A.M. Offenwanger's Blog, page 25
August 22, 2018
#WordlessWednesday: A Year Ago Today
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August 17, 2018
#FridayFragment, 17.08.2018
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“Never,” she said. She drummed her long, lacquered fingernails on the counter. “Never.”
He leaned his hands on the table and gave her a look.
“You’re being unreasonable.”
“Reason has nothing to do with it.”
“Reason has everything to do with it.” He picked up the bottle and thrust it at her.
She stubbornly shook her head.
“No,” she repeated emphatically. “I will not use artificial vanilla extract.”
August 12, 2018
Peaches
Once again, it’s peach season – my favourite season. Well, apart from Christmas. And spring. And early fall. And… Whatever, you get the drift. And as I was thinking about how much I love peach season, I was reminded of one of my earliest blog posts, from 2010. So I looked it up, and thought it might be worth reposting. Here it is, from 22. August 2010 (excuse the rough edges; it was early days in the blogosphere for me). The picture is brand-new, though, from just now. Aren’t they gorgeous?
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August 11, 2018
August 3, 2018
#FridayFragment: 03.08.2019
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Slowly, unnoticed at first, the kettle came to a boil. A soft simmering sound, then bubbling, a gentle blowing; then faster and faster, sharp and shrill, the whistle screamed its message into the air. “I’m seething, roiling, boiling! Get me off the heat! Do it nowwwwwww!”
I knew exactly how it felt.
July 31, 2018
Happy Birthday, Harry Potter! (or: “Platform 9 3/4”)
I got another runner-up win in a WritersDomain writing contest!! It was a Harry Potter FanFiction contest, in honour of Harry’s birthday, which is today, July 31. I’d never written fanfiction before (turned up my nose at it, if I’ve got to be honest), but this one I couldn’t resist. I mean, Harry Potter …
And seeing as I was just there a year ago, at King’s Cross and the Platform 9 3/4 Store, that’s what I wrote about.
You can read it here: “Platform 9 3/4” – scroll down, mine is the third...
July 27, 2018
#FridayFragment: 27.07.2018
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I dropped my piece of toast, butter-side down.
“What the … ?” I stared. Blinked. Stared again.
But it was really there. Without a doubt. On my pantry shelf there sat an emerald-green dragon, all of four inches long from small smoke-spouting snout to lithe, whipping tail, its scales glittering in the light that fell through the doorway from the kitchen.
“Sssss!” it hissed at me.
“Sssss to you too!” I hissed back at it.
I should have known right there that I wasn’t quite in my right mind – hav...
July 19, 2018
The Editor Pontificates: He Said, She Said
Punctuating dialogue seems to be a bête noire for a lot of fiction writers. Never mind what word you should use for describing your character’s utterance – he said, she yelled, it whispered, I answered – the real question seems to be, do you capitalise it or not? Which punctuation mark goes on the end of the sentence, inside the quotation marks, and what goes outside?
It’s not really that hard. Dialogue in fiction, I told the Offspring when we were homeschooling, is like speech bubbles in com...
July 13, 2018
#FridayFragment: 13.07.2018
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“I really don’t know,” Liza said.
The clock ticked, slicing the silence into slivers.
“Yeah.” Crystal put her tumbler down on the glass coaster.
Its soft “clink” suddenly irritated Liza. Glass coasters! Stupid, round, pressed-“crystal” things that her Aunt Sue had given her as an engagement present!
What would happen if she picked up the whole stupid stack of the stupid things and sent them hurling into the plate glass of the picture window? One by one – Crash! Smash! Ker-chunk!
But she didn...
