For Love of Words

The lovely Shauna Roberts, author of Like Mayflies in a Stream, is interviewing me on her blog today! Please drop by and say hi!

Shauna is an award-winning medical writer and editor specializing in diabetes and related subjects, as well as author of fantasy, science fiction, and romance stories and novels. She lives in California and is a member of the author group Novel Spaces.

Random yard pics: Bougainvillae

I was with my mother the day she bought this plant. We had gone to Central Trinidad to look for bargains - or rather, she had. I was just along for the ride, providing her with company and a sense of security as she doesn't like to drive far from her familiar haunts alone. The plant was little more than a twig in a pot, but it was covered with masses of the most beautiful bougainvillea flowers I'd ever seen. (To be botanically correct: the tiny white splotch in the middle of each bloom is the real flower, and the colourful parts surrounding it are actually bracts or modified leaves.)

"Should I buy it?" she asked, indecisive as usual, eying the exorbitant price tag.

"You'd better," I responded.

That was at least two years ago. It's still in a small pot, but the twig is somewhat larger now. Several times a year, particularly during drier spells, the flowers emerge, and they're a sight to behold. When they fall they continue to enchant, looking like the most delicately hued rose petals scattered in the grass. That was money well spent.

The small white flowers in the background are periwinkles, or 'Old Maid' as they're known here. Our common varieties of periwinkle are so hardy they flourish in cracks in concrete. We tried planting an entire border of the more exotic, hybrid varieties and they all died out in a few months. That was not money well spent.

Word rat

Are you a pack rat or a word rat? Join me as I blog on Novel Spaces today about the stuff I can't throw out.

Random yard pic of the week: Heliconia

Heliconia flowers in border

I started fiddling with my cellphone cam again since my son showed me that I can change the resolution etc. etc. Yeah, yeah, I've had it for a year and a half and didn't figure out I could do something about the teensy tiny images I've been getting. That's what children are for - to point out the blatantly obvious to their technically challenged parents.

Took a bunch of yard shots but most are badly pixellated (my son's word) so I'll have to tinker a bit to get the hang of things. The one above is of my mother's heliconias in a border, mixed with a miscellany of other plants that all grow happily together. Too happily, if anything. Ignore it all for a few weeks and it turns to jungle.

Anti-writing

I'm posting over at Novel Spaces today on Anti-writing. See you there!

Blog vacation

The blog is tired. I'm tired. Over the past three months my part-time, low-stress day job has morphed into something else altogether with long hours and triple the responsibility.

Hopefully, things will revert to normal within two to three weeks and I'll have the time and mindset once again to take care of my writing and my blog. Right now it's a struggle to balance all the facets of my daily life, so for the next few weeks I won't be blogging unless something spectacular happens that I just have to share with the cyberworld. I'll still be posting over at Novel Spaces when my turn comes around, and I'll still drop by your blogs to see what you're up to now and then.

And now for some good news. The house wrens, our tiny, animated coco rachelles, returned after a prolonged absence and have been making happy sounds around the eaves on mornings. One even paid me a visit, hopping and chirping along the rafters in my bedroom. And the manicou (opossum) family has also reappeared; I hear their sounds at night and even spotted one making its way along the back fence. I take the flourishing of the wildlife as a good omen for, oh, life in general.

Blessings, all!

Two years and counting

My second blogiversary came and went in June - and I was so busy I didn't even notice. I believe one should never pass up an opportunity to celebrate, so...

To all who visited, commented, stuck around, became my blog buddies and friends, shared their thoughts, opinions, and wit, empathized, commiserated and celebrated along with me, and whose thoughts, adventures and misadventures I've followed on their own blogs, here's a great, big,

YOU'VE BEEN WONDERFUL, AND MADE IT ALL WORTHWHILE. IT'S BEEN ALL GOOD...
THANK YOU!

Interview with Elizabeth Naughton

I'm being interviewed on Elizabeth Naughton's blog today. Elizabeth is the author of three romantic adventure novels, Stolen Heat, Stolen Fury and Stolen Seduction. You're invited to drop by and say hi!

What I learned from books on writing

I'm blogging over at Novel Spaces today on "What I learned from books on writing". You might be surprised to find what those books taught me had little to do with the words themselves!

Guest blogger Susan Schulman, literary agent

My literary agent, Susan Schulman, is the guest blogger over at Novel Spaces today. Hop on over and find out what she looks for in a fiction manuscript, and her must-read novel recommendations for writers.

Susan has been in the business for close to thirty years. Some of her better known projects are The English Patient (Miramax) by Michael Ondaatje, Holes (Disney) by Louis Sachar, and The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron.