by Melinda Snodgrass | Nov 8, 2024 | Blog
Hi folks. There was an error on the spine of the print version of TO REIGN IN HEAVEN. Instead of being Book IV, it had been put out as Book VI. The layout artist corrected that and I have uploaded the new cover to all the various platforms, but it might take a few days for that fourth and final book in the Carolingian series to be available again. Apologies for the mess up, but any of you who bought a print copy have a collectors item 🤪.
by Melinda Snodgrass | Jul 17, 2024 | The Craft of Writing, TV & Movies
This post was generated after watching the finale of The Acolyte, so if you haven’t see it yet there are going to be SPOILERS, so stop reading now. <<<<<<<SPOILERS<<<<<<<<<SPOILERS>>>>>>SPOILERS>>>>>> Overall I liked The Acolyte quite a lot. I like the fact it wasn’t written by all one person. I thought the cast was terrific, particularly Lee Jung Jae as the Jedi Master Sol. There was very...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Jun 22, 2024 | About Writing, The Craft of Writing
As a reader I’ve tended to prefer science fiction to fantasy, with a few exceptions. The Lord of the Rings is one of my favorite books and I go to Middle Earth whenever life feels too stressful. But about a year ago I had this idea pop into my head and I can’t shake it. So now that my space opera, Imperials, is finished, and the Carolingian series about the war between science and rationality and superstition, religion and magic is also finished. (Those books will be going live in the...
by Melinda Snodgrass | May 17, 2024 | Blog
It will come as no surprise to anyone that I’m a Star Wars fan. Which means I tune into every new Disney Star Wars show hoping the next one will be as good as Andor. Sadly, none of them are, and I feel like one of the reasons is a lack of writer diversity as in — have a writers room so you can have other writers push back and question choices and decisions. The most recent glaring and annoying choice was in the finale of The Bad Batch where our heroes return to a planet where they...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Jan 29, 2024 | About Writing
Yes, that is meant somewhat ironically because this is a long and tedious process. First you have to have the team who are able to prepare the covers properly, do all the interior layout and then someone to prepare the manuscript for all these different places. Thank the gods I have Jeffe Kennedy and her extraordinary team to assist me and Jeffe to teach me. The one really big wrinkle in all of this has been Bowker that sells ISBN numbers. Note that in Canada they are provided to authors for...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Jan 26, 2024 | About Writing
I do outline my novels. Not in the same detail that I would outline a script, but it’s important to me to know the major beats ie the tent pole scenes that will carry me to the various act outs, but there are a few limited time where I let the flow of the story and the actions of the characters show me the way. It’s one of the reasons I can’t jump around when I write. I have to experience the events of the story along with the characters in a very linear fashion. I spent the...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Nov 30, 2023 | Blog
So here is a story. My aunt and uncle on my dad’s side had two Siamese cats — Tasha and Andy. And when I was a baby my mom (my dad was in Washington D.C. testifying to a congressional committee about organized crime in Los Angeles more on that another time) was staying with Judy and Ernie. Now, they were young and staying home with a baby so my aunt and uncle and my mom would put Tasha in my crib and tell her to “watch the baby” while they went off dancing for a couple...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Nov 19, 2023 | Blog
There has been an outcry from fans over the ending of Loki season 2, because he didn’t get to live happily ever after with Sylvie, but I think it was perfection. And now I’m going to tell you why. AHOY, THERE ARE SPOILERS AHEAD. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!!! I fell in love with the character way back with the first THOR film. Partly because he’s a tremendously complicated character and also because of Tom Hiddleston’s portrayal. He is probably one of the finest actors of his generation (and many...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Aug 21, 2023 | Blog
via GIPHY I had a friend visiting who had never seen ALIENS, so we popped in the disc to watch it last night. What I hadn’t realized is that Carl and I had purchased the Special Edition. Which meant it had added back in deleted scenes and dialogue that had been cut from the theatrical release. And oh my dear gods and little fishes, they should never have done that. There was a reason those scenes were cut and some dialogue trimmed. I’m going to do a SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING!...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Aug 5, 2023 | Blog
Let’s first get the fact that I am sometimes an idiot out of the way before I get into musing about how little I knew about riding until I started riding with my coach extraordinaire, Leslie Apfel. I have these great Romitelli riding boots, that I just love, but when I wore the brown leather ones — the zippers would always slide down while I was riding. I thought it was due to the leather softening up, but then Leslie said, “Don’t they have a zipper guard?” she looked, and yes, they have...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Jun 3, 2023 | Blog
Yeah, I’m a car person. I’m a big time car person. It’s the once place where my liberal cred really falls down. If I won the lottery I would have like eight or ten cars. So, in that spirit I went out to the car show in the parking lot across from the Round House this morning to check out the all electric Lucid. I’ve been reading about them in Car & Driver, vehicle won car of the year, and it’s slick. It’s also narrower than the Tesla S which would be...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Apr 19, 2023 | Blog
One of the constant complaints I hear regarding Andor is how the first few episodes are boring, nothing happens, what was the point of all this? In this era when there isn’t a Michael Bay EXPLOSION INSIDE AN EXPLOSION!!! people think a particular show or movie is slow, but I found the pacing of Andor to be nearly perfect. We all know the over-arching plot — Cassian Andor becomes a rebel intelligence officer, steals the Death Star plans, and dies, but what Tony Gilroy did was far deeper and...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Feb 7, 2023 | Blog
So, it’s time for another thrilling adventure in dressage neepery. This time it’s all about the importance of the leg in riding, particularly in dressage. This all started when my coach blew my mind by telling me that in the leg yield (which is a maneuver in which the horse steps sideway while keeping their body parallel to the rail while still moving forward) the yielding leg ie the leg that is pulsing against the horse’s body and telling them to step sideways remains directly under the...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Feb 7, 2023 | Blog
You would think I would have learned this before now given how long I have been riding (rode for the first time at 3 years old. Had my own horse at 7, sweet black and white paint named Suncloud), but it took riding with Leslie to help me truly, fully, understand how to control a horse almost exclusively with my seat and my core muscles. I can go from an extended canter to a canter so collected we’re almost cantering in place just by using those core muscles and thinking more up than...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Feb 7, 2023 | Blog
I was riding in a Bill McMullin clinic and had my mind blown, and I wonder why nobody ever told me this before. The shoulder-fore is not just a more shallow shoulder-in. It’s actually designed to get the horse straight on the rail. Here is how Bill explained it. The horse is narrower in the front than they are in the back, so if you keep their shoulders right on the rail they will always look like they are doing a slight haunches-in because their butts are much wider than their chests....
