Author: Cathy Cade

After a career in libraries, I began writing in retirement and have had writing published in Best of British, Scribble and Flash Fiction Magazine, as well as in the anthologies "To Hull and Back 2018 Short Stories" and "Where the Wild Winds Blow", from our writing group, the Whittlesey Wordsmiths. My verse, "The Year Before Christmas", recounting the story of Emmie the Elf, is available from Amazon and Smashwords. I hope to publish a collection of my short stories later in 2019. Watch this space... I live in the Cambridgeshire Fens most of the time, surrounded by flat but ever-changing fields. Other times I live across a garden fence from London’s historic Epping Forest.

Novice Self-publishing, 5.5 – ebook to paperback

~ Cathy Cade ~ 9 Comments

Earlier in this Novice Self-publishing series I outlined the steps needed to convert your free-flowing e-book manuscript to a print-ready PDF . This post gives more information about that process. When your printed copy is uploaded to Amazon for publication, you will be asked if you want Amazon to publish it as an e-book. You … Continue reading Novice Self-publishing, 5.5 – ebook to paperback

Why Aren’t You Reading Terry Pratchett?

~ Cathy Cade ~ 12 Comments

Just read this post from Alex Raizman about Terry Pratchett.
My thoughts exactly, only he says it so much better than I could.

The Home of Alex Raizman

Tolkien. Martin. Sanderson. Le Guin. These are some of the names that most commonly come up when people talk about the great fantasy writers. These are the people who’ve created some of the most unique and enduring worlds in fiction – Middle Earth and Westeros are household names, while the Cosmere and Earthsea are worlds fantasy fans know like their own neighborhoods.

Yet I don’t see Sir Terry Pratchett and Discworld come up often enough on those lists, and that makes me sad, because Sir Pratchett is one of the greatest fantasy authors who has ever lived, and Discworld is one of the most creative settings ever. So if you haven’t read Pratchett, or have and want a nostalgia trip about why he’s amazing, read below to find out what makes him one of the best fantasy authors of all time.

The Setting of Discworld is Incredible

OKHwm Every single one…

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Being a Better Writer: The Ellipses and the Em-dash, Odd Forms of Punctuation

~ Cathy Cade ~ 5 Comments

This is a useful article on ellipses and m-dashes. I’ve been told I use too many of both, so I’m trying to give them up, but this will point you in the right direction.
Both are sometimes applied differently in the UK – I tend to put a space each side of my dashes when used as an alternative to parentheses (and they are n-dashes rather than m-dashes, as applied automatically by MS Word) but the important thing is to be make your choice and be consistent, as emphasised in this post.

Unusual Things

Welcome back readers! I hope you had, if from the US, a successful and interesting 4th of July, and if not from the US, a solid weekend! I did. For starters, my friends and I gathered and watched all of Season 3 of Netflix’s Stranger Things. I won’t spoil anything (obviously, I mean, come on) but I will say that I think it’s better than the second season. Mostly because they fixed the largest flaw with the second season, which was some weak pacing in the last few episodes. Here everything is much more tightly bound together, and there’s never really a single moment where even if you feel like you can stop that you want to.

So yeah, it’s really good. I do recommend. Next, there are only a few hours left in the Independence Day Sale! By tomorrow, it’ll no longer be available, so if you…

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