The title says it all really. The book is hugely entertaining; there is certainly nothing dry or dull about this. Struck & White is a quick and crisp reference book, but Karen Gordon’s offering has totally original explanations of the rules of grammar, together with witty and whimsical illustrations. It is even peopled by a small cast of characters, which you wouldn’t usually expect in a grammar book.
Get hold of a copy if you can. It’s a riveting read!
Some time ago I started dropping in on First Friday to meet and greet a few new bloggers. A lot of them are just learning the ropes and open to a little guidance, so I often leave some advice about categories and tags. I’m posting this here today in case these thoughts may help some other newbies and maybe some longtime bloggers who haven’t attached much importance to this angle.
Categories & Tags
…are very useful creatures. You can create them as you publish each post, using the sidebar on the right. Tagging our posts is how we invite other bloggers to check out what we’ve written. For example, if I create a Personal, or an Education, category or tag for my post, it will send my post title and a couple of lines to the Reader. Other bloggers searching for posts on Personal or Education will see mine listed…
Our accommodation, high up in the Spanish village, was one half of a converted barn. Ursula, the owner, lived alone in the other half. She’d explained that the building had recently been converted, pointing to the original doorway between her side and ours which had been bricked up with local stones. It was all very charming.
After feasting in the village that evening on paella, washed down with generous quantities of local red wine, we trudged back up the hill to bed. Our front door, the original barn door, proved too much of a challenge to lock properly and we left it secured only on the latch. We went to bed, unconcerned.
I was awoken by a door rattling. I heard feet shuffling, then the bedroom door opened. A man’s head appeared. He muttered something and shut the door.
I slipped out of bed in my pyjamas and found our intruder in the living room where we’d left a lamp on. He was feeling his way along the stone wall between the two parts of the house. He was completely naked.
I retreated to the bedroom to wake my husband, not wanting to tackle a naked man alone. He stirred. I explained. He asked, ‘has he come to fix the fridge?’ I tried again. Eventually he grasped the situation. Pulling on his jeans, he followed me into the living room.
The man was still examining the wall. I cleared my throat: ‘Can we help you?’ The man turned, I tried to focus on his face. He frowned and said something we didn’t understand. ‘Do you speak English?’ I asked. ‘Ah,’ he nodded. ‘Do you know Ursula?’ He looked blank.
My husband looked at me. ‘I’ll go and see if I can find were he’s come from,’ he said, hurrying outside and leaving me with the lost, naked man. I handed him a towel which he put around his shoulders and not where I’d hoped. I motioned him to sit down; at least we had a table between us now.
My husband returned. ‘There’s a light on next door. I’ll take him there,’ he said, and guided the man outside. Ursula answered the door and took him in without a word, studiously avoiding us for the remainder of our stay. We never did find out who our naked visitor was, but now we’re always very careful to lock our doors!
Do have a look at this post! Nicole makes some great points.
I’ve become an avid reviewer on Goodreads and totally agree that being positive about another person’s work is important. As a writer, I guess you just have to take reviews on the chin, as with anyone who puts their work out there. I have some experience of the other side of this having worked as a curator in an art gallery. It’s never easy rejecting people’s submissions.
If you want to strike fear into the heart of any author, sidle up alongside them at a party and whisper, “Goodreeeeadsssss” in their ear.
For the uninitiated, Goodreads is a platform where readers rate books and recommend them to other readers—readers being the key word. Goodreads was never intended for authors, yet authors can’t resist snooping around in there. On rare occasions, the end result is a burst of pride, but more often than not, the author slinks away with a bruised ego—or rather, the wise author slinks away with a bruised ego; the Devil-may-care ones roll up their sleeves and fight.
Insider tip: this fighting from an author on behalf of her book? It’s not a good look. Not under any circumstances. Nope. Never. Sorry. Even if the reader is totally wrong about the novel you’ve devoted 10 years…
Ever noticed that writers tend to have… lots of cats? Like not just one or two, but sometimes three or four? I could never quite figure out the obsession, until I adopted a few of my own (yes, I just said the word ‘few’, and yes, I may have more than one cat).
1) You will never again be alone, ever
2) They are excellent paper shredders… and you will cheer them on even when it’s the sole copy of your manuscript. You are eating that paper so well my little darling munchkin poo
3) Kittens. Just kittens. I mean, they do end up turning into cats at some point. But kittens
4) Cats are the only thing on the planet more bonkers than writers. This is reassuring to said writers
5) Feeling blue because you’ve just killed off one of your favourite characters? Never fear, the cat will help…
SPECIAL OFFER For one week only (1st to 7th August) my collection of short stories
‘A Sextet of Shorts’ is free to download on your Kindle or phone.
Click on the ‘Buy on Amazon’ box below:
Many thanks to The Haunted Wordsmith for this review of my little short story book ‘A Sextet of Shorts’.
Note the free offer runs until 7th August, so not too late to download for free!
It’s a good two-hour drive from Maun to the entrance of the Moremi Game Reserve in the Okavango Delta. Not that it’s particularly far, maybe 100km, but on the second half of the journey, the tar runs out and you’re on a so-called gravel road, which is actually more like sand, scree and boulders. But, heigh-ho, this is Africa, and we’re on holiday.
We set out on a bright winter morning, fuelled by a good breakfast at our lodge. We fill up the tank of our trusty hired 4×4 and proceed, on the watch for the donkeys, cattle and goats who all graze happily at the side of the road and might suddenly step out onto the highway seeking pastures new on the opposite verge.
At Shorobe, halfway distance-wise, the tar road runs out and a little further along, the warning signs for cattle on the road change to warning signs for wild animals.
Soon we spot an elephant splashing about in a small waterhole near the roadside. We stop and roll down the windows. The elephant looks at us. Somehow he seems wilder, being outside the reserve. But he’s not interested in us. He wanders off to conceal himself behind a bush. No paparazzi, please!
We spy a group of giraffes and wonder at how they can disappear behind the slenderest of trees. ‘Now you see me, now you don’t’. Next there are groups of docile bokkies, all big eyes and stumpy little tails.
Now you see me…
…now you don’t
At about eleven o’clock we arrive at the South Gate of the Reserve, shaken by the road but stirred by the sights. We have until about 4.30 if we are to avoid driving back in the dark (which is not recommended, given the state of the roads). I understand that the gates close at 5.30. We have plenty of time.
The map we are given when we sign in is short on information, but we spot a sign after the first waterhole and follow a narrower, sandier track which promises a lagoon. We nod to a handful of giraffes. We pass several dried up patches of mud, which may or may not have been part of the lagoon (it is the dry season after all). But we convince ourselves that lions are hiding in the long grass (they probably are). We see zebra and buffalo, lots of them! The track winds bumpily away, through a profusion of birds. Two hours in, we’ve no idea where we are, but never mind, we have plenty of time.
A little further on, we spot a lone hippo. We turn off the engine and listen to him grazing. We watch spellbound as he tucks into his lunch and will him to look up and pose for the camera, but he turns his back on us.
We move off and he gazes up at us; we get the photo. As we leave the open grassland behind and return to the bush we wonder where we might within this large expanse of wilderness.
We pass what we think is a familiar lump of splodged elephant dung by a fork in the road. Have been here before? Without any signs around, the map is not helpful to our dilemma.
We head off down the untried fork. As the afternoon shadows lengthen I have the feeling we are headed in the wrong direction. However, on the plus side, we are passing a series of shallow waterholes and there are animals everywhere.
Eventually we come to a battered wooden sign at another fork. The only name we can match to the map is ‘Third Bridge’; this is definitely the wrong direction. Another vehicle draws up containing a party of cheery people from Namibia, looking for their campsite and also lost. I pass them our map; we all decide that they are heading the right way.
We turn around again. I’m looking at the time. It’s doubtful that we will make it back to the Gate before 4:30, but never mind, we’re enjoying the animals, although not stopping anymore, unless said animal is blocking the road, like the big bull elephant, and the herd of buffalo.
An hour later we are back at the original fork. There is only one choice left. We follow. We reach a vehicle which is waiting for two others to pass. We tuck in behind and watch a honey badger shoot across the path of one of the on-coming safari trucks. The track widens out and vehicle in front stops; as we draw level, we see that it’s our Namibian friends. Clearly one of us is heading in the wrong direction. We shake our heads and decide to follow them for a bit. Maybe we’ll find a sign up ahead.
There is a sign: ‘First Bridge’ and a few yards on, there is the bridge. Now we know which of us is wrong. It’s us. On the plus side, we know exactly where we are, and we know that if we turn around we’ll get straight to the Gate. On the minus side, it’s about 40 km away, another hour.
Off we go again, bumping over the sandy track. This will be interesting. Pressing on through the narrow bush-lined tracks, we slow down only slightly for the evening-time animals, and we arrive at the Gate at little before 5:30. The sun is sinking fast, but what are headlights for? At least we’re not marooned in Moremi with only the thin walls of the 4×4 between us and marauding animals. Heigh-ho, this is Africa, and we’re on holiday!
SPECIAL OFFER For one week only (1st to 7th August) my collection of short stories
‘A Sextet of Shorts’ is free to download on your Kindle or phone.
Click on the ‘Buy on Amazon’ box below:
Yay! I was so chuffed to be nominated for the Liebster award by awesome author and blogger,JI Rogers. It was just over a month ago (how time flies when you’re having fun writing, or sitting thinking about writing, or just sitting…). But now I’m acting on that nomination and passing on to another 11 people.
So, the Liebster Award; this is how it works:
‡ Step 1
Acknowledge the person who nominated you
Thank you JI Rogers for the nomination! She’s a very special author and blogger; do go and visit her site:jirogers-author.comto see all that she’s working on. She’s an artist too, see her work atmythspinnerstudios.com
I first came across Jenn through her Six Word Story Challengeand have been having fun with it ever since. And I recently readBook One of the Korpes Filesand you should too! It’s a really good read… and I can’t wait for the second book to be published. See my ‘Good Reads’ review of it over there on the right.
‡ Step 2
Answer the 11 questions your nominator asked you
What do you feel is the best blog post you’ve written to date and why?
It was a little flash fiction piece entitled ‘The Beautiful Game?‘ which was prompted by an article I read about domestic violence increasing in the UK during the World (Soccer) Cup. I provoked some interesting reactions and I hope helped to raise awareness.
If you had to choose one of your current projects to tell a group of strangers about, what would it be?
It would have to be my work-in-progress novel. I’m nearing the end of the first major draft and I’m getting quite excited about it, so I hope my enthusiasm would come across.
Who in your life (living or dead) provided you with the best inspiration?
My high school geography teacher. She was an eccentric ‘old school’ spinster who had fantastic enthusiasm for travel and life in general. She was at Cambridge University in the early 1950s, a scholarship girl too. We thought her rather old and quite batty at the time, but then she’d have been more than 10 years younger than I am now (which is a bit scary, thinking about it). She didn’t partticularly inspire me to write, but to live bravely.
What book would you recommend that everyone read?
Mine of course! – The Silver Locket Otherwise, for aspiring writers I’d say ‘On Writing’ by Stephen King. And for a beautiful read and to experience the craft in action: any novel by Isabel Allende or Kate Atkinson or Margaret Atwood or Jane Austin… that’s just the ‘A’s.
What is your favourite movie?
No contest: ‘Casablanca’. A total classic and timeless.
Hypothetical: You’re a well-paid guinea-pig being abandoned on a remote tropical island for an extended period (several years). You have ample food supplies, shelter (even indoor plumbing), electricity, and a decent computer… but the internet is non-existent, and you will have no human contact. One of the scientists takes pity on you and will leave you an external drive with movies, TV/Netflix series, games, and books on it, but the catch is it can only be one genre. Which genre would you choose?
This is the hardest question. I just want to say ‘fiction’, but I don’t think that’s really an answer. I could narrow it down to ‘Speculative Fiction’… I’d be happy just take the books!
Cat, dog or other?
Cat. Have you met Luna?
When you’re being creative, do you prefer quiet or some form of sound (music, audiobook…) in the background?
Quiet suits me. My writing room has windows into the garden, so there is a soundtrack: birdsong, the chattering of squirrels and the clucking of my hens. Once I’m in ‘the zone’ I can write almost anywhere and under almost any conditions.
What can move you more, images or words?
Words; they create the mental pictures. That’s why I prefer radio to TV a lot of the time.
If you could be assured of accomplishing one thing with your life, what would be your magnum opus?
A brilliant, acclaimed, best-selling, literary novel preferably recognised during my lifetime. Otherwise all the proceeds go the cat!
What is your favourite colour?
I find yellow very stimulating and that’s the colour of the walls in my writing room. Not a colour I’d wear though.
We are an international community. Where in the world do you come from and where do you live now?
Plotter or pantser?
What’s on your writing desk?
What have you written which has given you a real buzz?
What distracts you most when you are writing?
How do you select the names of your characters?
What do you enjoy most about the writing process?
Have you ever sought revenge on someone by doing something bad to them in a story? Or conversely, have you given someone a happy ending?
What’s the strangest thing you’ve done by way of research for your writing?
You’re hosting a dinner with three other writers (living or dead). Who’s invited?
What are you reading at the moment?
‡ Step 5
Let them know you’ve nominated them
Here goes… everyone should get apingback! Dear Nominees,
Don’t feel you have to react to the ‘chain letter’ element of this if you don’t want to, but if you do, please take the opportunity to promote yourself and your work BIG TIME.
And finally, from me…
…and especially for you, dear reader, a heads up to let you know that my short story collection ‘A Sextet of Shorts’ will be free to download on Kindle from 1st to 7th August.
And if any of my nominees wish to post an offer or a link to any of their work anywhere in a reply to the award, the floor is yours!
“Seen that last review yet?” 
luna's on line 