Blog: Mel's Muse

Online Book Club - Showing Of Love By Julian Of Norwich - Questions

The questions below were compiled by members of the real-time Book Club I lead at church.

A member of the clergy, retired through mental ill health, asked on the Association of Christian Writers' Facebook wall today whether we should be writing to be published, and pointed out that much of Julian's...

Posted at 18:44pm on 4th December 2011

The Reality Of Being An Author: Marketing

Last month, I wrote about a reader of my website, Skye, who had written to me for advice about her first self-published novel. Her initial question was simply one of discouragement. I say "simply", but there's nothing simple about the sense of isolation one can feel as an author. And...

Posted at 08:15am on 3rd December 2011

How To Be An Author: Facing Discouragement

If you are an aspiring author and are contemplating self-publishing your book, there are various issues to be considered. I received an e-mail from a visitor to my website last month which highlighted some of these.

She recently self-published her book and has encountered several problems. So over the next few...

Posted at 08:55am on 15th November 2011

Online Book Club: Discussion Summary - Life Of Pi By Yann Martel

One of the great things about a Book Club, as I've said before, is that almost always there are aspects of the book we've read that strike people in different ways. So while all of us who met last Thursday confessed to feeling disappointed by the denouement of Life of...

Posted at 17:44pm on 16th October 2011

Online Book Club: Book Reviews & Questions - Life Of Pi By Yann Martel

BOOK REVIEW

At times profound, at others humorous, the novel, Life of Pi, is the story of an Indian boy who, because he is named after a French swimming pool (Piscine) and doesn't like the nicknames which result, shortens his name to the irrational mathematical number Pi - 3.14... Pi...

Posted at 16:06pm on 14th October 2011

Creative Writing Techniques: Description In Writing

Aspiring authors believe that for creative writing to flourish they must be free to write without hindrance. They're right! But only up to a point. Because like it or not, there are rules, and they can either be learned in advance, until they become so familiar that, like riding a...

Posted at 17:53pm on 13th September 2011

1 Comment

Right Brain Creative Writing; Left Brian Editing

Photo: Right Brain / Left Brain

One of the most influential books I read when I was an unpublished, aspiring author, was Dorothea Brande's Becoming A Writer. An American author (1893-1948) she identified the "adult / child" or Left and Right Brain aspects of writing. The "child" is the...

Posted at 18:45pm on 30th August 2011

In A Biblical Big Society, Are We All Complicit In Bad Parenting?

I woke this morning having just dreamt of my daughter, whose birthday it is today. In the dream she was aged about nine, and she was running, running, running, through open grassland, ducking beneath bracken fronds high on a hillside, and the sound of her laughter and that of the...

Posted at 09:30am on 17th August 2011

2 Comments

Edgy Christian Fiction: Books For Summer Reading

If you're anything like me, a book will be essential packing for your summer hols, the perfect partner for a picnic lunch, a bonus for the beach and a relaxing read for bedtime. So here are four book reviews for sensational summer reads, all with a Christian world view that...

Posted at 20:59pm on 15th August 2011

7 Comments

Online Book Club Discussion Summary: A Time To Live By George Pitcher

Are you in favour of assisted dying? Would you like British law to be amended to allow euthanasia? Or is the risk of abuse to the elderly, disabled and infirm too great a concern?

Most of my real-time Book Club members admitted, when we met on 28th July, 2011, that they'd...

Posted at 11:00am on 3rd August 2011

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