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The Song of Achilles
When a book you’ve been recommended a zillion times gets a special 10th anniversary edition, you know it’s well past time. I absolutely adored this story. Madeline Miller’s adaptation of Homer’s Iliad follows the romantic relationship of Patroclus, the exiled prince, and Achilles, the son of a king and a sea goddess, from before their […]
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Solid writing advice from this Netflix romcom
On the weekend I watched the romantic comedy Set It Up, a 2018 Netflix film, with my partner and a friend. It was great fun and had some excellent lines – I would recommend the watch! However, it was the unexpected writing advice that caught my attention in particular. The scene starts at about the […]
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Camp NaNoWriMo
Hey campers, who’s joining me? It’s my first attempt at what the folks at NaNoWriMo have pitched as a “virtual writing retreat” where you set your own focused writing goal for the month of April. I had no plans to join until a writer friend prompted me yesterday and I realised it was just what […]
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Show your villain is powerful without killing your hero: 4 options
Hero vs villain. Good vs evil. Protagonist vs antagonist. Friend vs foe. How can we make our villains big and bad and dangerous without wiping out our main character in the first scene? That’d make for a rather short and unsatisfying story. Where’s the drama, the tension, the stakes?! It hardly gives us time to […]
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When scenes become chapters
Throughout the drafting process for my cosy mystery novel – placeholder title: Milverton Mysteries 1 – I’ve been working in scenes. But as I prepare to bring in some fresh eyes, it’s time to organise these scenes into chapters. I’ve grouped some scenes, split others, and otherwise set about ending each chapter with the reader […]
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Ownvoices Achillean Books
Reads Rainbow have pulled together a fantastic list of 100+ new releases coming out in the first half of 2022 🏳️🌈👬 I was already keeping my eye out for a few of these to add to my reading pile, and this list has added a bunch more! Check them out: Book Releases: Ownvoices Achillean Books […]
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Diverse Stories – free books on Kobo
Duck and Dive has been selected for a special Kobo free promotion highlighting diverse stories! According to Kobo, this is “a category meant to highlight the stories of marginalized groups (e.g. Black stories, indigenous stories, mental health stories, stories with disabled protagonists, LGBTQIA+ stories, etc.).” There are some fantastic reads in this week’s giveaway – […]
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Live, laugh, LUST.
The boys just want to have a nice time this Valentine’s Day 🏳️🌈😘 Dive into this light, fun, gay romcom novella series for 🇺🇸 99c / 🇬🇧 99p / 🇨🇦 1.99 / 🇦🇺🇳🇿 1.99
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2021 reading recap (with charts!)
A few weeks ago I summarised my year of writing, so today I’m turning things around and looking at the books I read in 2021! I’m looking at total books read, moods, pace, length, and genre. The headlines I shifted from Goodreads+spreadsheets to The StoryGraph for analysing my reading. 69 titles read in total (or […]
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