It's autumn

The Oregon juncos have returned to our garden after spending the summer elsewhere. I don't know where they breed and raise their young but they grace our garden during the winter months. For those of you unfamiliar with juncos, they are sparrow size birds with blackish heads, white flashes in their tail feathers and pale gray chest. They share our feeders with house finches. Soon I'll put out a suet feeder for the tiny bush tits. They cluster like bees on the feeder.

Next sign of autumn. I planted winter pansies in the big pot on our front porch. On southern Vancouver Island winters are fairly mild and winter pansies bloom beautifully. All the summer flowers in our garden have to come out soon. They are losing their looks and some are drooping. Something like me on bad hair days or too much to do days when I tend to wilt.

Susan Lyons, multi-published writer, member of our Vancouver Island Chapter, RWA, presented a workshop last Saturday on verb tenses and point of view. She called it, LOOK WHO'S TALKING. This is a Rule of Thumb. "Choose the simplest, clearest, least noticeable technique that will still accomplish what the story requires." (Orson Scott Card, Characters and Viewpoint)

Tense refers to the time of action the verb expresses. You'll use either present, past or a combination.

Point Of View - Whose head is the reader in? Through which character's eyes and brain does the reader experience the story?

Sue is presenting Look Who's Talking at the Emerald City Conference.

I hope all you who read my Blog will purchase one or both of my books. A Very Difficult Man, a historical romance and Isabelle's Diary, a contemporary romance with a paranormal twist. And watch for Isabelle's Story to be released on December 27th. It's the story of Isabelle Linden who penned the diary. A wonderful love story that almost ended in tragedy.

Tomorrow I hope to post an amazing picture that appeared in our local newspaper last week. It has a fairytale quality to it. And I leave you with this question. Dandelions are asexual, so why do they have flowers?" Puzzle over that for a few hours and I'll tell you where to find the answer tomorrow. Hmm. If I rememer.

Anita
www.anitabirt.com