Tag Archives: writing

Recipe book, Uncategorized

Relaunch of my Recipe Book.

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I’m adding an extra blog today to announce the imminent relaunch of my recipe book, called Viv’s Family Recipes.

These recipes have been gathered by my family and friends over the 20th century and give an insight into the kind of foods we ate from 1909 to the present.

Some of these recipes we would not do today, either due to their high fat content, or the long time it takes to cook them, but they are interesting, nonetheless.

There are many more modern recipes in the book though, that I use on a regular basis.

I have also given a bit of information about the people who gave me the recipes and there are some old-fashioned Hints and Tips, too.

Watch this space for when it will be available.

 

 

grammar, Grammar Help, help, Uncategorized

Some common Grammar mistakes.

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I apologise for being a few hours late with this week’s blog.

 

Today’s post is from Clancy Tucker’s blog   https://clancytucker.blogspot.co.uk/2016/12/18-december-2016-common-grammar-mistakes.html/

I found I couldn’t reblog it as it stands so I copied and pasted it instead. I hope Clancy doesn’t mind. I asked him about reblogging and he said it was fine, but his reblog only goes to Blogger.

Do visit his blog. It’s very interesting. He posts on a variety of things including some of his photography, which is wonderful, information about famous people, historical events, British slang and of course, grammar mistakes.

COMMON GRAMMAR MISTAKES

G’day folks,

None of us are perfect in the English language. I often see mistakes, especially spelling mistakes on advertisements, and on TV. Here are a few that might help, courtesy of Jon Gingerich.

 

Who and Whom

This one opens a big can of worms. “Who” is a subjective — or nominative — pronoun, along with “he,” “she,” “it,” “we,” and “they.” It’s used when the pronoun acts as the subject of a clause. “Whom” is an objective pronoun, along with “him,” “her,” “it”, “us,” and “them.” It’s used when the pronoun acts as the object of a clause. Using “who” or “whom” depends on whether you’re referring to the subject or object of a sentence. When in doubt, substitute “who” with the subjective pronouns “he” or “she,” e.g., Who loves you? cf., He loves me. Similarly, you can also substitute “whom” with the objective pronouns “him” or “her.” e.g., I consulted an attorney whom I met in New York. cf., I consulted him.

Which and That 

This is one of the most common mistakes out there, and understandably so. “That” is a restrictive pronoun. It’s vital to the noun to which it’s referring.  e.g., I don’t trust fruits and vegetables that aren’t organic. Here, I’m referring to all non-organic fruits or vegetables. In other words, I only trust fruits and vegetables that are organic. “Which” introduces a relative clause. It allows qualifiers that may not be essential. e.g., I recommend you eat only organic fruits and vegetables, which are available in area grocery stores. In this case, you don’t have to go to a specific grocery store to obtain organic fruits and vegetables. “Which” qualifies, “that” restricts. “Which” is more ambiguous however, and by virtue of its meaning is flexible enough to be used in many restrictive clauses. e.g., The house, which is burning, is mine. e.g., The house that is burning is mine.

 

 Lay and Lie

This is the crown jewel of all grammatical errors. “Lay” is a transitive verb. It requires a direct subject and one or more objects. Its present tense is “lay” (e.g., I lay the pencil on the table) and its past tense is “laid” (e.g., Yesterday I laid the pencil on the table). “Lie” is an intransitive verb. It needs no object. Its present tense is “lie” (e.g., The Andes mountains lie between Chile and Argentina) and its past tense is “lay” (e.g., The man lay waiting for an ambulance). The most common mistake occurs when the writer uses the past tense of the transitive “lay” (e.g., I laid on the bed) when he/she actually means the intransitive past tense of “lie” (e.g., I lay on the bed).

 

Clancy’s comment: Hope these help.

book reviews, fantasy, novel, stories, Uncategorized

Shadow Stalker Part 3 release.

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part-3-release

I’ve been anxiously waiting for Renee Scattergood to release Part 3 of her Shadow Stalker books. I read Parts 1 and 2 and am anxious to find out what happens to Auren and to find out how she will defeat the evil Drevin.

 

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Renee Scattergood is an excellent writer with a vivid imagination. Her world is well imagined and feels real. The books are original in their concept and well written.

As soon as this is posted I’m off to Amazon to get it! When I’ve read it I’ll do a review here.

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fantasy, Poetry, Uncategorized

Crisalisk, The Red Dragon (a poem)

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Today is the third Tuesday in the month, and so it’s poetry day.

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This poem is about a dragon who you can meet in my next book, yet to be published. Crisalisk and her mate Monarlisk are separated by Monarlisk losing a fight to another male dragon for the attentions of Crisalisk, but this poem refers to a time before that.

Her scales are the red
Of sunset in Autumn,
Her eyes are the gold
Of midsummer sun,
Her horns are as white
As snowfall in winter
And she dances on high
Like the birds do in spring.

Her beauty is evident
To all who do see her.
Her grace in the sky
Is a joy to behold.
With pinions spread wide
She dives then she soars
But beware, if she sees you,
Her flames she’ll release.

She thinks she’s the queen
Of all that surround her.
All other things living
Are there just to serve.
If any refuse her
She roars out her challenge
As Death on wide wings
Dives down from the skies.

But who is it comes
On black wings high soaring?
‘Tis Monalisk who
Is her mate and her love.
For him she will bow down
Her arrogance dwindling
For he is her only
True love in the land.

This is a poem that has no rhymes. Poetry does not need to rhyme, but it has to have either rhyme or rhythm or it’s just prose broken into lines.

 

Poetry nowadays seems to be that way, I’ve read many so-called poems that have neither rhyme nor rhythm. One had short lines, then suddenly a long line that took up 2 lines of text. Some of the poems I’ve read are incomprehesible too. I may be old fashioned in my ideas, but those things aren’t poetry!

If you have any comments on this poem or on poetry in general, please add them to the comments section.

grammar, help, spelling

Strange English spellings

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Today is a day when I address some things about our beautiful, interesting, but strange language.

There are many words in English that are spelled the same but pronounced differently. Also there are words pronounced the same, but spelled differently. Then there are words that are the same in spelling and pronunciation but have different meanings, depending on context.

The strangest, in my opinion, are words ending in -ough.

We have:

 Though, pronounced ‘tho’
 Bough, pronounced ‘bow’. (although that in itself has different pronunciations)
 Enough, pronounced ‘enuf’
 Thought, pronounced ‘thort’
 Through, pronounced ‘threw’

No wonder foreigners have some difficulty with it, although (another one, similar to ‘though’, here) it seems they are able to manage quite well if the number of foreigners who speak the language extremely well is anything to go by.

I was in an Italian restaurant in Germany and was greatly amused to see the German waiter speaking to a French customer in English. This also happened when I was in Croatia. The Croatian receptionist spoke to a visitor I think was Russian in English. These strange inconsistencies seem not to faze them, even if they confuse some native speakers!

history, quotes

Charity Begins at Home?

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I am responding to a post by Clancy Tucker that he posted on his blog, https://clancytucker.blogspot.com/. It was about The Peace Corps set up in 1961 by President Kennedy. The idea was to get young people to go abroad to countries that needed help and give that aid. Someone made the comment that he did not think there would be many volunteers from the current generation as they don’t seem to be into volunteering.

Be that as it may, my thoughts went to people here in the UK, not usually the young, who are against foreign aid. They often quote the Bible, although how many of them know they are doing so I’m not sure.

What they say is ‘Well, Charity begins at home, so we shouldn’t be sending all this money abroad in foreign aid. We should be spending it on our own people.’

They are interpreting this saying as ‘Charity begins (and ends) at home. This is not how I see it at all.

My interpretation is twofold.

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 I see it as a message to parents to teach their children about kindness and love. If the parents don’t show kindness, love and helpfulness in the home, then the children won’t learn it. Thus, Charity begins at home, and as the children grow up with such a loving and caring background, they will then be able to extend that love to others.
 Then there is the other side of the same coin. If you cannot be charitable to those you live with, you cannot be charitable to those outside your immediate family.

That is how I see the saying. Unfortunately, too many disagree with me and rail against the help we send to poor countries.

Please leave any comments below.

Next week, as it’s the first Tuesday of the Month, I’ll be posting the next instalment of Asphodel’s story.

fantasy, novel

The Never-Dying Man

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Today I’ve received notification that The Never-Dying Man is now available on Kindle. In the next few days it will be also available in print.

Unfortunately. the link I was sent is not working and I’ve told the publisher and he’ll sort it out.

fantasy, stories

Re-launch of The Never-Dying Man

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Today I’m announcing the imminent re-launch of The Never-Dying Man, Book 2 of The Wolves of Vimar Series.

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As with The Wolf Pack, there have been a few changes. This is because of the changes I made in The Wolf Pack. I’m afraid some things would not have made sense without them, due to things left out of the first book in the revision.

Anyway, it is now ready for the re-launch. I’ve not been told yet just when it’ll be on sale, but hopefully not too long. I hope not more than a week.

I hope you like the cover. Leave any comments about it under the comments tab please,

Sorry this is a bit late, and rather short, but I’ve had a ‘procedure’ done in hospital and had to stay in overnight, unexpectedly. It should have been a 1 day thing but turned into 2 days. Now I’m laid up with a bad back. I think it’s from lying on a hard surface and being unable to move for a couple of days, firstly during the 2 hour procedure and 1 hour after it, then because I was wired up to a variety of machines.

I hope to be back to normal by next week.

Poetry

Hypocricy. A poem.

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Today is a day when I share some more of my writing. Today it’s another poem.

Hypocrisy

We like our village churches
But we don’t go there.
We love our local pub
But we don’t drink there.
We don’t want them to close
Though no one ever goes.

Our roads, they are congested
With cars for everyone.
The others shouldn’t have them
But we, of course, need one.
It should be other folk
Who give it up and walk.

Aircraft fly above us
Polluting all the air.
We think there should be fewer
But we still fly o’er there.
We need our holiday
No matter come what may

We don’t like highest earners
But want to earn as much.
We eat our meals with wine
But we don’t know too much.
We really like to think
We understand our drink.

We highly praise the classics,
But we don’t read them.
We talk of works of Art
But never see them.
We think we are so highbrow
But brows are really quite low.

We say we all hate rumour
But spread the gossip.
We say we understand things
When we don’t, not one bit.
Hypocrites are we
And we always will be.

Grammar Help, spelling

10 words I found an author had confused.

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I recently read a book in which the author made many mistakes in the word he chose to use. I won’t embarrass him by naming the book or author just in case he ever looks at this post. Suffice it to say that it isn’t the usual genre I read, being horror.

I actually found the storyline quite good and it read with pace, but here are some of the mistakes he made with words.

1. Traverse: Transverse

Traverse is a verb meaning to go across something, like, as in the story, a forest.
Transverse is an adjective meaning something that goes across something else. e.g. a diagonal line crossing a shape, or a piece of wood going across another to form a cross.

The author wrote ‘…the only way to transverse the property…’

2. Disperse: Dispense

Disperse means to scatter. E.g. The crowd dispersed in an orderly manner.
Dispense means to do without. E.g. As the weather was warmer, he dispensed with wearing a coat.

The author wrote  ‘…dispersed with human words…’

3. Soul: Sole
This one amused me greatly.
Soul is the spiritual part of a person that carries on after death.
Sole is the base of a shoe, or the only one.

The author wrote ‘…rubber boots, their souls encased in mud…’

4. Boarded: Bordered

Another amusing one.
Boarded means to get onto a ship, coach, aircraft, bus etc
Bordered means to go round the edge of something.

The author wrote ‘Two candles boarded a statue of the Buddha.’

5.Forth: Fourth

Forth is to set off, go or depart.
Fourth is the one after third and before fifth.

The author wrote ‘He dumped the first three cards and was in the process of leading the forth.’

6. Hold: Holed

Hold is to have something in one’s hands.
Holed is to hide away.

The author wrote, ”We hold up in my grandfather’s hunting cabin.’

7. Site: Sight

Site refers to a place. E.g. This is the site of the battle.
Sight refers to seeing.

The author wrote ‘He brought up the front site of the shotgun.

8. Crucifix: Crucifixion.

Crucifix is is the cross on which people were killed in Roman times.
Crucifixion is what happens on the cross.

The author wrote, ‘The priest stood next to the first crucifixion.’
‘A large semicircle with twelve crucifixions…’
‘Strapped to the crucifixions…’

9. Finally: Finale

Finally is an adverb. It means coming at the end.
Finale is a noun and it refers to the last act.

The author wrote, ‘The grand finally…’

10. Wetting: Whetting

Wetting means to put water on something.
Whetting means to sharpen something. E.g. a stone used to sharpen a knife is called a whetstone.

The author wrote, ‘…wetting their appetite…’

Those were the main ones I noted down, as well as some common ones like were and where, choose and chose and the inevitable loose and lose.

Now I’m prepared to be generous and say some of these might, just might, be typos, but even in that case, it was poor. The manuscript should have been edited better.

It’s things like this that give self-published authors a bad name. It’s easier to get a bad name than a good one, and very difficult to get rid of a bad name once it’s been established. Unfortunately, in many people’s eyes, self-published authors are poor and produce poor books, and it’s things like this that reinforce this opinion.

So please, please, please, if you are a self-publishing author, or are thinking of self-publishing, get your manuscripts edited and all corrections made before going to press with it. At least read through it properly and get someone else (as many someone elses as you can, preferably) to do so as well if you can’t afford a professional editor. I’ve never heard anyone say they couldn’t finish a book because it had no errors, but I’ve heard many say the opposite.

Please tell me what you thought about this blog. I’m always pleased to hear what you think.