How to Write a Sentence: And How to Read One by Stanley Fish My rating: 5 of 5 stars I read this book immediately after being disappointed by It was the Best of Sentences, It was the Worst of Sentences, so I may have been primed to have an overly enthusiastic reaction to a book…
It Was the Best of Sentences, It Was the Worst of Sentences by June Casagrande My rating: 2 of 5 stars I was expecting something different from this book. The back of book blurbs used phrases like “wickedly funny” and “you’ll laugh all the way to writing better” (the former is a sentence, I know,)…
Labyrinth by Kate Mosse My rating: 4 of 5 stars I thoroughly enjoyed reading Labyrinth, the story and the will-she-work-it-out-before-someone-else-dies tension kept me turning the pages. I was forced to put this book down after about 150pages to read other books, for book clubs, and was eager to return to it – when I did…
For those who are not aware, NaNoWriMo is National Novel Writing Month, when writers (from all over the globe, despite the name) commit to starting a new novel on November 1st and write 50,000 words of a first draft by November 30. Obviously, the main point is to create a community to encourage and cajole…
This week in #storycraft, I asked the Storycrafters to discuss the reason June Casagrande gives us to learn our fundamentals, in It was the Best of Sentences, it was the Worst of Sentences, : “If you want to master the art of the sentence, you must first accept a somewhat unpleasant truth – one a…
Shaman’s Crossing by Robin Hobb My rating: 1 of 5 stars I’m giving this book 1 star because I simply could not push my way through it. A loved one asked me to read it, so I wanted to give it a decent chance but 33% was all the exposition I could handle. This is…
The first thing I thought, when I saw the Apricot ink in the bottle was “Edelstein Mandarin.” After I’d written with the Apricot I thought “This is what Edelstein Mandarin should have been.” Don’t get me wrong, I like the Mandarin but it’s just not Mandarin, which are delicate and sweet and a lighter orange…
We knew it would start close to Superman’s project launch and, sure enough, during the very week of the launch the emails have come in. Relocation consultants touching base, cultural training consultants doing the same and all asking when we plan to go over for our house hunting trip (as though we know.) It has…
Grenade is extremely close to the Oku Yama of the Autumn 2010 range and I wondered, for a few moments, if this was just re-named for the English market (if oddly.) When I opened the lid, though, it was clear that Grenade has more pink to it, where Oku Yama has a more of…
This is a medium green with little blue in it and is almost an army green (in fact I wish I had the Noodler’s Army Green to compare it to, it’s probably similar.) Finding a green that isn’t too blue, without being yellow is actually hard work. Epinard sits nicely between Edelstein’s rich, dark Aventurine…
