Several months ago I had a dream. (Hah! I’ll bet you thought I was going to write about the dream of writing, in general.) Nope. This is about a real dream. I actually remember this one vividly – an unusual experience for me as that almost never happens. I knew from the start that this dream had within it the skeleton of a really interesting story, if I could only get it on paper. My last book had been sent on its way and I was ready to begin something new, something different from the trilogy that had occupied the last seven years of my life. Continue reading “Follow That Dream?”
Tag: Writing
Is a Book Ever Really Done?
Way back in 2011, I blogged about the Dynamism of Writing, which takes many forms. I concentrated mostly on the ability of a project to take over the story from my conscious brain, but touched on another aspect as well, and that’s the “doneness” of a book. As I wrote back then, I think I could look at one of my books every day for a year and probably think there were 365 different ways to make it better (sometimes changing things back to what they were before I changed them!). Even our illustrious lady leader, K.S. Brooks, wrote about the wisdom of letting a book sit and looking at it with fresh eyes before publishing.
This whole issue was brought to my unhappy attention when I began to re-read one of my older books. First published 25 years ago, it’s one of my favorites and I do re-read it periodically just because I enjoy it so much. When the original publisher felt it had had its run, they let the rights revert back to me and I published it through iUniverse (the only game in town at the time), then years later cancelled my contract with them and republished it through CreateSpace. At both of these junctures, I went back through the book and made minute changes, caught a few typos and pronounced it good.
So imagine my surprise when I started reading it recently and found within the first few pages a glaring misspelling! Ack! Of course then the reading-for-fun immediately turned to proofreading, and I’ve found many things that I’ll change, a handful of typos but also—I swear—things that I don’t think I would ever do! Where do those come from? Did someone edit my book? Who’s hacked into my Kindle and changed things? (Probably the same person who somehow gets into my DVD collection and adds new scenes to movies I’ve watched a dozen times before!)
Coincidentally in a recent discussion, another author friend asked the question, “Is a book ever really done?” Continue reading “Is a Book Ever Really Done?”
On Track With Destiny
Regardless of your beliefs ‒ justify it in whatever way you have to ‒ if you stick to a particular path long enough the universe is likely to tap you on the shoulder one day and say, ‘Tag! You’re it!’
Oftentimes, beforehand, you are unaware that things are about to change. Be it good, bad or indifferent; stay on the same track long enough and you are going to collide with the train of destiny. Continue reading “On Track With Destiny”
Candy from Strangers
Guest post
by John Kenny
At the end of May, I found myself in an extraordinarily long security line at the Ottawa airport. I don’t have a lot of patience for that. As an emergency responder and HazMat tech I know that airport security is towards the bottom of the list of risks we all face every day, most of which we take for granted – like driving. As many people die on North American highways every month, as died in 9-ll. Every propane truck rolling through our towns and cities is a bomb on wheels and all you need is shoulder mounted rocket launcher. And no one gives that a second thought, but I digress… Continue reading “Candy from Strangers”