A.M. Offenwanger's Blog, page 57
March 9, 2015
Mishmash
The problem with blogging is that there comes a point when you feel the pressure to produce something. To come up with erudite, witty, cohesive pieces of writing on a regular basis because you figure that your readers expect it of you. (That’s on the assumption that you have readers. Let’s hold onto that illusion, shall we?) Well, I’ve had quite a few ideas for posts this past week, but I just didn’t get around to solidifying them in writing. And as with many things in life, if you don’t stri...
March 2, 2015
Check It Out: MAGIC MOST DEADLY, by E. L. Bates
I just finished re-reading E. L. Bates‘ Magic Most Deadly. It’s Agatha Christie meets Harry Potter – or, to put it another way, Christie’s Tommy & Tuppence crossed with Patricia C. Wrede and Caroline Stevermer’s The Enchanted Chocolate Pot (which, in turn, is Jane Austen/Georgette Heyer with magic). Ugh, too many analogies, which only the true aficionados among you will understand.
To put it quite plainly: Magic Most Deadly is a 1920’s murder mystery with magic. And it’s great.
The main charact...
February 27, 2015
The Power of Story, or, RIP Leonard Nimoy
In case you hadn’t heard, Leonard Nimoy died this morning. The Internet is going to be buzzing with remembrance over the next few days; everyone and their pooch will be posting pictures of him, throwing each other the Vulcan salute, and discussing their favourite Star Trek episodes ad nauseam. The whole of Silicon Valley, I’m sure, will go into mourning.
But why? An 83-year-old Jew from Boston passes away peacefully in his LA home after a long and prosperous life – so who cares?
We do. Millions...
February 26, 2015
Just Some Vanilla
amo:
A beautifully inspirational story from Stuart at Storyshucker. We all need that sense of being needed – we all need our bottles of vanilla.
Originally posted on Storyshucker:
I’m no fan of snow, but as my eyes roll in disgust at weather forecasts I concede there were times when snowfalls thrilled me. Not due to missing school, sleigh riding, or building snowmen, but because Vicki and I would go to the store for Nannie.
At an unknown point in our youth, after one snowstorm or another, my sist...
February 24, 2015
“That’s Funny,” He Laughed
I just read a quite interesting article about “The Seven Deadly Sins of Dialogue”, i.e. what not to do when you’re writing fiction dialogue. And yes, I quite agree with the author on almost all points.
For example, a nasty writing habit is replacing “said” with other verbs like “queried” or “cajoled”. Or even worse, practising what they call “Impossible Verbing”. “As a reader, that jolts me right out of the story,” I shuddered. ← There, that was one of those. One does not shudder a sentence. T...
February 15, 2015
SEVENTH SON, the Movie: a Review
We went and checked out the competition the other day. By which I mean to say, we went to see the Seventh Son movie that was released last week, which, just to reiterate, has nothing to do with my Seventh Son novel, beyond the concept that the seventh son of a seventh son has special magical abilities.
I was, quite frankly, a little apprehensive about going to that movie. You see, I read the book it’s based on, Joseph Delaney’s The Spook’s Apprentice, or rather, The Last Apprentice: Revenge of...
February 12, 2015
Enough!
Enough already. Enough with the Facebook posts, the rants, the forwards; enough with the anti-anti-vaxxer posts, anti-Fifty-Shades, anti-Muslim, anti-everything. Enough with the hating.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that I’m necessarily for any of the ideologies those posts are against. I’ve had my kids vaccinated; I haven’t read Fifty Shades; I’m not Muslim; and I don’t intend to change any of those practices.
But I’m so very, very tired to hear the harping, the incessant banging, clangin...
February 8, 2015
First Draft
So the first draft of Checkmate, Septimus Series Book 3, is in the bag, as of two hours ago. And by first draft, I mean raw, unvarnished, un-spell-checked, NaNoWriMo-ish, plot-hole-riddled, wordy etc etc. (you get the picture). I had frozen in place at the end of NaNo in the middle of a scene, having crossed the 50K-word finish line. Then Christmas happened, aka no writing for about a month, and then a January full of sort of limping along, stuttering my way to the completion of the book. But...
February 5, 2015
The Print Copies Are Here!
One lovely box full of print copies of Cat and Mouse. Aren’t they pretty? So if you’re a local and want to get a copy, give me a shout.
And when you’ve read it, let me know what you think! Also, any reviews on the Amazon page would be greatly appreciated (ditto for Seventh Son – reviews make a big difference).
CAT AND MOUSE - get it now!
Filed under: books, Cat and Mouse, writing Tagged: Amazon, Cat and Mouse, print books, reviews
February 4, 2015
Marmalade
A Paddington Bear notebook my daughter got for me at Paddington Station
So I promised you a post on marmalade, didn’t I? Well, now’s the time. We went and saw the Paddington movie last night, and when can you write about marmalade if not fresh from a viewing of a film starring The Bear With a Worrying Marmalade Habit? (The latter bit is a quote from Mr Brown, the movie version. The one in the book doesn’t seem to be worried about it at all.)
(In case you’re wondering, Steve didn’t come to the m...
