This time around, it was my turn to come up with the topic for Carly & Karen’s Round Robin Photo Challenge, so I chose “Secrets.”
I recently went exploring around Richmond’s famous Hollywood Cemetery, (no connection to Hollywood, California), a fascinating place with very old graves dating back to the early 19th century. More than 1800 Confederate soldiers are buried …

One last weekly meme. Why? Oh, I don’t know…call me a glutton for punishment, I guess.
The concept for this one is pretty simple: there is one topic, two different questions, but you pick the one you want to answer and answer only that one.
Sounds easy enough, right? Well, let’s have a go of it, shall we?
THIS …

Bill of “The Wildcat’s Lair” recently showed off the writing space he and his wife share. (Yes, they’re writing a book together, which fascinates me.)
So I thought I would do the same. I will admit that I did clean up a little, but there were several things piling up that I had needed to attend to anyway …

How much would you pay to allow someone famous to kill you?
Sounds like a strange question, but someone paid $25,100 last week to appear in Stephen King’s upcoming novel, Cell. The “honor” was being auctioned off to raise money for the First Amendment Project.
If the winning bidder is fortunate enough to be female, not only will King …

Last week’s question focused on television shows you wouldn’t want to be stranded without. I’d hate for the silver screen to get jealous of the small screen, so I thought I’d devote this question to something about movies.
But first, it’s the custom around here to recognize the person who was first to post their responses to last week’s question, …

Here we are, up and running with the Spirit of 76…76 editions of the “Saturday Six,” that is.
I included a few questions from two weeks ago, suggested by those who played for possible Reader’s Choice questions. If you have one you’d like to see asked, email it to me and be sure to include a link to your journal …

Important lesson: make them check your DVD in while you’re there at movie rental stores!
I found out the hard way what can happen once you drop your DVD rental in their drop box and move on, assuming all will be well. The last time I’d visited the rental store was on July 1st. I returned the DVD roughly on time, …

I must be missing something here. Two years ago, my wireless carrier, Verizon, informed me that I would be eligible for a “free” phone when it was time to renew my service. The “free” part only applies to phones less than $100 in cost. Phones more expensive than $100 would be sold to me less a $100 discount. No …

I’ve noticed a few writers complaining about Courier New, the supposed “standard” typeface most common for manuscripts. Some say that they hate Courier New’s appearance and prefer Times New Roman instead. Others say Times is difficult to copyedit with because the letters are closer together and hard to wrap proofreader marks around.
I’m just curious what typeface those of you with …

I recently saw a meme elsewhere in the blogosphere asking people to name what they considered to be the ten most important television series of all-time. The question that I read didn’t ask specifically for their ten favorites, just the ten they thought were the best.
(Sometimes we can acknowledge a show is a great show even if it isn’t …

In response to the post over at Absolute Write that I mentioned in yesterday’s entry here comes this pearl of wisdom from James D. MacDonald:
When a reader tells you that there’s something wrong with your book, they’re usually right. When they tell you how to fix it, they’re usually wrong.
Nice.

If Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace, at more than 1400 pages, is a bit too daunting a task for your reading list, there is good news. The Guardian reports that publishers are creating new “reader-friendly” versions of the great classics as well as recent high-brow hits.
War and Peace is the first of several titles to get updated translations that …

Over at Absolute Write, a popular subject has re-appeared: the discussion on the appropriate length of chapters.
One writer asked how many pages is “too many” for a chapter. This writer said that someone who was reading her manuscript was discouraged because the chapters were all about twenty pages long. Chapters that long, her reader claimed, made …

If this were years instead of weeks, the 75th edition of the “Saturday Six” would celebrate its Diamond Jubilee. Since I’m pretty sure that no one is sending me a bunch of diamonds to celebrate the 75th edition of this weekly meme, I’ll just move on after a quick thanks to those who play week after week.
Also, I’ll mention …

I found this little quiz online recently and gave it a shot. It turns out to have been wrong about my actual birth order, since I am an only child, but I definitely liked seeing that it thinks one of the things I should be doing is writing novels!

You Are Likely a Second Born

At your darkest moments, you feel inadequate. …

Autumn is by far my favorite season of the year, and a photo like this can make the reason immediately understandable. I never cease to be amazed by the dazzling colors that appear, almost as if a rainbow magically exploded all over the foliage. (I didn’t boost the color at all: the scene I photographed really …

Debbie tagged me to do this one, so I figured I’d give it a go. In the spirit of the “Sunday Seven,” this is a set of questions with seven answers.

Seven Things I Plan To Do Before I Die:
1. Publish a novel (Through traditional means, not by self-publishing)
2. Visit San Francisco, New York City, Chicago (again) and Los …

A year ago today, I told my own “Where were you when 9/11 happened?” story. If you missed it, you can find it here.
September 11, 2001 was supposed to be a wake-up call for this country. It was supposed to acquaint all of us with the fact that terrorism could happen even here.
I remember that infamous phrase passed around: …