K.D. Dowdall's Blog, page 45
February 6, 2018
Outline?
Thank you for this great post. It is so interesting to see how other authors write their books. When I was writing my first book, I had the first sentence and the last sentence of story. It worked very well, because I had a beginning and an ending, so no problem, and I love this book. I feel I write intuitively and I think every author has their own muse, style, and concept. In addition, some writers are process oriented and some are “fly by the seat of their pants”. https://writingyourfirstnovelblog.com...
Writing your first novel-Things you should know
When you write, do you have an outline? Do you know where you’re going, or do you wander aimlessly? Maybe you do a little of both.
I don’t use a formal outline that follows each step in detail, but I do use a story arc that pinpoints the beginning, some detours I intend to make along the way, and the end. I allow flexibility, to incorporate new ideas that arise during the writing process.
However, it is possible to allow too much flexibility. In my case, I allowed one of the main characters to take charge. My story went to places that it should have never ventured. As crazy as that sounds, it happens. You start writing and you find that instead of your character following you, you are following your character.
It’s fun and exciting at first, until you find yourself backed into a corner. That’s when you realize…
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February 5, 2018
Mini Book Review: The Book of Pearl
This book sounds beautiful and thank you Dani for your lovely review. This is my kind of book.
I want to thank NetGalley and the publishers for providing me with an eARC in exchange for an honest review. I appreciate this opportunity and all views expressed are my own.
Title: The Book of Pearl
Author: Timothèe de Fombelle
Rating: 5 Magical Stars
In prose as magical and intricate as the tale it tells, Timothée de Fombelle delivers an unforgettable story of a first love that defines a lifetime.
Joshua Pearl comes from a world that we no longer believe in — a world of fairy tale. He knows that his great love waits for him there, but he is stuck in an unfamiliar time and place — an old-world marshmallow shop in Paris on the eve of World War II. As his memories begin to fade, Joshua seeks out strange objects: tiny fragments of tales that have already been told, trinkets that might possibly help…
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February 4, 2018
Why Is Mary In the Attic? Frankenstein & the Challenge of Authorship (An Open Salon Re-Post)
Thank you for this excellent post. I had no idea her authorship was in question. Thank you for shedding light on this debate and defending Mary Shelley.
Zombie Salmon (the Horror Continues)
(In this Women-in-Horror month re-post from my defunct Open Salon blog, “The Horror” originally published on February 16, 2015, I want to share with you a second case of Literary gender assault which I referenced in the previous post. This is a real “controversy”… a debate, and a Critical argument being discussed in academia and elsewhere. What I ask you to do is to read this post and ask “why” it is even being entertained…)
Most women who write and read Horror are used to the idea that it is predominantly men in the driver’s seat of our canon. Most of us are fine with the works chosen to represent canon. After all, we girls have Mary, author of Frankenstein. Yet a closer look reveals the very real reason the arc of feminism has risen through the Critical ashes: because several “someones” have been trying to put our Mary in the attic…
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February 3, 2018
Review: The Stone Arch Secret, by K. D. Dowdall 5 of 5 stars
Didi, you are an amazing reviewer. Your review is magical, rich with feeling and so beautiful expressed. I am awe stricken. I am so humbled and honored by this beautiful review. You see it, exactly as I wrote it to be. Thank you for from my heart. Karen
Senator John McCain’s Response To The Nunes Anti-FBI Memo
This post is so right on point, and I am reblogging immediately. I agree completely with you and so do millions of other Americans – not just Democrats, but millions of Republicans too. I read the memo and thought – That’s it? This DUD of a memo is a joke, but the joke is on them. Yet, they are trying to destroy our democracy – why? – for Trump? Thank you so much for writing this perfect summary about what is really going on.
Republicans over promised the value of this controversial Nunes Anti-FBI memo and they under delivered. The memo is such a DUD from the start before investigative journalists even begin their job to analyse it with a fine tooth comb.
The memo does prove that the FBI began its formal investigation into the Trump campaign in July 2016 because of foreign policy aide George Papadopoulos.
Here’s the quote, “The Papadopoulos information triggered the opening of an FBI counterintelligence investigation in late July 2016 by FBI agent Peter Strzok.”
What this tells me is that the FBI’s Trump-Russia probe led by the Special Counsel Robert Mueller III would have gone forward even without the republicans’ bogeyman the Christopher Steele dossier. That’s the end of the discussion,. CHECKMATE…
I am wondering if the democrats on the House Intelligence Committee even have to submit a counter memo. At least if they do, their memo will…
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Saturday Humor!
This is just too cute not to reblog. I needed a cute and super funny surprise, and I laughed so much! Thank you for posting!!
This funny story caught my attention on Pinterest and thought I share it.
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February 2, 2018
My Students’ Blogs
What a great idea and it will be eye-opening and so interesting see there blogs on a subject that is very much in the public’s eye right now when some people still want to curtail publishing certain books.
charles french words reading and writing
During this semester, Spring 2018, my students in English 002 at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, PA will be creating blogs about banned books.
I will post the urls for their sites as they are created. Please feel free to drop by and say hello to them.
Please follow the following links to find my novel:
Thank you!
The book trailer:
Maledicus:Investigative Paranormal Society Book I
My radio interview:
February 1, 2018
Whimsical Wednesday ~ Cold & Flu Edition
I think in times like this, we all need something whimsical and this fits the bill! I Love it. Thank you Kim!
January 30, 2018
Let Us Celebrate Thomas Paine Day!
Thank you, Professor French for letting us remember Thomas Paine. A remarkable thinker, Thomas Paine, whom without him and others, we may not have had the democracy we now enjoy, that is presently under great stress. It seems as though we might be moving toward a theocracy managed by a plutocracy.
charles french words reading and writing
(https://commons.wikimedia.org)
January 29 is Thomas Paine Day, which is a time to remember one of the most important, but often forgotten, writers of the American Revolution. His pamphlet Common Sense was one of the main reasons that the majority of colonists came to support the revolution against England and for independence.
He was born and raised in Britain, and he became embroiled in legal problems for advocating the abolition of royalty. Afterwards, he would support the French Revolution, and he also ran into problems there, only to be imprisoned. He was later released because of influence by the American government.
He was a revolutionary thinker and a representative of the Romantic movement, in which individual rights and revolution in all aspects of life and society were encouraged.
Paine went on to write several other important works, including Rights Of Man and The Age of Reason. If you have…
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January 29, 2018
Quotations on Teaching
I love these quotes and there is nothing better to do than to share knowledge. Writers share knowledge on a wide range of topics and it opens worlds of knowledge to those who may never have considered that artists, poets, fiction and non-fiction writers, I think, are in fact, teachers.
charles french words reading and writing
“Those who know, do. Those that understand, teach.”
Aristotle
“One child, one teacher, one book, one pen can change the world.”
Malala Yousafzai
“Share your knowledge. It is a way to achieve immortality.”
Dalai Lama XIV
