Our first experience with York in England was a both lacklustre and whirlwind. We stopped briefly on our way to Edinburgh on a family road trip. We only had time to catch lunch and visit the Jorvik Viking Centre before we hit the road again. My husband and I both agreed we wanted to see …
The Tower of London is an interesting bit of living history. Though it is no longer a royal residence, and is no longer maintained by the crown, it still plays an active role in the kingdom. The Royal Regiment of Fusiliers is still housed there, as are the Yeomen Warders (better known as ‘Beefeaters‘). Though …
Characters are central to any story. If your characters aren’t interesting, no one’s going to spend 100+ pages reading about them. Interesting characters are three-dimensional; there’s more to them than their appearance and motivation. Just as your world should have pieces that move unseen in the background while your characters are elsewhere, every character should …
When we learned we’d be leaving England, we decided to see as much as we could before our departure. Flying across an ocean is expensive, and our new destination was even further away than we started. Atop our list were more trips to the British Museum. We had visited the exhibits for all of our …
World building is a topic to which entire books have been devoted. If you’ve ever played a pen and paper role playing game, the core books are simply presentations of world building results. The game designers have provided you the backbone and elements required to tell a story. I wrote recently about the world building …
When we finished our tour of the British Museum Enlightenment gallery, a mini museum of its own, we headed toward a special exhibit centred around the Vikings. I wasn’t fond of the way the British Museum laid out their special exhibits. It seemed random and lacklustre compared to a place like the ROM, which tends …
Did you know the Loch Ness monster has a little brother? Apparently he lives in a lake in British Columbia. Actually, I’m sure Nessie has many ‘siblings’ that inhabit many lakes across the world. These creatures are known as cryptids (part of the pseudoscience referred to as ‘cryptozoology’). That is, creatures which have been suggested, …
I’ve made my feelings about Mad Max; Fury Road loud and clear; I love it. I would put it on endless repeat, if I could. We went to see it twice, which is something my husband and I rarely do. But we loved the original Mad Max, and we loved Road Warrior even more (you …
When you only have one day to spend at the British Museum, where do you start? My husband and I were lucky enough to be members for a year and, during that time, we tried to visit as many sections of the museum as possible. But when his family came to visit, we had only …
Way in the long ago, I wrote about my writing process. I wrote a whole post before I touched on the actual writing bit. I tend to devote serious time to the planning stages because I like to have a quick-reference of pertinent details about the world and characters I’m working with before I outline. …