12 Days of Pre-Christmas: Gift Five For Your Writer Friend

Spell check, grammar check, synonyms, homonyms, rhymes, inspiration for your characters to quote – these are all nice references to have handy when you are sitting at your desk. Which leads us to ideas for the 5th Day of Pre-Christmas! Reference Books for Writers What they are: Books that are tools. Yes, you can get a lot of information online, but online you need to know what you are looking for and type it in. With the book you can browse and discover things you didn’t know you wanted. Why they’re great: “It’s so great out today it makes me feel great, and even greater would be a great cup of coffee.” Hmmm. What’s wrong with this sentence. That’s right, who wants…Read More

12 Days of Pre-Christmas: Gift One For Your Writer Friend

With the advent of the laptop, there is nothing better than being able to leave your office and write comfortably. This gift is something that makes that experience extra nice. The Lap Desk What it is: The lap desk (or Lapdesk), is a portable surface with a cushion underneath that you can set on your lap and either write or type comfortably. Why it’s great: You don’t have to sit at your desk all day! Or what if you’re not feeling great and want to write from bed? The lap desk fits on your knees, and crossed legs and you no longer need to worry about balancing your laptop while blowing your nose. Or, let’s say you have a bad multi-tasking…Read More

5 Reasons to be Thankful for Writers! Writers take us places we might never go on our own, and sometimes places no one could possibly go. Writers can give us the happy endings we need. Writers can inspire us to be better and give us dreams to which we can aspire. Writers make us think differently about our views, prejudices, and perceptions. Writers can help us escape from the worst moments in our own lives (and take us to a world where people are even more screwed!) Thank you to all my fellow writers, readers, dreamers, and schemers. Life is always better with a good book. Happy Thanksgiving! Tricia

5 Chilling and Suspenseful Books to celebrate the Spooky Season!

Nothing says Halloween like chills up your spine as you read quietly in a dark corner of your home. Here are my top 5 recommendations for the spooky season. Perfume by Patrick Suskind – Sick, twisted, sad, compelling, slightly nauseating, and one of my favorite books of all time. Perfume is the tale of a man who has no personal scent, who becomes the most powerful maker of scents. Isolation is used rather beautifully in this book. The character is isolated from humans that cannot connect with a scentless man. The writer uses the sense of smell so cleverly, isolating that one power to the detriment of all. If you are a writer, you will appreciate this book and the…Read More

When I first purchased these books by Virginia Woolf, it was with the thought that if I’m to be a writer I must read books of other great writers. Thus, Virginia Woolf. A Room of One’s Own and Orlando are more like essays, manifestos or feminist testaments, cleverly written to convey her point with a sharp, satirical and sometime frustrated or angry humor – for which I don’t blame her a bit! I imagine they were greeted with a certain amount of controversy at the time. Virginia was home schooled by her literary father and grew up meeting other literary icons such as Henry James and Julia Margaret Cameron. She later became part of her own literary and artistic circle…Read More