It’s the season for spectator sports, and I don’t mean baseball or playoff hockey. I’m talking about the book awards season, which in my opinion, qualifies as a spectator sport. It’s almost always entertaining, there’s usually an underdog to cheer for, a favourite, a healthy amount of suspense and hoopla, and sometimes even intrigue and dirty pool. Read more
Author: Tracey Richardson
Tracey Richardson has had several novels published by Bella Books, two of which were Lambda Literary Awards finalists. Semi-retired now from a long-time journalism career, Tracey spends as much time writing and reading as her two demanding chocolate Labrador retrievers will allow. She also enjoys playing hockey, golf, and occasionally teaches fiction writing. History, politics and time travel are among her more exotic reading material. www.traceyrichardson.net; Twitter @trich7117.
The Power of 10 And The Power of Passion
I like the number ten. It’s a good number in terms of measurement.
It’s a decade, for one. An achievement by which we recognize milestone birthdays, for another. In the metric system, multiples and fractions of units are expressed as powers of ten of each unit. Unit conversions are always simple because they are in the ratio of ten, one hundred, one thousand and so on.
The Love Affair Between Music, Fiction
If ever I am asked which I would choose to be without in my life, books or music, it’d be a close call (although for the record, I’d keep books in my life over music!).
I’ve always thought music and literature were closely linked. I might even go so far as to suggest they’re lovers. Music, at least the kind with lyrics (and a strong case could be made for instrumental music as well), is really about stories. A song is a story. A song is about people or characters and what happens to them. Sound familiar?
Why Character Needs To Trump Plot
Character in a book (or movie) is king for me (wait, queen?). If a character doesn’t reach out from the pages and grab me, I won’t enjoy the book and probably won’t even finish it. Because for me, a good story boils down to one simple truth: Story is what happens to a character. So if your character doesn’t rock your book, nobody’s going to care about the story.
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Take Me Away, Books!
By Tracey Richardson
This summer has been hard on my nerves. And I don’t think I’m alone.
Global tragedies have abounded, starting with the shooting deaths of 49 people at a gay club in Orlando in June. In early July, five Dallas police officers were assassinated by a gunman who wanted to avenge a couple of high profile police shootings of black men in the United States. A week after that, it was the vehicular rampage in Nice, France, that killed almost 100 people. On the immediate heels of that tragedy came a bloody coup d’etat attempt in Turkey. Read more
Lighten Up Your Writing Process!
Writers spend a lot of time talking about how much they love to write. And so they should! Writing is a tremendously gratifying, passionate pursuit that feeds our souls.
But writing is also hard. And lonely. It’s sometimes emotional and often angst ridden. But let’s not dwell on the more challenging aspects of our calling. Read more
Research The Key To Hooking Reader
E. L. Doctorow once said, “fiction doesn’t have to be real, it just has to seem real.”
It’s a great piece of advice, and one of the basic tenets when I write fiction. Characters, setting and dialogue all help to create the “real” world of your novel. But research is the mother of it all.
I enjoy the research part of writing, which is a good thing, since my latest project required dozens, maybe even hundreds, of hours of research. And all for a short story of about 5,000 words! Read more
My 40-Pound Window To The Past!
I’ve been transported back in time to 1938!
Okay, not really, since I haven’t (yet) mastered time travel (although the subject does very much interest me!). But my “new” purchase is as close to 78 years ago as I’m going to get.
