From the category archives:

Blogging and Blog Events

R to Z: It’s a Wrap!

April 27, 2011 Blogging and Blog Events

Blogging challenges aren’t really my thing, but I have absolutely no regrets about doing the A to Z Challenge.
For one thing, I discovered the magical way writing prompts work.
And I also found some new blogging and writing friends along the way.
For my wrap-up post, I thought I’d take a look back at what April’s brought [...]

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Mind Your Ps and Qs

April 20, 2011 Blogging and Blog Events

I’m known around here as a first-class mangler of phrases and clichés.
For some reason, I have a really tough time with clichés and idioms. I’m always getting them wrong. Take “pedal to the metal”, for instance. For years, I’d say “Petal to the metal”. It rhymes, after all!
So this morning I woke up [...]

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Saturday Snapshot: N is for Nostalgia

April 16, 2011 Blogging and Blog Events

They were just so adorable back then. And they’ve stayed adorable throughout the years.
This September, both my two older kids will be in university.
It feels a little strange; I often hear people say, “It feels like it was just yesterday” and it seems like such a cliché thing to say.
Yet … it’s true. It really [...]

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I is for Ingenuity (And Here I Take Care of J, K, L and M, Too)

April 15, 2011 Blogging and Blog Events

I is for Ingenuity
Ingenuity? You’re looking at it! Isn’t this the most ingenious post ever? I don’t even have to resort to K is for Ketchup to write a catch-up post for the A to Z Challenge!
(And no, no-one has to know I actually wrote “ingenuous” in that first sentence, and there it stayed until [...]

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H is for Hearsay

April 13, 2011 Blogging and Blog Events

I was thinking I’d blog “H is for Honesty” and then own up to the fact that I’m really lousy at blogging challenges, which is why, despite having already written one “catch-up” post, I am still woefully behind on the A to Z Challenge.
And then I realized, that would just be stating the obvious. I’m [...]

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G is for Gestation

April 11, 2011 Blogging and Blog Events

The prompts: (1) yelling for help; (2) dirty; and (3) magazine. The archetype card: Implies the unknown: ignorance or desperation; evil.
And of course, “G”, for today’s A to Z Challenge post.
This is a rather trite and predictable scene, but hey, it’s practice, right? Plus, I’m back on track now with my A-Z posts!
*********************
He found [...]

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C is for Catch-up: Daughter, Early Rising and Fun (and that takes care of D, E & F)

April 8, 2011 Blogging and Blog Events

If you take a peek at the latest posts by those participating in the A to Z Challenge, you’ll see a lot of “F” posts today. As I mentioned, yes, I am woefully behind.
But Joe gave me some great advice yesterday – he suggested doing a series of small posts to get right back in [...]

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B is for Beast

April 6, 2011 Blogging and Blog Events

So I’ve discovered that my writing brain likes to have a bit of play time behind the scenes. Yesterday, in anticipation of my “B” post for the A to Z Challenge, I pulled out three prompt cards from my little bag of prompts, plus a card from my Archetype Deck, laid them out on my [...]

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A is for Appreciation

April 4, 2011 Blogging and Blog Events

I was going to cheat a little, and call this post “A is for April”, then do a little intro to the April A-Z blogging challenge – but then it occurred to me, I’m already cheating a little, since this post was supposed to have been posted on April 1 and my calendar tells me [...]

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It’s Read-a-Thon Time Again!

March 22, 2011 Blogging and Blog Events

It’s time for Dewey’s 24-Hour Read-a-thon again – on April 9, 2011, readers will be diligently reading around the clock.
I’ve never participated as a reader in the Read-a-thon, but I participated as a cheerleader a year and a half ago (and got booted off Twitter as a result, for cheering/tweeting too much!). Even though I [...]

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April Sparks – Blogging From A to Z in April

March 12, 2011 Blogging and Blog Events

As I had mentioned a few weeks ago, I’ve taken the plunge and signed up for the Blogging From A to Z April Challenge.
We’re nearing the middle of the month, so April will be here pretty soon. And I’ve been thinking a bit more about my posts for April.
So far, I’ve created my writing [...]

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Wednesday Play: Blogging from A to Z & Wishcasting Fun

February 23, 2011 Blogging and Blog Events

So I came up with another idea for a regular topic for a post. Again, I can’t promise anything; we all know my track record when it comes to things like, um, being consistent and disciplined.
But I do love my ideas, and as always, I can’t wait to implement them. So I’m thrilled to now [...]

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Weekend Cooking: The Best Roast Chicken

February 5, 2011 Blogging and Blog Events

Over Christmas, my husband perfected his roast chicken recipe; the timing was a little unfortunate for him, as he’s been eating vegan since last August, but I was absolutely delighted.
I’ve never actually been a huge fan of chicken dishes, mainly because I find chicken dishes tend to smell much better than they taste. This is [...]

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Blogging Rhythm

January 6, 2011 Blogging and Blog Events

I seem to have stumbled into a blogging rhythm this past week, and it definitely feels very good.
Over the past two months, I was so overloaded with work I had hardly any time at all to either blog, or go blog reading. I hadn’t realized how much I missed both aspects of blogging until [...]

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Just Gorgeous: Reading Google Reader in Magazine Format

January 3, 2011 Blogging and Blog Events

I am one of those people who simply can’t resist adding feeds to my Google Reader – and because I find so many things interesting, and there are a heck of a lot of blogs out there, my feed topics tend to be all over the place.
I have over 1000 feeds stuffed into my Google [...]

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Interview: Erick Setiawan Talks About His Writing Process

October 13, 2010 Blogging and Blog Events

Erick Setiawan has written a rich, lyrical novel in OF BEES AND MIST. In this interview, MsBookish.com got the chance to talk with Erick about his writing process.

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Weekend Cooking: Vegan Planet, by Robin Robertson

September 19, 2010 Blogging and Blog Events

Last month my daughter Hayley announced she’d like to give a vegan diet a try.
So, the next time Ward and I found ourselves in a bookstore, we decided to buy a copy of Vegan Planet, by Robin Robertson. Well, okay, it was more like Ward browsed around for a vegan cookbook and found Vegan Planet; [...]

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The Procrastination Queen Gives Herself a Pat on the Back

July 1, 2010 Blogging and Blog Events

Yes, I’m the Procrastination Queen. I wear the crown proudly!

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Encouraging Your Children to Read

February 11, 2010 Blogging and Blog Events

I was just over at Molly’s blog, and I really enjoyed reading her post answering today’s Booking Through Thursday question:
How can you encourage a non-reading child to read? What about a teen-ager? Would you require books to be read in the hopes that they would enjoy them once they got into them, or offer incentives, [...]

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Blogging To-Do List

February 9, 2010 Blogging and Blog Events

Week 1’s assignment for the 2010 Blog Improvement Project is to create a blogging to-do list.
While I’m not a big fan of to-do lists, I like the idea of this one because there’s no time element attached to it. I think what I’m most resistant to, when it comes to to-do lists, is the whole [...]

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Banana Views: Being Chinese-Canadian

January 10, 2010 Blogging and Blog Events

I am almost finished (almost almost almost – so tantalizingly close) with this latest clump of deadlines and I’m really looking forward to settling back into the blogging life again.
In the meantime, though, I wanted to introduce you to my sister Dawn’s new blog. I take great pride in it, because she finally succumbed after [...]

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Enter: Marcus

December 17, 2009 Blogging and Blog Events

Thank you so much to everyone who commented on my 20 minute writing commitment post. I felt so inspired after reading all of your comments – and suddenly, it really did feel very much like “it’s only 20 minutes”.
So I took roughly 20 minutes today to work on Waverley; I am now 1200 more words [...]

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My New Disclosure Policy

December 15, 2009 Blogging and Blog Events

Update:  A few people in the comments section and on Twitter have pointed out to me that I neglected to add information about where exactly my husband and children did come from. I’ve remedied this oversight on my part.
So, yesterday, I was procrastinating (what else is new?), and came across this post at Problogger. I [...]

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Comfort Reads (42nd Bookworms Carnival)

December 9, 2009 Blogging and Blog Events

Comfort reads: perfect reading for a cold winter’s night!

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Seven Random Things About Me

December 7, 2009 Blogging and Blog Events

It’s awards time!
Jemi at Just Jemi awarded me with the Honest Scrap Blogger award and the Best Blogger award. Thank you, Jemi!
As part of my acceptance speech, here are seven random things about me that you might or might not know:
1. My name. “Belle” is my full, legal first name, not a nickname. I spent [...]

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42nd Bookworms Carnival: Comfort Reads

November 23, 2009 Blogging and Blog Events

MsBookish is hosting the 42nd Bookworms Carnival! The topic? One that is near and dear to my heart: comfort reads.
What are the books you turn to time and time again? The ones with which you love to snuggle up in your favorite armchair, steaming mug of hot chocolate or tea by your side? I’d love [...]

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The Saturday Ramblings Post

November 14, 2009 Blogging and Blog Events

I’m practicing the Art of Procrastination (I am an ardent and devoted follower of the Art), so I thought I’d sit down and write my semi-regular rambly Saturday post. Why am I procrastinating? (I’m usually always procrastinating about something, and today is no exception.)
Tonight’s Open-House Dinner
I only managed to get a couple of rooms clean [...]

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Weekend Cooking: What We’ve Been Up To in the Kitchen This Week

November 14, 2009 Blogging and Blog Events

As some of you know, I recently persuaded my husband, Ward, to start blogging at the food blog we’d set up together, Muse in the Kitchen. I was having the most dreadful time keeping Muse in the Kitchen up-to-date with recent posts because, frankly, what I love is eating, not cooking, and I [...]

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[TSS] International Book Giveaways, Readathon and NaNoWriMo

October 25, 2009 Blogging and Blog Events

List of book giveaways open to all, my thoughts about the readathon, and the final week of prepping for NaNoWriMo!

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Readathon Cheerleading: I Got Booted Off Twitter

October 25, 2009 Blogging and Blog Events

I guess I was doing TOO good a job cheerleading for the Readathon – Twitter won’t let me make any more tweets for now!!
That’s a good thing, right?
So I’m off Twitter for now, but Go, Readers, Go!!!
And I’m taking this as a sign that I’m meant to go comment/cheer on more of the readers’ blogs!
Pin [...]

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