Where the Wild Winds Blow by the Whittlesey Wordsmiths

~ Cathy Cade ~ 9 Comments

I’d like to thank Eva Jordan for her review of our writing group’s anthology Where The Wild Winds Blow.
Eva’s most recent title, Time Will Tell, is her third and concluding story about the Lemalf family, following 183 Times a Year and All the Colours In Between.

Eva Jordan

Book Review – Where the Wild Winds Blow by the Whittlesey Wordsmiths

Independently Published 

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Recently, a member of a local writing group approached me and asked me if I’d be interested in reviewing a book they had put together and published. Honoured, I said I’d love to.

Where the Wild Winds Blow is an eclectic mix of fact and fiction, featuring short stories, poems and memoirs contributed by the various members of the Whittlesey Wordsmiths. I have to say; I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I will admit I was pleasantly surprised. Informative, thought provoking, and at times, enjoyably humorous, it was a real pleasure to read.

At just over 400 pages long it is quite a dense book, but for me it is not a book that should be devoured all at once, but rather savoured, slowly. Neither does it need to be read sequentially, but rather…

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Apostrophic Error’s.

~ Cathy Cade ~ 8 Comments

The apostrophe indicates that a letter is missing – as in  that’s, can’t, who’s (who is), there’s (there is), could’ve, fish'n'chips… One school of thought claims that all apostrophes indicate missing letters, and this alone should inform our use of them."But what about possessives?" I hear you protest (those of you who are still awake). Merriam-Webster puts … Continue reading Apostrophic Error’s.

A Money-saving Alternative to Acrobat.

~ Cathy Cade ~ 7 Comments

Here's another second-hand tip Photo by maitree rimthong on Pexels.com I picked up this tip from Nicholas Rossis at http://nicholasrossis.me/2019/01/21/pdf-element-an-alternative-to-adobe-acrobat-dc/ I haven’t been following his blog for very long but I’m finding it an informative site that covers a wide range of topics. This particular post points to an affordable alternative to Adobe Acrobat called … Continue reading A Money-saving Alternative to Acrobat.

Staying Safe Online

~ Cathy Cade ~ 4 Comments

I've been offline – last week we lost our internet from Friday until mid-Saturday, as our overloaded telegraph pole was replaced, and Things Went Wrong in the transfer.  This was followed by a busy family weekend, and today I’ve been catching up with a weekend offline. One blog post, in particular, was a wake-up call, … Continue reading Staying Safe Online

Wordcounting, and other edits

~ Cathy Cade ~ 9 Comments

I like editing. Back in the days when most of my writing output was instruction leaflets for library resources, I enjoyed re-organising paragraphs and sections to hold back information until the student needed it, rather than pre-loading with explanations they didn't need yet and wouldn’t understand. Now I've broadened my writing scope, I still enjoy … Continue reading Wordcounting, and other edits

The New WordPress Editor:

~ Cathy Cade ~ 6 Comments

Introduction & Basic Functions (with Screenshots & Step-By-Step Instructions)

Maybe I move in the wrong circles, but all the posts I’ve seen so far about the new editor have detailed how to turn it off, so I found this advice on retrospectivlily.com encouraging as well as enlightening.

Retrospective Lily

Hi, friends. Happy New Year! 🙂 Speaking of things that are new…

A new editor has come to WordPress, and while using it isn’t mandatory for now, we’ll all (presumably) be forced to switch at some point. [It’s actually a few months old but new to me.]

Anticipating that, I have been using the new editor for a couple weeks. At first, I hated it, because who likes change? Now that I’m used to it, I like it more than the old one (mostly).

Without further ado, let’s dive in.

The Foundational Difference Between the Old & New Editor

The old editor works like the average text document, such as Microsoft Word or Google Docs. A blog post is essentially one text document filled with various components. All the options for formatting are arranged across the top. If you want to write a list, insert a blockquote, make a…

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Christmas Presence

~ Cathy Cade ~ 8 Comments

This blog post contains no advice, offers or ‘value’ (a key concept in the blog guru’s toolkit ) ...merely a wish that your Christmas is all that you hope it to be. Feel free to stop reading there if you’re busy (and, aren’t we all?). I’d intended to post a couple of paragraphs but, like … Continue reading Christmas Presence

Christmas Starts Here

~ Cathy Cade ~ 4 Comments

’Twas the night before Christmas when Santa’s new elf, in the vast, silent workshop, sat all by herself. She’d been fetching and carrying, sent to and fro making tea, running errands – the least of the low.   And she’d mucked out the stables, not noticing that daft old Rudolph was munching her new elven … Continue reading Christmas Starts Here

Switching on the imagination

~ Cathy Cade ~ Leave a comment

I sometimes feel that, as a fledgling writer, my advice on here is rather like the blind leading the blind (excuse cliche ). With that in mind, I share these thoughts from our writing group’s blog.

Whittlesey Wordsmiths

Sunrise in the fens with windturbines A spectacular Fenland Sunrise One of the most beautiful sunrises I have witnessed

Reading is a means of switching on the imagination. The pictures drawn in the mind, the voices heard and the drama that unfolds can be as real to a reader as anything encountered in life. In many ways it is a better reality, one that is acceptable on the reader’s terms, limited by what they want to take out of it or see within it.

As writers we grope around for the switch that lights the imagination of our readers. The words though must first paint pictures in our own minds, we are after all the first reader. Hopefully these pictures will be seen in  the mind’s eye of our readers. We know they  will see different pictures to ours, pictures on their terms. The voices too they hear will have different accents to the ones in…

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