Month: May 2017

Interview for Who’s That Blogger?

Yesterday I was interviewed by Book Club Mom for “Who’s That Blogger?” I had a bit of fun with it and I think I even answered her questions. If you want to hear my story, why not wander over and take a look?

Book Club Mom does regular features of bloggers and indie authors, so check out her blog if you’re interested in being featured yourself.

You can become my special friend by signing up for updates. The monthly version comes with a standing offer to comment on the first few pages of your novel, and potentially beta read or review your novel.

Is reading poorly edited fiction bad for your health?

Reading poor writing desensitises you to it, and if you’re not careful soon we’ll all be drowning in custard.

This might be a short post because I’m trying to review five books and a camel today. Okay, it’s not that bad, but I have a few things I need to do before I can sit down and edit my work in progress.

If you pay any attention to the self-publishing world, you’ll have heard the frequent cries of outrage about how badly edited some self-published fiction is. I’m not going to argue that point. I’m going to assert some self-published fiction is terribly edited and some is not, and if you don’t agree with me you can go play on the see-saw on your own because I’m not going to play with you.

Glad we got that out of the way.

Now that we’ve established some self-published fiction is poorly edited, here’s my claim:

Reading it is bad for your health.

Continue reading “Is reading poorly edited fiction bad for your health?”

The joy of coffee

I came late to the joy of coffee, and the road there had its fallen trees, potholes, and badly signposted detours, but coffee and I have settled into a very happy relationship.

Did you see that I wrote a new short story? You can read The Emperor’s Cat here. Yes, it’s about a cat.

For various reasons, this week has been hard. Actually, it’s currently only Monday, so let me revise that.

Last week was hard.

Don’t ask why. I couldn’t tell you.

But hard weeks make me appreciate the good things in life, and last week made me appreciate coffee.

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How to write a resume that stands out

Once your job application has an employer’s attention, you need to stun them with your resume. Here’s how to use your best weapon: honesty.

Recently I wrote a post about how to catch an employer’s attention with your job application. I even called the post “part 1”, intending to write a part 2.

This is it.

You got your application into the correct inbox. Now, how do you make your resume stand out?

Having recently read 110 of these monsters (did I mention that?), I can give you the definitive answer.

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Movies that have stuck with me over decades

Did you know it’s been 25 years since Aladdin came out? (Thanks, Emma Cox! – @scyian) It’s enough to make me feel old.

Lots of movies are like that–it feels like they came out only recently, but it’s been ten years or more.

It does suggest a way of dividing your life into eras: by the movies that came out over that period. That’s what I’m going to do.

Okay, here are the rules. I have to pick one movie (or occasionally a few) from each year of my life that I saw soon after it came out and that I loved.

I’ll start with The Little Mermaid, which is the first movie I remember watching at a cinema.

Continue reading “Movies that have stuck with me over decades”