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A Christmas Present for the Pun-loving Child by Griselda Heppel

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This time last year I opened the Christmas month by waxing lyrical over one of my favourite books as a child: The Magic Pudding , the Australian children’s classic by Norman Lindsay. The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster By Book, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/ w/index.php?curid=14265163 So this December I thought I’d follow that by enthusing about another great favourite: The Phantom Tollbooth by the American author, Norton Juster.  This glorious fantasy novel, bursting with puns and wordplay, leads Milo, a boy with nothing to do except drive his pedal car, into the Kingdom of Wisdom which has been rent asunder by disagreement between the two brothers ruling it. In Dictionopolis, King Azaz the Unabridged (a title I fell in love with on the spot) maintains that words are more important than numbers, while at the other end of the land, the Mathemagician insists, from his fortress of Digitopolis, that - yes, you’ve guessed it - the reverse is true. As a result the princesses, ...
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The Sound of The Underground

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  Last month I was delighted to have made it to the shortlist of The Page Turners Awards, and although I eventually did not win, I reached the last 13 (worldwide) so I have a little endorsement sticker on my book and a certificate to come. On balance, I did really well statistically, because I didn’t pay for any categories except the one entry and I did find that as is the way of some awards and competitions, it would have been costly to enter a lot of categories. Some people obviously did, as they won more than one. This was a legit competition – they look like they did read the books and that was great, especially as mine is a very British, sweary punk novel, and it’s indie press as well. I’ll be entering more soon, and I would recommend entering your books but not paying out a lot of money and just see where it gets you. I think an admin fee is fair – what do you think? I’d love to know. Either way – I am proud I struck a blow for Indie publishing.   I am doubly glad that m...
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'Blue Lights' -- Susan Price

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'Allo, 'allo, 'allo I was scrolling through cat videos on Facebook... And there popped up this short clip from a tv series. I'd heard of the series. I'd heard it was good. But I'd never watched it because, well, I didn't feel like learning a whole new set of characters and their setting and the whole malarkey. The clip showed a woman police officer asking a tetchy male householder about the domestic violence call from his house. He kept trying to brush the whole thing aside and get her to leave. She kept on insistently repeating her question, to his obviously growing annoyance. Some readers may recognise the scene. It was very brief-- it was a Facebook clip-- but in that short time, the writing, the acting and the editing established themselves as way above the usual standard. The series was Blue Lights . The next time I was near a tv-set, I went to BBC iplayer and started from series one, part one. (I haven't caught up with the scene mentioned above a...
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A Year of Reading: Time by Alexander Waugh reviewed by Katherine Roberts

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This month,  I take a look at Alexander Waugh's 1999 discussion of Time as we know it (or as we think we know it). This book begins at the beginning and works fairly logically through our accepted periods of time from smallest to largest, starting with a chapter on seconds  and progressing through  minutes, hours, days, weeks,  to eras and  aeons . It ends with a discussion of simple and complex time, followed by a final chapter tantalisingly entitled 'End' - which, as I read through the earlier chapters, I imagined to be a mind-blowing comment on the end of days but actually involves a discussion of death and the afterlife according to different religions. (If you're wondering about the words in bold, I thought it might be fun to highlight our attempts to divide and control time - just consider how his post might read without those useful labels!) Time by Alexander Waugh While it's tempting to compare this book to Stephen Hawking's book ' A Brief His...
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Character Memories by Allison Symes

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Image Credit:  Images created in Book Brush using Pixabay photos.  One thing which makes a character, and their story, more real to me is when they have memories. I  think it is a great way to ensure your characters aren’t cardboard cut outs. A character recalling a memory is showing something of themselves, which shows they have more than one dimension. Memories can be played on by the character to generate sympathy. Memories can be used against a character to make them fall into line with what someone else wants - emotional blackmail. Characters can use memories to blackmail others in the more traditional ways too. Sometimes, as in Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, memories can be used as a tool for redemption. Scrooge didn’t want to face up to his past but until he did, he could not move on.   In The Lord of The Rings, memories dictated what elf leader, Elrond, wanted to happen to the Ring of Power. He knew it was what should have happened before but, due to the weakn...
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Geological Curiosities – by Elizabeth Kay

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  Winter is coming! The edge of the ice cap in Greenland My grandson did a degree in geology, and which got me thinking about minerals and fossils and rock formations, and how we use them in fiction – and a good opportunity to use some of my photos! C.S.Lewis fired my imagination with the underground scenes in The Silver Chair ( many fall down, and few return to the sunlit lands ,) and I really wanted to see formations like that for myself. Many years have passed, and I have seen some really interesting geology on my travels, both under and overground, and they provide good settings. Form bat caves in Borneo and Cambodia to limestone formations in China and Slovenia, there’s a lot of atmospheric material there. Galapagos I think Cheddar Gorge was my first experience, and I was stunned by the fantastical landscapes and sculptural beauty of what I saw. And that was nothing, compared the Postonja Karst Cave System in Slovenia, which is over fifteen miles long. So long, that you need t...
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Downsizing for My Life, Art and Cat--by Reb MacRath

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                                                              One possible studio floor plan In January I'll move from a spacious one bedroom apartment into a 350-foot studio. roughly half its size. Job hunting has proved tougher than I'd expected. So has the daily ordeal of climbing up and down a steep staircase with my still stiff surgical knee. Tips and fees for food deliveries were getting astronomical. If it took me longer than 3-4 months to find work... Let's fast forward since many of you have had to make your own tough budgetary decisions. The apartment complex that rang my bells offered studios at savings of hundreds of bucks. But they then add on a slew of fees totaling roughly $200. At first, the move seemed ill-advised. All told, to lose half my living space, I'd end up paying close to what I pay now. BUT the amenities off...
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