The Secrets of Story

Mar. 18th, 2026 12:27 pm
marycatelli: (Golden Hair)
[personal profile] marycatelli posting in [community profile] books
The Secrets of Story: Innovative Tools for Perfecting Your Fiction and Captivating Readers by Matt Bird

A how-to-write book. Despite the title, mostly for TV and movie writers, down to and including explaining that a prose writer has it easier.

Nevertheless, some useful ideas, particularly about irony, such as the character's flaw should be a flip-side of a strength to add reason to not want to fix it. None of the jargon was impenetrable.

The Snake Prince and Other Stories

Mar. 16th, 2026 10:46 am
marycatelli: (Golden Hair)
[personal profile] marycatelli posting in [community profile] books
The Snake Prince and Other Stories: Burmese Folk Tales by Edna Ledgard

A varied collection. I think a little overwritten, but the tales are a new slice, fitting a new culture. Fairy tales, including a kind and unkind girls featuring a mother-in-law and daughter-in-law, and a unique take on burning the skin of the shape-shifted: the Naga prince is not killed but he is rendered mortal to live and grow old and die with his bride.

Also tales of fools and clever men, and animal tales.

Most are recognizable types, but not close to other variants.
mark: A photo of Mark kneeling on top of the Taal Volcano in the Philippines. It was a long hike. (Default)
[staff profile] mark posting in [site community profile] dw_maintenance

Happy Saturday!

I'm going to be doing a little maintenance today. It will likely cause a tiny interruption of service (specifically for www.dreamwidth.org) on the order of 2-3 minutes while some settings propagate. If you're on a journal page, that should still work throughout!

If it doesn't work, the rollback plan is pretty quick, I'm just toggling a setting on how traffic gets to the site. I'll update this post if something goes wrong, but don't anticipate any interruption to be longer than 10 minutes even in a rollback situation.

marycatelli: (Golden Hair)
[personal profile] marycatelli posting in [community profile] books
Temples, Tombs & Hieroglyphs: A Popular History of Ancient Egypt by Barbara Mertz

A light discussion of Egypt. Admittedly covering a long period of history and so necessarily cursory in place. Discusses what records we have and what archeological evidence we have found, and various Pharaohs and changes.
tally: (Default)
[personal profile] tally posting in [community profile] add_a_writer
Name: Tally

About Me:  After going through a few years of really dire health problems, I'm finally back at a hundred percent and I'm getting back into Dreamwidth and back into writing!  I also do some drawing/painting.

About My Journal: I post a lot about writing, reading, my various fandoms, and some artwork as well.

What I Write:  Fantasy, sci-fi, and horror!  I love deep worldbuilding and lore and creating magic systems!  Occasionally, I'll dabble in romance or erotica.  The current novel I'm working on is a high fantasy adventure with enemies-to-lovers!

What I Don't Write: Slice of life stuff, or most genre fiction besides the ones I mentioned above.

What I Read: My favorites are the same genres I write in, but I'll give just about any type of book a read!

Could I Edit Someone Else's Work: Sure!

What I'm looking for here:  To connect with other people who like to chat about writing—the process, the progress, the pitfalls, all of it!  I've connected with a couple of writers on Dreamwidth so far, and joined a few writing communities on here, and it's been great!  Looking for more of that same camaraderie.  Ideally we'd check out each other's journals from time to time to comment and connect!


marycatelli: (Golden Hair)
[personal profile] marycatelli posting in [community profile] books
Kakuriyo: Bed & Breakfast for Spirits, Vol. 11 by Waco Ioka

And so we begin in medias res -- spoilers ahead for the earlier volumes

Read more... )

The Way to a Beautiful World

Mar. 7th, 2026 11:59 pm
marycatelli: (Golden Hair)
[personal profile] marycatelli posting in [community profile] books
The Way to a Beautiful World by James Norbury

Another collection of cartoons, loosely woven into a tale. A little more loosely than in Journey, which benefitted it. Most could work as stand-alones, and are the strongest.