C.E. Murphy's Blog, page 100
February 27, 2014
Kitsnaps: Friendship
Friendship
Friendship
This is my favourite scuplture at the Botanic Gardens, and I’ve been trying for years to get a picture of it that I like. I’m reasonably happy with this one, although I still want to try for a successful full-length one. Onward!
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February 26, 2014
GGK Book Club: The Wandering Fire, ch 13-16
(Chapters 1-4 of THE DARKEST ROAD for next week!)
“The crying books” indeed. I don’t remember crying my way through THE WANDERING FIRE before, but I spent the final quarter of the book totally in bits. I’m somewhat concerned about reading THE DARKEST ROAD, particularly the part that *always* reduced me to wracking sobs. I’m going to need a pint of Haagen Daaz, a box of tissues and six hours alone in a soundproof room, apparently.
I’m already late posting this, so I’m gonna make a couple quick c...
February 25, 2014
Kitsnaps: Super Orange
Super Orange
Super Orange
If I’m clever I might go back before the blooms fade and find out what some of these flowers are, but, er, don’t count on it. They’re cheerful, though! :)
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Reader Questions: process & projects
Joliene asks: [What] drives your writing and keeps the juices flowing? What are the project ideas you have in the works, now that The Walker Papers is being put to bed???
Occasionally what my publisher is looking for drives my writing ideas–that’s what prompted the Strongbox Chronicles, for example, and it’s behind one of the projects I’m putting together now.
Far more often, though, it’s a random comment or thought that ends up getting terribly out of control. :) I’ve mentioned before that the...
Patreon push!
So we’re doing prety well with the MAGIC & MANNERS Patreon project, having worked our way up to $144 commited toward new chapters in the past ten days or so.
To reiterate how it works: you, the patron, pledge to donate whatever small amount you wish toward a new chapter of MAGIC & MANNERS–$.25, $.50, $1, $5–whatever you like! When the pledged donations reach $250, I post a new chapter and press the collection button. If donations remain at $250, the next week I post another chapter, and so on...
February 23, 2014
Kitsnaps: Palm House
Palm House
Palm House
My favourite of the Botanic Gardens greenhouses, just because it’s so bloody massive. There are indeed palms and ferns growing all the way up to the top of it, too. A body could nearly get lost in there, or wish she could, anyway…
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February 21, 2014
Picoreview: Shadow Recruit
Picoreview: Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit: muuuuuch better than I expected.
I mean, it’s a popcorn movie, don’t get me wrong, but I like popcorn movies and this one served up nicely. It turns out I rather like Chris Pine, maybe especially when he’s not being lit by lens flares along his razored cheekbones (I already knew I liked his voice better when I couldn’t see him, thanks to his voicing Jack Frost in Guardians of Easter or whatever that movie was :)), and he was more approachable and endearin...
questionable content
I tell you, I look at Questionable Content all the time and think, “If I did a web comic five days a week every week for ten years I too would improve hugely with my artistic skills. That would be so great. I should do that!”
Then I go “ahahahah in my copious free time ahahahaha ideas ahahahah :p” and that’s pretty much the end of that.
Still. It would be cool.
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Kitsnaps: Birds of Paradise
Birds of Paradise
Birds of Paradise
All the tropical flowers in the greenhouses at the Botanic Gardens are currently in bloom. I’ve never caught them in bloom before, and had a fairly wonderful time going through and taking pictures in the warm serenity of the greenhouses.
Of course, this is one of like two pictures that I actually know what I was taking a picture *of*, and mostly I didn’t think to take pictures of the accompanying labels, either (primarily because it’s never really clear to me...
February 20, 2014
Picoreview: American Hustle
Picoreview: American Hustle: better than I expected, even given all its glowing reviews.
Much of that is because I was expecting to hate all the characters but instead found myself enjoying them all to a fair degree. Brad Cooper plays an FBI agent who’s not as smart as he thinks he is; an almost unrecognizeable Christian Bale plays a con artist who *is* as smart–at least about cons—as he thinks he is. I was basically expecting everybody to be about as sympathetic as the characters in August: O...
