Author: Marje @ Kyrosmagica

Hi. Welcome to my blog: M J Mallon - Kyrosmagica Publishing. A blog about magic, books, writing, laughter, and much more! I'm a YA fantasy author, poet and reviewer. My first YA fantasy novel The Curse of Time - Book 1 - Bloodstone is set in Cambridge and Book 2 - Golden Healer is now out too. As well as this, I have contributed to several anthologies, created my own with some amazing international writers, bloggers and creatives during the pandemic: This Is Lockdown and written two poetry collections: Lockdown Innit Poems About Absurdity & Mr. Sagittarius Poetry and Prose. I write book reviews on my blog and on Goodreads, book bub and on my bookstagram. I have a penchant for travel and have relatives in far flung places, Australia, Malaysia, and Singapore, (my birthplace.) I grew up in in Bonnie Scotland, in Edinburgh, and now live in Cambridge. I love sunny, hot places, particularly Rome, Venice, Portugal, Barcelona, and I forgot to mention the sun drenched beaches of the Caribbean, how could I? I am lucky to have been blessed with two lovely daughters and a husband who I fondly refer to in this blog as my black sheep. Family joke! With my passion for travel, culture, beautiful beaches, good food, books, theatre, writing, and humour, I hope to keep you entertained. I'm loving every minute of this creative journey, please join me.

#SundayBlogShare: Happy Mother’s Day Vibes

Hi Everyone.

HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY. HOPE YOU HAVE AN AWESOME DAY.

This mother’s been playing around with a new theme. I’d love to hear what you think of it. Do let me know if you like it.

I took the header photo at Cromer this New Year and somehow the image ended up looking more like a painting than a photograph so I thought I’d feature it on my blog. The jumping image above is from Pixabay, and seems a fitting image for my Sunday message today: Those happiness vibes are on their way, jump for joy, Summer’s coming!

The lovely Suzie from Suzie Speaks https://suzie81speaks.com/ has a wonderful Sunday Hastag: #SundayBlogShare, on her twitter account @SundayBlogShare.

I will be following this #SundayBlogShare with a three day three quote challenge from Heena http://heenarathorep.com/ which will also be on the theme of happiness.. more about that soon.

My #SundayBlogShare is all about the many aspects of life that make me happy.

In no particular order:

Sunshine. Yes those rays awaken me out of my winter grumpiness. I just love you Mr. Sunshine. I’m not a winter person so when Spring arrives I sigh in relief, at last the Summer’s coming…
Beaches and the sea. I’ve always had a fondness for swimming, and beaches. This stems from childhood – I’d always be swimming, splashing around in an outdoor tropical pool, or a beach somewhere. I grew up in Hong Kong. My dad ‘s not your typical run of the mill Scot, he hates the cold weather so he did the unthinkable, he escaped abroad, and married my mother, a Malaysian lady many years his junior. Rascal! He’s always been a wanderer, in fact if he had been born today perhaps he’d have had his own travel blog! That’s a thought. A lot of my friends thought I had such a lucky time of it going to visit my dad in far off places, but I missed him when he was away. To name a few of the exotic destinations he’s worked in: The Middle East, Far East, Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Caribbean, Africa, Senegal, Hong Kong… you get the idea.. Quite the adventurer..
Eating. Yes I love my grub, be it savoury or sweet, spicy, asian, or good old-fashioned shepherd’s pie.. I love it all. I might have a skinny body but my little rounded tummy proves it.
Family. Are so important to me my daughters are such a light in my life. I am so proud of them both, they’ve grown up to be such wonderful young women. I’ve been with my hubby since I was a teenager, can you believe that? Young love, it is the strongest, most passionate kind! The extended family are my rock too. I feel very blessed and fortunate to have such a lovely, close-knit family. We might not be perfect but we are always there for each other.
Mum. Being a mum is great and having a great mum is awesome. We mothers deserve a huge pat on the back.
Friends. Where would we be without our pals? Pretty lonely and miserable I’d say. My network of buddies include those I’ve known for too many years that I’d to care to admit to, friends I’ve met in Cambridge, and pals I’ve met through social media. You’re all fabulous.. Love you all.
Edinburgh. I love visiting Edinburgh – my old home town, that definitely makes me happy. My mum, dad, brother, and in-laws are still there, as are my old school pals! So it’s always nice to go back and see everyone. I particularly love to go up during the Edinburgh Book Festival, and The International Festival, which are both in August.
Books. I adore reading, how those printed words transport you to a very special place, stirring up your emotions, making you laugh, cry or shout in protest. There’s nothing that makes me happier than reading a particularly sad book!
Writing. Of course this would have to appear on my happiness list. The writing part gives me great joy as I create, but I have to say the editing is an altogether different experience, it is a troublesome kettle of unwieldy fish!
Theatre. Film. Dance. I love going to the theatre, and to dance shows. So whenever I can, I take the opportunity to go. Both of my daughters are keen too, my youngest is a dancer and my eldest has always been fond of drama. Each August I always make a bee-line for the Edinburgh International Festival. I’d love to go to the cinema more often – this is on my to do list – when I pop along I enjoy it so much.
Art. Photography. I love art, and photography. I’m not an artist, but I appreciate the value and beauty of artistic endeavours so much. I have developed quite an interest in photography which I hope to explore more in the future.
Cats. I love cats, but sadly I don’t own one, my husband is allegedly allergic… it’s a shame really. I could just see myself as one of those writers with my cute muse the cat.. I can see all my imaginery instagram photos… perhaps I could borrow one? Any offers? A black cat would be good, or a cool ginger one with bags of character…
Travelling. I love to travel to widen my horizons, though recently this has been difficult due to lack of funds.. !! Ah, having an eldest daughter at University has really cut into the household budget in a very nasty way.
Baking. I’m not really a savoury cook, unless it’s curries, or stir fries, those I can happily do. My hubby is better at roasts, meat and fish dishes. I tend to be more of a sweet cook. I love my puddings, cakes and biscuits…
Being a bit silly. I think I missed the ‘How To Be A Grown Up Workshop,’ so I’m still prone to being somewhat teenage-like at times. Personally I think that’s an asset if you want to be a children’s author. So no problems there.
Alternative Therapies. I have a fondness for aromatherapy oils, reflexology, and all those weird and wonderful therapies out there. I am also curious about the Zodiac, and the Chinese Zodiac too….
Crystals. I love crystals. The colours, different shapes and properties of crystals fascinate me.
Blogging. Goodness me I can’t believe I nearly forget to mention that! That would be remiss of me. Yes, I love blogging. It’s such a wonderful way to make friends with like-minded people from all over the world to share thoughts, feelings and observations. It’s the best.
Haiku. I’ve discovered that I love writing Haiku… If it wasn’t for my blog I’d never of thought of writing haiku. I’m so glad I did.
Jewellery. Another love of mine… how could I have left it to last? My favourites are earrings and bracelets. They can be costume jewellery, or more expensive, it doesn’t matter as long as they catch my eye! I hope I might be getting some little pieces for Mother’s Day.
Chilling. Relaxing and doing things my own sweet way makes me happy. I’m not one to rush through life, though I do hop about a bit.. My Chinese Zodiac sign is the rabbit!

This post has been waiting patiently for me to write in response to an earlier ditty that I did about the things that annoy me: https://atomic-temporary-67364188.wpcomstaging.com/2016/02/10/one-liner-wednesday-you-piece-of-chicken/

Oops I have to confess that my moans outweigh my happy vibes! That doesn’t sound good…..Life is all about balance, so there you have it the Yin and the Yang of my happy dragon is somewhat overpowered by my stroppy, ferocious, dragon!

Perhaps you’d like to join in and do a Yin and a Yang post too about what makes you happy and what makes you sad and/or stroppy!

Have a very Happy Sunday everyone, and a Happy Mother’s Day too! I’m going out later for a coffee/lunch with my daughter… what are you all doing?

Bye for now,

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Marje @ Kyrosmagica xx

Why Only Eleven?

Thank you so much to Annika for nominating me for The Liebster Award. I am now award free but I’m reblogging Annika’s post to spread the word about so many lovely blogs out there. Do follow Annika she really is a gem.

Annika Perry

Last week I was kindly nominated by Janice at Ontheland – Caring About Our World; Reflecting About Life for the Liebster Award. If you haven’t visited her blog before, you have missed a treat. Janice is a gifted poet and her poetry and accompanying photographs are always thoughtful and delightful. Also she’s passionate about the environment and blogs about this and believes that we all can make a difference to the world we live in.

The Liebster Award seems to be centred on the number 11 and I’m happy to answer 11 questions posed by Janice, as well as thinking of 11 random facts about myself. Finally I have written 11 questions for my 11 nominees.

The award is aimed at blogs with a certain number of followers – in this case followers of nominees should be between 200-3000.

Without further ado. Let’s begin:

Janice’s Questions:

Why do you blog?

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Perfect Breakfast Smoothie | Fitspirational Friday

My daughter loves smoothies and this recipe from Hannah Jayne sounds wonderful so thought I better reblog it quick..

Ronovan Writes Haiku Challenge No: 86

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The prompt words this week from Ronovan are Flash and Dance.

I’ve just started a part-time job in my girls’ old primary school, a bit of a change from my last job working in John Lewis over Christmas! On Monday I was on supervisory duty in the playground mainly keeping an eye on the kids playing on the climbing frame. On my first day there were kids leaping on kids, a boy with two scrapped knees, a girl who got bark in her eye, and a group of year four girls who came and introduced themselves to me and told me all about the play they were in. They were telling me about their parts, how many lines they had or proudly boasting that their part was a baddie! How outrageous! All in all it was quite entertaining… So I said that my two children used to go to their primary school too and I asked them to guess my daughter’s ages. The first one said, ‘ twenty five! ‘ I said, ‘Do I look that old?’ Then of course the next girl said,’forty five,’ but after that the numbers started to come down, thank heavens! Cheeky devils !

It brought back a conversation I had with my youngest daughter recently. I asked her what she liked to do in the playground when she was at primary school, she said skipping, and playing games but she mainly just danced with her best friend! How very theatrical, and artistically inclined, she’s not changed a jot – she still loves to dance. Her friend likewise is still keen on performing, just recently I watched her acting, and singing with The Young Actor’s Company in their sell out performance at Cambridge Junction. Jack Drum’s Entertainment will be playing in Oxford on the 5th of March, and London on 7th March at Bloomsbury Theatre. To find out more about this play being performed by such a talented group of young actors, follow the link:

https://www.facebook.com/JackDrumsEntertainment/

I can’t say that I saw anyone dance in the playground apart from a tiny hint of a dance when one of the year four girls did a little bit of dancing from the show, just before she got called to have her lunch. That was the moment I was waiting for…… but it was gone in a blink of the eye.

So this week’s haiku is inspired by my daughter’s love of dance:

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Primary dancers

Playground extravaganza

A duo flashdance

Here’s the link to Ronovan’s blog so you can join in the haiku challenge:

https://ronovanwrites.wordpress.com/2016/02/29/ronovanwrites-weekly-haiku-poetry-prompt-challenge-86-flashdance/

It’s good to know that there are some theatrical types in the playground, but perhaps that’s enough melodrama for now!

Bye for now,

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Marje @ Kyrosmagica xx

Co-Authoring Questions: Amber Wake Gabriel Falling

Amber Wake

Synopsis

The autumn of 1705 brings Royal Navy Captain Gabriel Wallace to face off against an enemy within the ranks of the Admiralty itself that threatens his career, his reputation, his family, and something even more far-reaching in its plot.

Court-martialed and with Admiral Chambers, the mastermind fearfully known as the Chambers of Hell, out for his destruction, Wallace finds he has allies willing to face the might of the mightiest power on earth, with some allies in the most unlikely of places. The crew of his former command, the Majesty’s Venture, mutinies from the Royal Navy. With capture by his enemies close behind, Wallace agrees to become captain once again.

With a ship at his command, Captain Gabriel Wallace sets out to fulfill his mission, the completeness of which only he knows.

Now a pirate by situation, Wallace sets out for the Colonies and the Caribbean. Will his crew remain loyal as they leave the rule of the Royal Navy behind? Will his lifelong friend, Miles Jacobs, follow Wallace blindly without knowing the whole story? Finally, will the young Lieutenant Maddox Carbonale stay under the command of Wallace or have plans to lead instead?

With these questions in his thoughts, Gabriel Wallace wages war on Chambers and goes after the largest haul in the history of the Spanish Main. Whom does Wallace meet along the way? To whom are his loyalties to: vengeance or something more powerful?

If you love tales of adventure, of the sea, of the struggles of men, and nods to history, this is your book. Read Amber Wake: Gabriel Falling and you’ll have a new appreciation for all of The Razor’s Adventures Pirate Tales.

Isn’t that cover just beautiful, it certainly makes me excited to read the book, here are the links to buy a copy.

As you will know I’ve been a fan of Ronovan’s Haiku challenges for some time now… that’s how I got to know the guy. In fact Ronovan kind of introduced me to the whole haiku landscape, and for that I am indebted. I doubt that I would ever had written haiku if it wasn’t for his weekly challenge. So with that in mind I thought it would be a lovely idea to do a shout out for his new book, and some questions for him to answer..

Amber Wake sounds a fascinating historical adventure doesn’t it but how did it all come about? I was very interested to discover more about the authorial partnership between Ronovan and P.S. Bartlett, particularly as I would perhaps one day like to write a joint novel with my daughter who also writes. So my questions below focussed on the pros and cons of co-authorship.

I am curious about how you and P.S. Bartlett got together to write Amber Wake Gabriel Falling.

I believe we met through Twitter to begin with, and she offered a copy of her book, The Blue Diamond: The Razor’s Edge. I read it, liked it a lot, and did a review. I followed that up with an interview and we became friends, started exchanging emails a lot about writing and ideas. That led to the ideas of prequels to her book and for me the writing of Amber Wake: Gabriel Falling.

The benefits of co-authoring with a more experienced author.

I’ve been writing books for at least 15 years now. I’ve never chosen to self-publish before and only submitted a few of my books to agents. In the area of the pirate genre, it did help with her knowledge of various aspects of the genre, and she had worked with the editor previously. I keep looking at my work and improving in my writing, and with each look at my novels, I have fresh eyes and new ideas. Maybe someday I’ll actually bite the bullet and put one out. I’ll never think one is good enough.

The positive aspects of co-authoring and the difficulties you may have experienced.

To the positive I would say playing ideas off each other, ideas you might not have otherwise. Also having certain expertise in areas. Being a Historian and writer, I loved doing the research to create the characters, do the character development down to little details people might not realize are important, and then write the story. Then PS Bartlett used fresh eyes to tighten things here and there, add her own ideas and some aspects of her voice in places. We wanted the story in a male voice, since it is from a man’s point of view, but we also needed her voice to show through at times to link the book to her other The Razor’s Adventures Pirate Tales books, even though Ivory Shepard, The Razor, doesn’t appear in the book.

For difficulties, you have two authors that may have differing ideas at times. Neither idea is wrong, just different. It’s hard to see something you become so attached to be changed even in the slightest. However, going into a co-authoring project, you know it will happen. It’s kind of like having your children taught differently than you have raised them to believe. The best thing to do is tough it out and wait for the reviews. We’ve been fortunate to have great reviews so far. I’m sure someone will come along with a negative one, every book has one of those. As a reviewer myself, I know reviews are just opinions. I’ll take it and move on, but consider what each reviewer says.

Do you have very different writing styles, or are you quite similar in your approach?

I think we both have similar styles. We have points we want to cover, but we let the characters and the story determine what happens in between. I know sometimes I write a character I’ll end up not liking, although I meant for him to be a nice guy.

How did your writing styles effect the outcome of the final manuscript?

Our styles compliment each other. The only differences in styles that might have made things interesting would be some thoughts to certain intentions of characters. With there being other books written that occur after this one, certain things need to happen that weren’t in the original manuscript I wrote. Again, as I’ve mentioned before, that’s going to happen in any co-authoring project.

Would you recommend this approach to writing and why?

Our approach was for me to write the original manuscript, free rein. After the original manuscript it then went to PS Bartlett. I think if all involved agree to what is what then it’s a fine approach.

If you had the opportunity again would you go it alone or co-author?

I’m currently writing solo with several projects going at the same time. I would co-author again if the project and co-author are right. There are people I would like to work with.

You may connect with Ronovan through:

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Amazon Author Page

Amazon Author Page UK

Personal Blog

Author Site

LitWorldInterviews.com

Do check out Ronovan’s blog and his other links for loads more information, and of course a smashing blog to follow. Support this worthy fellow he really works hard for the blogging community.

Bye for now,

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Marje @ Kyrosmagica x

The Tour! Which one have you missed?

Perhaps you’d like to get into book tour hosting? Or you might be an old hand either way here’s your chance Ronovan Hester and P.S. Bartlett are looking for book tour hosts for their novel Amber Wake, Gabriel Falling….

Author Ronovan Hester

15 Stops with 15 Friends, Bloggers, and Authors. Click and discover more about me and my book Amber Wake: Gabriel Falling now on Amazon.

Would you like to join the list of hosts? There is a form at the bottom or an email address. Take your pick. I love to write and share, and not just to get my book before people that may not know me. Sharing my experiences writing, my life, my advice from the view point of a teacher, reviewer, interviewer, historian, blogger, poet, writer, and more. Throw in my favorite view point, that of a the father of the most talented, the smartest, and the unfortunately a lot like me in the personality department … 11 year old son who I call ‘B’ online. People ask me does B stand for Billy, Bob, Bradley. No, it stands for … wait for it … Boy. I am…

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Some Funnies on Facebook this week

It’s best to start off on a Monday morning with a smile so as soon as I saw this bunch of Facebook Funnies from Sally at Smorgasbordinvitation I jumped in and shared. Have a very happy Monday. I start a new job today, working in the local primary school …. wish me luck.

Welcome to this week’s selection of funnies from Facebook that I spotted in my own timeline and admittedly by poaching in other friend’s FB. I didn’t get caught thankfully but hav…

Source: Some Funnies on Facebook this week

My Kyrosmagica Review of Me Before You by Jojo Moyes

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Goodreads Synopsis:

Lou Clark knows lots of things. She knows how many footsteps there are between the bus stop and home. She knows she likes working in The Buttered Bun tea shop and she knows she might not love her boyfriend Patrick.

What Lou doesn’t know is she’s about to lose her job or that knowing what’s coming is what keeps her sane.

Will Traynor knows his motorcycle accident took away his desire to live. He knows everything feels very small and rather joyless now and he knows exactly how he’s going to put a stop to that.

What Will doesn’t know is that Lou is about to burst into his world in a riot of colour. And neither of them knows they’re going to change the other for all time.

My Review:

If there is one thing that I really love it’s books that make me cry and books that make me reflect and Me Before You by Jojo Moyes made me do both in shed loads… On my Goodreads account I’ve marked this as a favourite read, but be prepared for lots of tears, remember that you’ll need a full box of man sized tissues at the ready …

This is a sad novel tackling a very difficult, controversial and sensitive issue so readers’ responses with differ greatly. It tackles the considerations of a severely disabled person, with extreme quadriplegic disability to end his young life. There is no hope of Will getting any better, he is prone to infections, needs constant care, and any outings anywhere need to be planned in advance and organised to the hilt. Perhaps at the crux of Will’s unhappiness is the freedom, the rigour, of his prior life before this horrendous accident. Will was a man who lived life to the ultimate max. Now he is unable to do anything for himself. In contrast Lou is happy to potter along to live life in her own sweet way without really pushing the boundaries of her small world, until she loses her steady job in a cafe and becomes Will’s carer. Then she discovers that perhaps her life isn’t quite as perfect as she thought, and her boyfriend Patrick isn’t either. Will may be confined to a wheelchair but he is so much more interesting and exciting than her sports obsessed boyfriend.

Of course it is a love story but it is much more than that, it is a sad tale of a multitude of responses to such a dreadful accident, with shifting POV’s to try to convey the feelings of family members and others touched by this dreadful tragedy: Will’s mother, father, and his nurse.. But, the main POV is Lou, as it should be. I did find the shifting POV’s didn’t quite work for me … I enjoyed the novel best when the novel remained in Lou’s thoughts but having said that I did see that the POV shift to her sister was needed towards the end of the novel.

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Major Spoilers below:

I couldn’t really review this properly without doing a Spoiler so if you haven’t read Me Before You yet, you might want to divert your eyes at this point.

It is one of those novels that stay in your thoughts for a long time after you’ve finished reading it. You think about it, and think about it and your response may change over minutes, hours and days. So I’ve spent a fair bit of time digesting my feelings about this particular novel before reviewing it in full on this blog. In the end my conclusion is that Will wanted to set Lou free, he loved her so much. He knew she could live the big, exciting life that he couldn’t anymore, whereas if she continued to care for him she would stay still, locked in a very small world, inhabited by endless visits to the hospital, illness, and suffering. Perhaps otherwise his final decision to die would have seemed a selfish, cruel, hurtful, act. Lou made the ultimate sacrifice too, even though it caused her great pain, she supported Will’s choice to die being with him in his final moments because she loved him that much.

Ultimately even though the ending was a dreadful tragedy it left the reader with a sense of hope, of promise.

A thoroughly thought provoking, emotional read, I would highly recommend that you pick up a copy. By the way there is the second book to look forward to in this series: After You.

My rating:

4.5 stars.

Have you read Me Before You or its sequel? If you have let me know I’d love to hear your opinion.

Bye for now,

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Marje @ Kyrosmagica xx

Writer’s Quote Wednesday & BeWow: Editing

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It’s been a while since I joined in Colleen’s Writer’s Quote Wednesday & Ronovan’s BeWow. I have a pretty good excuse as I have been editing my manuscript getting it ready for self publishing. With that in mind I’d like to do some quotes about this process. Editing is the hardest part of writing for me, the ideas flow fairly easily whilst getting the story down on paper but the editing is fraught with difficulties.

“There Are Two Typos Of People In This World: Those Who Can Edit And Those Who Can’t”
― Jarod Kintz, There are Two Typos of People in This World: Those Who Can Edit and Those Who Can’t

Perhaps that’s me! I’m that typo person….

I just find it so time consuming. A prison of my own neuroticism so to speak:

“While writing is like a joyful release, editing is a prison where the bars are my former intentions and the abusive warden my own neuroticism.”
― Tiffany Madison

It gets to the stage when I just don’t want to look at my work any more, I’ve had enough, my heart is bleeding, and I’m leaping over the precipice…

“Edit your manuscript until your fingers bleed and you have memorized every last word. Then, when you are certain you are on the verge of insanity…edit one more time!”
― C.K. Webb

Don’t even begin to mention the word grammar to me…. this one will make you laugh!

“Making love to me is amazing. Wait, I meant: making love, to me, is amazing. The absence of two little commas nearly transformed me into a sex god. ”
― Dark Jar Tin Zoo, Love Quotes for the Ages. Specifically Ages 19-91.

Sometimes you get to the point when you are doing more harm than good. Your stories start to play hide and seek with you.

I edit my own stories to death. They eventually run and hide from me.”
― Jeanne Voelker

And never mind editing in your pyjamas it can have unknown effects on your underwear.

“Writing without revising is the literary equivalent of waltzing gaily out of the house in your underwear.”
― Patricia Fuller

I’m not sure about this breeding lark, Dr. Seuss really must have been in the grips of editing torment when he wrote this:

“So the writer who breeds more words than he needs, is making a chore for the reader who reads.”
― Dr. Seuss

Yes, its making me want to kill someone… those words on the page are about to be machine gunned…

Kill your darlings, kill your darlings, even when it breaks your egocentric little scribbler’s heart, kill your darlings.”
― Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

So today I’m taking a well deserved break, phew, and sharing some wonderful quotes with you about editing from some incredible authors, because I need that little spur to keep on going…. to push through the pain…

My favourite has to be this wonderful quote from Stephen King:

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“When you write a book, you spend day after day scanning and identifying the trees. When you’re done, you have to step back and look at the forest.”
― Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

My forest is beginning to appear… it sure looks different than when I started!

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I do hope that these wonderful quotes will inspire you to push through the editing process to reach your final goal, if like me you are editing your manuscript.. Keep on going…. big smiles…

Do join in with Colleen’s WQW and Ronovan’s BeWow here are their links:

http://silverthreading.com/2016/02/24/writersquotewednesday-bewow-victor-hugo/

https://ronovanwrites.wordpress.com/2016/02/24/10-respect-quotes/

Bye for now, hope you liked my trio of trees that I photographed and edited from my previous post. Yes, even photos have to be edited sometimes….

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https://www.instagram.com/kyrosmagica/

Marje @ Kyrosmagica xx

Hugh’s Weekly Photo Challenge week 13 Love

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What do I love? The answer lies in so many directions that I am almost staggered wondering what to post. I love my family, my hubby, my friends, writing, blogging, books, crying… wait a minute I said crying. What? I mean to say that I love books that stir the emotions, make me cry, get me reflecting….

I just finished one such book, boy did it make me cry, Me Before You By Jojo Moyes.

So I love all sorts of things. But one of my great loves is my old home town of Edinburgh. I just love visiting Edinburgh lapping up all that this great city has to offer.

If you’re a regular visitor to my blog you might have seen my posts about Edinburgh. So surprise surprise my photo this week is something I came across whilst in Edinburgh this half term. I found it in a place that I have many fond memories of. The photo was taken in The Botanic Gardens, right outside an art gallery. Yes, I’m kind of partial to them too…

I don’t know quite what it was about this particular statue that grabbed my attention, but whatever it was it gripped me. It might have been her tummy, I have one of those, I may be skinny but my tummy has always been a bit rounded. Or it might be the way she was twisting her arm behind her back in a yoga stretch. Perhaps that was it. Anyway the fact that I noticed her was saying something as on this trip I was busy spending time with family, oh and eating a lot. That is one of my other loves. I ate lots and lots of Asian food. My mum is a wonderful cook, so we had many tasty meals but as well as this we visited a particularly fine Malaysian restaurant in Glasgow called, Rumours Kopitiam. By the way kopitiam or kopi tiam is the word for a coffee shop in Southeast Asia. The interior of this little restaurant wasn’t exactly flashy but the food was excellent and the lunch menu’s really good value for money. Our waitress had a great sense of humour she asked my daughter if she liked chilli, she said yes, so she made sure that she was more than adequately supplied with lots of them! That’ll teach her….. The Singapore noodles were to die for. So if you are in Glasgow give Kopitiam a go.

On this week away I didn’t really do much in the way of blogging or Instagram. Or visit half of the places I had intended to. Which isn’t like me but all that eating, and chatting to family was taking up all of my time. This statue wasn’t having it she just begged me to photograph her, she pointed her belly at me accusingly and twisted my arm! What astonished me about it all was this. When I came back to Cambridge I did some research and found that she had just been moved back to this particular spot. I came back to Edinburgh Botanic Gardens and so did she…. A pair of kindred spirits. How sweet. She is Reg Butler’s cast bronze sculpture, entitled Girl. She is now to be seen outside Inverleith House, right beside the gallery of modern art.

More about her reappearance here:

http://www.rbge.org.uk/about-us/news/stories/butlers-girl-comes-home

So a bit of a meandering kind of love but there you have it. Hope Hugh approves. This is my entry for Hugh’s photography challenge this week.

http://hughsviewsandnews.com/2016/02/16/hughs-weekly-photo-challenge-week-13-love/

Hope you like my photo and my tale of my many loves: eating, reading, writing, art, statues, and spending time with family in my favourite Scottish city, Edinburgh. Sorry, Glasgow, I love you too!! Especially your Kopitiam….

unnamed

Marje @ Kyrosmagica xx

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