I have been thinking about changes I’ve gone through since I decided to follow (far, far behind) in my brother Jann’s footsteps and become a published writer. Part of the impetus was my move to Calgary to help care for my mother, but a larger consideration was the fact that I was fast approaching retirement and wanted something that would keep me busy and generate extra income. Jann had been writing for a few years and his choice had…
For this Tuesday Tunes post, I thought I would enlighten you somewhat regarding my musical interests and maybe introduce you to something you might not be familiar with. I am a music lover. I don’t consider myself a connoisseur, as I am nowhere near an expert on the subject, but my interests are wide and varied. Like my brother, Jann, I think classical music is some of the most beautiful written. My tastes run from Mozart, to Bach, to Beethoven….
I love Christmas. The season seems to bring out the best in just about everyone, from friends and acquaintances ready with friendly greetings and holiday wishes, to strangers who wish you the best of the season while shopping in stores or passing on a busy street. My first Christmas celebration with my wife still ranks as one of our best. She was three weeks away from giving birth to our first child, a son, so we limited the length of…
The last few days of November are upon us and, with Thanksgiving complete, Christmas preparations are taking over. That’s not to say the shops waited until this week to put up their trees and garland. Heaven forbid! Where I live in Canada, the home improvement stores decorated the trees and started playing carols in late September. My thoughts on this are best summed up in the immortal words of Ebenezer Scrooge: Bah, humbug! Don’t misunderstand, I love Christmas and all…
I confess. The details in my fiction are open to interpretation by readers, as well as other authors. In my defense, though, my stories are set in a period more than two hundred years in the past, so many of the situations I put my characters into are dreamed up as I write. That is not to say the conversations and actions I thrust these men and women into are made up of whole cloth. Their words and manner of…
I’m an author. No, seriously, that’s what I do with myself since I retired. I write variations based on Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice”. But what does it mean when I make that claim? Do I have any published works, or is this something I do in my spare time to stay active and possibly amuse myself? And what is involved in the art of creating and selling a story? Yes, I am a published writer, with nine books available…