Silliness

Yet Another Slang List for your Author Toolbox (2023 edition)

And we’re back! A general slang dictionary for the 2000s (containing such elemental online basics as NSFW and gif) can be found for your delighted perusal here. And an updated version (from 2020, containing words like yeet, and already outdated! Isn’t it fun how that works) can be found for you here. The internet moves faster than the speed of light. What was cool to say in 2020 has now evolved like the Tuatara lizard. I fully expect this list…

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The Insecure Writer’s Group and the Epoch of Belief

It must be the first Wednesday of the month, because here I am writing with insecurity, from a place of simultaneous doubt and confidence. If you like to write with similar contradictions, and want to come out the other side of the post feeling obscurely reassured by complete strangers on the internet, this is definitely the group for you. Come join! Speaking of complete strangers floating gently around the interwebs doing kind deeds, this month our IWSG co-hosts are Kim…

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Bookish Worlds I Would Live In Tomorrow, and A Few I Wish to Avoid

Today I’m making a half-and-half list. Five bookish worlds I would move to in one second, no questions asked, YES my bags are already packed; and five bookish worlds where I’d last long enough for one good Hollywood scream. First, the top five worlds I would disappear to in an instant if it were somehow possible: 1. Narnia If you tell me you never wanted to live in a world where the animals could wish you ‘good morning’, I will…

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10 Books That Have All the Sensory Feels

This is all about the trip down memory lane. It sounds strange at first to think a book, dead leaves stuffed full of inky imprints of soul, could come with a strong sensory memory attached to anything other than your eyes. But if you think about it, a lot of different things combine to be part of the reading experience. Where you were, what you were going through at the time, your environment, even what you were eating. Most of…

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Top Ten Awful Books I’m Glad I Read

To preface this list: I try hard to stay away from bashing bad books. In the first place, I wouldn’t like it done to my books. That shit hurts. Second, I might meet the actual author some day, and that would be awkward AF. Can you picture it at a convention? Me: “Oh, hi, you’re [author]? You must be the one who wrote [this book, which I totally trashed in a review].” Poor Author: “Yep, that’s me. So you’ve read…

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Sewhitebooks Recommends the Clever Bastards

Hello and welcome to my tangent! I’ve previously covered this topic in Top Ten Tuesday, Villain Edition and had a lot of fun with it. So today I’m going rogue again and picking my favorite clever villains. I want the best plotters, the most urbane, cultured, and ridiculously devious little psychopaths for the list today. I want the type who have plans A-D ready to go, are already one move ahead in the chess game of hero vs. villain, and could pick…

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Sewhitebooks Wants Your Childhood

Our theme today: Favorite Books from Childhood Full on nostalgia hit this week. I blame my fourth cup of pumpkin spiced coffee. Anyway, allow me to throw this entire list at you and then fight off the urge to go re-read all of these immediately. And also let me know your own childhood favorites! I’ve got two school-age mini bookworms growing up and I’m sure we’d all love to read them, too. The Beatrix Potter stories For some reason we…

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Why Titles are Literally the Worst

Inquiring authors want to know: What’s harder for you to come up with, book titles or character names? (It’s me. I’m inquiring authors.) My answer: Titles. Titles are the hardest thing ever. Titles are horrible, nasty, no good, very bad, brain-killing beasts. Compared to titles, naming my characters is a breeze. And not like, a fourteen-kilometer-per-hour windstorm breeze, one of those gentle zephyr kind. So many options, all of them easy breezy. I can use names I like the sound…

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My Bookworm Life Gets Controversial

As we all know, one of the Ten Bookworm Commandments is: Thou shalt never be satisfied with a movie adaptation because THE BOOK IS ALWAYS BETTER. Obviously, the prompter for this blog post (Kibby of The Dark Forest Co) just wanted to fling that match and watch the bookworm world burn. While standing there looking cool, backlit by the flames, walking away in slow motion. I approve, which is why I wrote this post defying one of the cardinal bookworm…

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