Captive Prince by C.S. Pacat leapt to the top of my to-be-read pile the instant I heard about it last weekend, because it ticks three of my current preferred boxes: It’s a secondary world fantasy, written by an Australian woman (meaning I can review it for the Australian Women Writers challenge), and it’s centred on … Continue reading Review of Captive Prince and Prince’s Gambit by C.S. Pacat
Words... Despite my indecision a month ago, I've managed to get back into a good creative routine. The second half of July was work-frenzied as predicted, but August has been a delight. Lots of cafe writing sessions and I've started the run to the end of this novel. So I feel as though I'm getting … Continue reading Journal ~ Update on words, Spring, bad habits
ZILLAH Trees. The stream wending silent on my left. My companions spread out in front of me, talking in low voices, stepping on twigs. This is all I see. All I hear. They are making tough going of it, but I don’t care. I don’t care that none of them are likely to see the … Continue reading D&D Chronicles: The fireball and the goblin chief
ZILLAH -- The Broken Forest I'm on watch with Squirrel in the dead of night when the tree moves. It's a massive tree in a loop of the stream. We've camped here because it seemed safer to have the water on three sides. We've been attacked so many times at night. But now it sounds … Continue reading D&D Chronicles: Death of an animal companion
Earlier this year, I pledged to participate in the Australian Women Writers Challenge — essentially a commitment to read, review and generally plug published works by Australian women. It’s taken me a while to get my act together, but here — finally — is my first official review towards this challenge. I selected Dreamer’s Pool … Continue reading Review of Dreamer’s Pool by Juliet Marillier
Before I went to Mongolia, my aunt said to take a torch. Well, doh! I'm camping... "No, not for the camping. For the footpaths in Ulaan Bataar. They're really dangerous at night! You could hurt yourself." I thought, yeah, right. But, well... Ulaan Bataar is many things. Well-maintained is not one of them. We spent … Continue reading The treacherous footpaths of Ulaan Bataar
I started to tell you about Mongolia... and then I got distracted by houses getting demolished and an epic night of D&D. But today we return to the steppes and the horses. The earlier post (part 1) covered the logistics of the horse trek and how I managed the riding. Today I want to talk … Continue reading Horse trekking in Mongolia – part 2
ZILLAH - The Broken Forest Tomorrow at first light we head deeper into the forest in search of a troll lord. I've never encountered a troll before, and hoped I never would. This one, name of Quagmire, is by all accounts immensely powerful. (And I thought things couldn't get much worse.) We have pledged to … Continue reading D&D Chronicles: Fighting through the Broken Forest
It's already over a week since I returned home from my Mongolian adventure. I still have many posts to write about that, but this isn't going to be one of them. Just to prove I'm not a one-trick pony. (ha!) I have other things on my mind. Last bastion of childhood The house I grew … Continue reading Journal ~ In limbo as a last bastion of childhood falls
This is a blatant leveraging of the weekly photo challenge theme of half and half as an excuse to publish more photos (and tell a story) from my recent trip to Mongolia -- a land of big sky, spectacular clouds and sweeping grasslands. The horizon draws the eye repeatedly and bisects many of my photos, … Continue reading Riding into the storm
Ellen Gregory 