A.M. Offenwanger's Blog, page 55

What I Did On My Holidays, or: A Visit to Storybrooke

On my holidays, I went to Storybrooke. Yes, the Once Upon a Time town. No, really!
As I mentioned before, I just spent a couple of weeks with family, and we went to the big city (aka Vancouver). And while we were there, I got a chance to go to Storybrooke. Yes, I know they tell you it’s in Maine, but actually, it’s in BC (the geographic location, British Columbia, not the time period, Before Christ). See?

On the map, it’s actually called Steveston (which, contrary to the opinion of a certain...

Indie Book Review: Seventh Son by A.M. Offenwanger

amo:

One excellent review of Seventh Son from the great Kate M. Colby!

Originally posted on Kate M. Colby :

Seventh Son by A.M. Offenwanger
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Disclaimer: I received a free electronic copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

Seventh Son by A.M. Offenwangerfollows Catriona (Cat), a librarian in the midst of a (almost) quarter-life crisis, on a journey to a mysterious new world. While visiting a museum, Cat becomes captivated by a beautiful, turquoise pottery bow...

Real Life Takes Precedence

Apologies for the blogging silence over the last couple of weeks. I’ve been busy with real life – house guests, to be precise – and, well, real life takes precedence over cyber effusions. Or at least it ought to.

And Steve hasn’t stepped up to the plate with a blog post either; his excuse is that it’s hard to type when you’ve only got paws with no fingers. Whatever, says I.

But just so you don’t get bored while you wait for our next effusion of erudition, here’s a picture from yesterday’s out...

Tangles and Darkness

This week in telegram style: RAN ERRANDS STOP DID SOME GARDENING STOP TRIED TO UNTANGLE THE STORYLINES OF CHECKMATE STOP TRIED TO UNTANGLE THE TANGLES I CREATED BY UNTANGLING STOP SIGH STOP (In case you’re wondering what a telegram is, it’s a form of communication from the last century that no longer exists. It was kind of like texting on paper. The world’s last telegram was sent in July 2013 in India.)

With the way I write, events tend to flow from one scene to the next – I write something,...

Friday Frolics

I’m knee-deep in edits on Checkmate (Septimus book 3), and in consequence I don’t have much to say today (I’m using my words on my book). So I went into the “Unused Pics” folder in my “Blog” files, and found a couple of little irrelevancies to share with you. An old piece of magnetic poetry (ain’t it profound?), and a picture of a rose bud from my garden from last year.

Happy Friday!

Filed under: this and that, writing Tagged: Checkmate, Friday, magnetic poetry, rose, Septimus Series ...

More Rabbit-Trailing, or: White Cliffs and China Clay

I’m still rabbit-trailing, uh, sorry, researching. And for some reason, I always seem to arrive in the early 19th century again – the time of the Regency, Jane Austen, the Brothers Grimm. What’s with that?

This is how the rabbit trail ran today: I was looking at the creation of porcelain or china (because that’s important for Septimus book #3, Checkmate, which I’m editing at the moment). Unlike regular clay, which you can just dig out of the ground and use more-or-less straight up, the clay b...

Reckless Rabbit-Trailing

One of the pleasures of writing fantasy fiction is world building. In fantasy, anything goes. You want your characters to have interesting-coloured eyes? Make ’em purple. Or better yet, turquoise. (Just as an aside, the turquoise-coloured eyes of some of the main characters in Seventh Son simply appeared in the course of writing the story. I sat down and started to write, and when it came to finding a simile for the colour of the pottery bowl – you know, the one that sucks Cat off to Ruph – I...

Jane vs. Jane

I was reading Kara Jorgensen’s blog this morning, and it got me thinking. Today, she posted on “10 Bookish Confessions”, giving a list of ten facts about herself and her relationship with books (reading as well as writing them). Now, I’m not going to follow suit and give you one of those Lists of Ten, fun though they may be – some other time, perhaps. No, what got me thinking was the first item on her list. (The second item, her book-related charm bracelet, didn’t get me thinking, it brought...

Friday Frivolities

Steve was complaining about not getting enough screen time lately. Also, about my terrible habit of procrastinating instead of writing. Well, I said to him, what do you want me to do – write, or put up a blog post with a picture of you? I can’t very well do both. He chose the latter. Which goes to show just how seriously I need to take him when he grumbles at me about my procrastination.

So here he is, looking dapper in front of my screen. Now that he gets double screen time – in front on my...

Once Upon an Austen Novel

We watched the new Pride and Prejudice the other day, the one with Keira Knightley and Matthew MacFadyen. And it struck me just how much of a fairy tale that particular interpretation is.

I’d never really noticed that before. I watch Austen films very firmly with the books in the back of my mind, and because I know that Austen’s stories are a form of realism – they were “contemporary fiction” in her day – I expect the movies to be the same, i.e. to portray the Regency period in the most accur...