L.G. Estrella's Blog, page 31

Favourite Movies – The Princess Bride

I’ve watched a lot of movies over my time. Indeed, you could make a reasonable argument that I’ve probably watched too many. However, there are certain movies that have always stood head and shoulders above the others, at least to me. Today, I’d like to mention one of my favourites: The Princess Bridge.

What stood out to me when I first watched the movie was its sense of humour. There is a certain wry amusement to everything that happens. From the way the famous duel between Inigo and Wesley is ...

Charades (Flash Fiction Fridays #2)

“Monkey fighting a bear!”

“Hydra brawling a dragon!”

“Man making tea while dodging arrows!”

“A ship harpooning a kraken that’s grappling a leviathan!”

Katie nudged her master as Vicky and Sam continued to absolutely slaughter everyone else at charades. “This is kind of unfair, isn’t it?”

“Just a little.” Her master bit back a laugh as Sam simply transformed into a near-perfect copy of a tiger wrestling an anteater except with way more eyes, teeth, and tentacles. “But, hey, it’s just a game, and ...

Memorable Memories #4 – My First Job

I remember the first time I got a job. Well, it wasn’t a regular job. Rather, it was some work helping a family friend with their garden on the weekends. It was the kind of work a high schooler could do, and the pay was pretty good, all things considered. The family friend in question was an elderly gentleman, but he was still a sprightly fellow, precisely the sort of person you could see cheerfully chugging along well past the century mark.

Let’s just say that things did not go smoothly.

In fac...

First Time (Flash Fiction Fridays #1)

The mortal looked around. Huh. He’d kind of expected the afterlife to be more fire and brimstone with people getting jabbed with pitchforks. Then again, he had been a pretty decent person, so maybe he was in the good part of the afterlife. Of course, was it really the good part of the afterlife if he had to stand in line?

“I thought the gods would have worked out a better system than this,” the mortal muttered. He looked around. The other mortals were all just waiting silently. However, it wasn’...

Katie (Character Profile)

Note: Katie is from The Unconventional Heroes Series.

General Information

Name: Katherine Juliet Morrow (the apprentice better known as Katie or the twerp)

Age: 10

Eye Colour: Green

Hair colour: Blonde

Height: 4 feet and 4 inches (1.32 metres)

Weight: 69 pounds (31.5 kg)

Innate magic: Shadow magic and necromancy

Other magic: Runes and seals; eldritch magic

Other skills and abilities: Fast learner; polymath; prodigy; budding bureaucrat; adorable

Favoured weapon: None (current...

My Origin Story

I’m often asked about how I got into self-publishing. It’s something I’ve talked about in previous posts, but I want to talk about it again. It’s been years since I started, and I think time has given me something of a different perspective.

I’ve wanted to be a writer for a long time. However, I first began to take my writing more seriously in high school. I started posting my writing on the internet under various pseudonyms, and I gradually honed my skills. I won’t say I was good back then, but...

Favourite Painters

When it comes to painters, who are my favourites? It’s difficult to rank them in order, so I’ll just name a few that I happen to like:

CaravaggioMonetRenoirRembrandtVermeer

I was lucky enough to see quite a few of their paintings in person when I was in university. I had a paper accepted for a conference in Italy, and the university agreed to provide me with funding to make it easier to go. It didn’t cover the entire cost of the trip, but it lowered the cost enough for me to travel not onl...

Chapter By Chapter

One question that I get asked from time to time is how to go about writing a full-length novel. Now, novels can vary quite drastically in size. A shorter novel might come in at 50,000 words whereas longer novels can be more than 200,000 words long. However, the answer to the question remains the same.

Chapter by chapter.

That’s how you do it.

Let’s say you’re writing a novel for the first time. The length of the average novel varies by genre with some genres (e.g., horror) generally being shorte...

Wonderful Words #2 – Domdaniel

There are some words that just sound really cool. I think ‘domdaniel’ is one of them.

Domdaniel is a fictional hall at the bottom of the ocean where all manner of unpleasant individuals meet. It was first mentioned in the continued story of the Arabian Nights by Dom Chaves and Cazotte (1788-1793). Since then it has also come to mean a place of iniquity (i.e., a place of evil or immoral behaviour).

So how might we go about using this awesome-sounding word?

I believe it’s best used to describe a s...

Height Comparison

Some people have asked me to rank our favourite band of unconventional heroes in terms of height. Here’s the list. From tallest to shortest:

GeraldAvranielTimmy (technically, he and Avraniel are the same height, but she refused to accept a tie)Old ManAmandaDaerinKatieSpot

That’s right, Katie is actually shorter than a dwarf. Admittedly, she’s only ten years old, so she’s got time to grow. Also, Spot is technically shorter than Katie since he generally goes around on four limbs. However,...