravel some family mysteries which led to her self-imposed exile. Every stone she turns reveals a new, usually unpleasant, surprise.
She is torn between her former lover and her current almost-a-lover. She doesn’t know whom she should trust, including members of her own family. There are many tests, and the tension rises. The reader is also torn in several directions. I challenge you to take the journey with Amanda and guess whom she can trust before she takes the right or wrong path.
The constant theme throughout is how much she cares for her son, Zach. The greatest heat and fear is felt when the young boy is put in danger.
This is a very good story and is guaranteed to hold your attention from the first page to the last. I thoroughly recommend it.
Review: Katie in Love
Katie in Love by Chloe Thurlow
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Katie in Love?
I am in love with Katie!
I am also in love with Chloe Thurlow as a writer of erotica. She is the best. She really is good! I have read a few of her books now, and I have to admit that Girl Trade and Being a Girl stick in my mind the most.
It is obvious that Thurlow writes from a combination of her personal experience and fantasy, and her ability to expand on that by using her amazing creativity. As a regular reader, I find great fun in challenging myself to wrap my mind around where the boundaries between experience, fantasy and creativity lie. And I don’t think that she’s about to tell us.
Katie is a tale of how a New Year party encounter between author Katie and volunteer doctor Tom leads to an unlikely romance between these two mis-matched characters. The intrusion of Tom’s previous girlfriend into the storyline adds a bit of tasty spice.
There are many reflections of Chloe’s other writing in Katie in Love, so those are parts that I believe to be drawn from her true experiences. There is also mention of a little red kilt and then, of Katie’s best friend, Lizzy, Elizabeth Elmwood. It doesn’t take much detective work to make the obvious connections. See The Little Red Kilt
There is lots of very well described, very arousing sex throughout the story, especially early on. I love the way that Katie changes along the way. Eventually she has to make big, life-changing decisions.
There were times that I thought that there was too much reminiscence, too much description of Katie’s feelings and memories, especially when I had read very similar sub-plots in the past, but I think this is a matter of personal taste. Some readers may like the extended narrative. I Just wanted to move on to the next scene. I may be a a bit too impatient.
The one disappointment for me was that Katie and Lizzie never got it on together, or in a threesome. But that is just my own fantasies taking me to a place that the author did not want to take us in this book. Maybe something for the future, Miss Thurlow?
Review: Just A Woman: Marina Part 2
Just A Woman: Marina Part 2 by Serena Akeroyd
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
It is very difficult to review this book without giving away too many spoilers, both on this book and on the previous part of the story, A Bitch In Time: Marina Part 1.
The great thing about the way that Serena Akeroyd has written this story, is that she really brings out the conflicts that are going on in Marina’s mind. She is really torturing herself from beginning to end. Her dilemma is hurting her more than the physical pain that Nate is inflicting upon her body. She is living in fear, and want, of a severe spanking.
At first, she refuses to admit that she has been a Sub all her life. She believes that she has been a woman in control. To all outward appearances that is true, but Nate knows her better than even she knows herself. She realizes that she requires discipline. She need to be true to herself, not the fake person that she has been for most of her life. She has been kidding herself for far too long.
Nate sets about changing her, making her more honest. At first she is in denial, but she reluctantly goes along with his plan, and she discovers that she enjoys it greatly. The sex is fantastic, a real turn on.
Marina has been naughty and must accept her punishment. And she loves that word: naughty. Every transgression attracts three hard smacks on her bare ass. Her juices flow. She wants it, and she doesn’t. She wants that big release, but she may only have it when Nate grants it.
I need to read book three, Frustrated Instincts: Marina Part 3.
If I thought that it was so good, why did I only give four stars? Really, it is only because there were parts of the narrative where I thought Marina was dwelling far too long on her situation and history. I know that this is what the story is all about, and other readers may like this style, but I skipped through it very quickly so that I could get back to the action. Personal taste, I guess.
July 25, 2015
Review: The Kite Runner
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Shocking, inspiring and tear-jerking!
It would be too simple to say that the whole story stems from the boyhood friendship of Amir and Hassan and their teamwork in becoming kite champions of Kabul, but that is the way that it is. However, there are a hundred sub-plots adding complexity which is necessary to complete the picture. The overtone of their fathers’ life-long friendship, the changes to their country that come with the Russian invasion and the subsequent dominance of the Taliban, an early lie as one friend betrays the other.
There is so much contrast in this book: love and hate, kindness and cruelty, grief, happiness and sadness. It stirs every possible emotion in the reader, and one cannot escape without shedding a few tears.
Those who believe that they understand the recent history of Afghanistan, but have formed those opinions around what they have learned from the newspaper and television reports, need to read this book to gain a new perspective. Even if you would not put yourself in that class, you should still read The Kite Runner. A book that cannot be ignored.
Blue Moon Coming Soon!
By Eric Elwell, StormCenter 7 Chief Meteorologist
Re-blogged from http://www.whio.com/
So have you ever told someone that “it only happens once in a blue moon?”
Well, that blue moon is about to happen next week! Actually a week from tomorrow on July 31.
But the moon will not actually be blue. And we aren’t talking about the adult beverage either. So what really is a blue moon?
There are actually two definitions of a Blue Moon in astronomy; both are a type of full moon. (If the moon actually looks blue, it’s caused by a rare type of dust in the atmosphere.)
The term “once in a Blue Moon” means that that something is rare. But just how rare depends on your definition.
In astronomy, a Blue Moon is a full moon, which doesn’t quite fit in with the months in our calendar. However, there are two different ways of calculating which full moon is a Blue Moon.
1) Blue Moon = The third full moon in an astronomical season with 4 full moons (versus the normal 3)
2) Blue Moon = The second full moon in a month with two full moons.
That being said … the correct, original definition is that a “Blue Moon” is the third full moon in an astronomical season with four full moons. A normal year has four astronomical seasons — spring, summer, fall and winter — with three months and normally three full moons each. When one of the astronomical seasons has four full moons, instead of the normal three, the third full moon is called a Blue Moon.
So now you know! (or are you more confused?)
July 24, 2015
Review: The House of Silk: A Sherlock Holmes Novel
The House of Silk: A Sherlock Holmes Novel by Anthony Horowitz
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
From the first word, the style, the tone, the characters, the language, the inter-twining of plots and sub-plots and the little puzzles and deductions in which Holmes has always excelled, are all faithfully and skilfully adhered to by Anthony Horowitz. The result is superb and delightful.
The author even takes great care to avoid the use of diminutives in exactly the same way as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. For example, he writes “has not” rather than “hasn’t.” This minute attention to replication of the original detail is a real winner for me.
The storyline is believable and strikes at many levels. Victorian London’s atmosphere and society are splendidly portrayed, even down to the sights and smells of that era.
What starts out as a simple case for Holmes is wonderfully narrated by his devoted companion, Dr Watson, as events lead them both into increasingly dark and sinister scenarios. The characters are developed to just the right levels, appropriate to their roles, and one feels a both sense of empathy with the victims and, simultaneously, revulsion and anger towards the perpetrators of such dastardly deeds.
At one stage, Holmes enters into such a perilous situation that one wonders how on Earth he can ever extricate himself safely. Of course, knowing Holmes of old, the reader is confident that he will escape the danger, but it is difficult not to be consumed by Watson’s sense of despair. It is so real!
I very much enjoyed the typically precise deductions and explanations of Holmes along the lines of telling people, including Watson, of recent events in their lives: where they had been and what they had been doing. Horowitz captured these in exactly the same way as Sir Arthur had managed in the original stories. Absolutely stunning!
The conclusion is exciting and fast-paced. Possibly, this is at odds with the original series, but it can be excused because it seemed to fit so well with all that had gone before, and it would be difficult to imagine a better way to end this particular story.
The notes that Horowitz provides at the end of the book are extremely interesting, but I would encourage any reader to leave them until after they have read the whole story. In a way, I hope that this is a one off, but if Horowitz were to change his mind and write another Sherlock Holmes book, I would be first in line to order my copy.
Highly recommended to all.
View all my reviews
July 23, 2015
Time Travel: Lance’s Coach Tours
Lance’s next coach tour will be departing from Victoria Coach Station in London before the end of the month. What makes it really exciting is, that the destination in time and space has still to be decided, and the decision is down to you, my esteemed passengers.
Nip over to the poll and vote for your favourite. There is a choice of four, and I am open to your suggestions too. If you want to suggest an alternative place, person and era to visit, tell me in the “Other” box and I’ll consider it for the future or past.
For those of you who are unfamiliar with Lance’s coach tours, here is a flavour of our previous trips. Take a look.
Stonehenge during its construction
New Orleans in the 1920s
Macedonia in 338 BC
Syracuse in the mid-third century BC
Vienna in 1801
So, if you want to be on that bus, and you want to choose the destination, go over to the poll and vote right away!
July 22, 2015
Imagination and Inspiration – Writer’s Quote Wednesday
This is the first time that I have ever participated in Silver Threading’s Writer’s Quote Wednesday, so I am a little nervous about whether my choice will hit the mark.
My quote is from a famous painter, rather than an author, but I believe that it is very appropriate and inspirational for all budding writers of fiction. As we write down those thoughts and stories that come into our minds, they start to become real to us.
Before I started writing, I always thought that authors who said that they became emotionally attached to their characters, and were even guided through scenes by them, were speaking utter rubbish. During the writing of Eleven Miles, I soon realized that they were speaking the truth. I fell in love with three of my characters and became very emotional about them. Even today, I cannot read the final chapter of that book without crying real tears of pride for my main protagonist. She achieved so much, yet I made it all up. Am I crazy? No, I am not. Well, not too crazy. What has happened is that my imagination has become reality, and I think that is wonderful!
“Everything you can imagine is real”
Pablo Picasso
