Skip to main content

 

This is a short, difficult week for keeping up with your NanoWriMo word count.  Many are traveling, whether by car on the interstates or flying and dealing with airports, security, delayed flights and more.  For those who are home and hosting, different scenarios but still stressful.  So today's tips are simple and something you can check out when you've got a quiet moment or two.

inkarnate.com

This is an online tool, available in free or paid models, that allows you to create and save maps for fictional worlds.  Whether you're world-building for fantasy, science fiction, paranormal or small-town mysteries and romances, inkarnate will help you visualize and create maps to keep your worlds organized.

One Look & Reverse Dictionary

Reverse dictionaries are more than thesauruses - they can help you search for that illusive word that's just hovering on the periphery of your tired brain because it describes what the word represents.  Feel like you're repeating the same word or expression over and over?  Dip into this site and see what you find.

I hope you find these sites useful.  I know I'm going to play on inkarnate because my contemporary Maine series - Crescent Bay - is into its third novel (working on it) and it's becoming difficult for me to keep track of where the stores, workplaces and homes are located.  I've tried sketching the village out, but it's a sorry-looking thing, let me tell you.

So enjoy your holiday and remember to relax and chill out because next week you're in the final stretch.

Good luck and be safe out there!

 Claire H.

 



Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

More Secondary Characters

As promised, I'm back with some tidbits of info on another favorite secondary character who has appeared in several of my Regency romances -- the Dowager Lady Rutherford. I needed a character who would balance out Lady Caro (see last week's blog entry), someone who was smart as a whip, tough and yet hiding a soft side.  The dowager seemed to fit the bill for when she first appears in Snowbound Seductions , she's ornery, feared by all (even the duke) and willing to use her ebony cane like a Scottish claymore. So, the first British actress who visually inspired me, mostly for the dowager's physical attributes is Phyllida Law.  If you're an Acorn TV or Brit Box fan, many of you will recognize Ms. Law. Phyllida Law She's appeared in so many series and movies, and is also known as Emma Thompson's mother.  She is a wonderful actress and, to me, captures how I visualize the dowager. And in my work-in-progress, Wicked Wagers , we'll see a b...
Post a Comment
Read more

Sources of Inspiration

I've been working on my first Regency romance novel and, although I've read most of Jane Austen and seen so many of the excellent BBC movie variations, one still needs a bit of inspiration when working through the writing. It's usually those small details, descriptive of the landscape or the manor house, that gives a work that added level of veracity, of impact for the reader.  Why else would readers want historical romance?  I have to think that it's the time period that intrigues, a bit like a time tunnel.  Go ahead, pick your period -- there's probably a romance set in each one. That's why I love Pinterest.  If you can control the time spent on the great "P" -- and that's a big "if" -- there's so much out there to help spark those imaginative ideas or get a writer over the hurdle of writer's block.  Here's a few that I chose to help keep me churning out those words: Image captured from Pinterest Wouldn't thi...
Post a Comment
Read more

Of Ladies and Lacy Fichus

 Apologies all around for not writing more frequently on my blog -- something I'm determined to correct in the coming weeks.  Today I'm going to talk about my main character, Miss Julia Charlotte Montford, the heroine of Wicked Wagers , due to release in October of this year. Julia is a feisty one -- spoiled, often impudent, headstrong and all too often making wagers.  If she lived in today's world, she'd probably be buying lottery tickets by the yard!  But one day she makes a wager with the ex-cavalry officer, Benjamin Malory Burton, and her life will never be the same.   Oftentimes we writers scour the internet and sites like Pinterest to find an image that sparks the imagination of both the writer and the reader.  Many times it's an actress or actor, but this time I stumbled on a series of paintings by John Hoppner, who lived and painted in the late 18th century into the early years of the 19th century.   And I found Julia -- here she is -...
Post a Comment
Read more