James Piper, Author

Monday, September 17, 2012 Breathe—Verb. To breathe. Breath—Noun. A breath. Breathe Breath Posted 2012/09/17 at 19h17ET in Words , Writing .

Tuesday, September 11, 2012 ON TO—Put the water on to boil, I’m making haggis. ONTO—The cat jumped onto a pillow filled with wrenches. Onto On Posted 2012/09/11 at 19h45ET in Words , Writing .

Sunday, September 9, 2012 CLOTHES—She’s so beautiful. I imagine her without any clothes, but then, her closet and dresser would be empty. CLOTH—A noun. A cloth to wipe up… CLOTHE—Verb. To clothe her doll, she stole… Clothes Cloth Clothe Posted 2012/09/09 at 20h14ET in Words , Writing .

Thursday, September 6, 2012 A homonym. FAIRY—A fairy tale. A fairy godmother. Fairy—not a long, long way to run. FERRY—A boat or ship to transport drunken Swedes back home from Copenhagen. It’s the Danish beer. Fairy Ferry Samantha the Swimming Fairy by Daisy Meadows Evening Ferry by Katherine Towler Posted 2012/09/06 at 5h02ET in Words , Writing .

Wednesday, September 5, 2012 ... if it's not the cat then what is it ... L ast night I was out back, sitting in the hot tub. It was dark. Cloudy skies. Not much light except for the one in the tub. I'm relaxing and thinking. The noise of the whirling water drowning out most sounds. I'm in a zone when I look up to see the faint image of an animal’s face approaching the edge of the hot tub—its nose almost touching the wooden deck. It moved closer as if wanting to sniff the water. In the darkness, I thought it was our cat and I wondered how it got out of the house, but as it moved closer, looking as if it might jump into the water, might jump at me, I realized the face was far too large, too wide—the body too big. It wasn’t our cat, it was a racoon. At least I thought it was a racoon. Not wanting to learn more, I swung my arm through the water. A wave rose up and drenched the deck. When the water settled I looked around and couldn’t find the creature. Maybe my ...

Sunday, September 2, 2012 Another homonym. TAUGHT—I learned my students? No. I taut my students? No. I teached my students? No. I taught my students. Ah, maybe. TAUT—The trapdoor of the scaffold gave way and the hangman’s noose went taut. Taught Taut What Barbie Taught Me about Wearing a Plastic Smile by Riley Wilkinson A Taut Rope by Fred L. Cook Posted 2012/09/02 at 10h19ET in Words , Writing .

Sunday, August 30, 2012 A homonym that trips some up. WINE—Red wine goes well with kumquats and prickly pears. WHINE—Okay. They don’t pair. Stop your whining. Wine Whine Wine of Violence: A Medieval Mystery (Medieval Mysteries) by Priscilla Royal No Whine With Dinner: 150 Healthy Kid-Tested Recipes from the Meal Makeover Moms by Liz Weiss, Janice Newell Bissex Posted 2012/08/30 at 20h12ET in Words , Writing .

Sunday, August 26, 2012 Easy to miss this one. LICENCE—Always a noun. He has a licence to collect alien spaceships. British spelling variation. LICENSE—A noun. A verb. U.S. spelling variation for noun. The federal Bureau for Interplanetary Affairs is empowered to license individuals, corporations and charities. Licence License Licence to Kill by John Gardner Artistic License by Julie Hyzy Posted 2012/08/26 at 18h24ET in Words , Writing .

Wednesday, August 22, 2012 Easy to miss this one. THROW—Transitive verb. You throw something. A book, your voice, a planet. THROE—A noun. Emotions. Spasms. In the extreme. The throes of love, of battle, of using a computer. throe Throes of Democracy: The American Civil War Era, 1829-1877 by Walter A. Mcdougall Posted 2012/08/21 at 14h48ET in Words , Writing .

Tuesday, August 21, 2012 I don’t make these things up. FLOW—Some like it when champagne flows, others when it’s beer. Water flows down hills and in rivers, but there are no ice flows. FLOE—An ice floe. Chucks of ice floating in water. Big chunks, the size of a city, are called ice fields. DK Eyewitness Travel Guide: Canada National Geographic Guide to the National Parks of Canada Posted 2012/08/21 at 14h27ET in Words , Writing .

Monday, August 20, 2012 ... some decisions are easier to make than others because you don't have all the facts ... I I have a decision to make. Two of my novels on Amazon are part of the KDP select program and the 90-day period expires in a week. I have some free promotion days left to use. Do I use them or let them expire? Do I re-enlist for another 90 days? How to decide? Overview of the KDP Select Program: Applies to e-books only. 90-day period. Book becomes exclusive to Amazon. No non-Amazon sales allowed. 5 free promotion days. Unused promo days expire. No roll over. No royalty for promo day downloads. Lending program for Select members. 1 new lend per month per member. Royalty for lending, around $2 per lend. The Benefits. People love free and will download. Increased visibility from: Amazon’s list of books currently in free promo. Web sites and tweets of your free promo. Hitting bestseller list on Amazon. More clicks on the LIKE ...

Monday, August 20, 2012 This one never tripped me up. Not sure why. It should have. COLOMBIA—Country in northern South America. Shares a border with Panama connecting South America with Central America. COLUMBIA—Not a country. Colombia - Culture Smart!: The Essential Guide to Customs & Culture by Kate Cathey One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez Posted 2012/08/20 at 13h39ET in Words , Writing .

Sunday, August 19, 2012 ... When you're on your deathbed, will you cherish all the time you spent watching TV? ... I n 2007, after a lifetime of watching of TV, I stopped watching. My habit was like any, like smoking or drinking. It was just something I did. No real thought about not watching. When I decided to stop, I went cold turkey. I had many weak moments in January and February 2007 but I eventually broke the habit. Whatever urge I had to turn on the TV completely vanished and I haven’t looked back. But how could I? When I mention to people I don’t watch TV, they are incredulous or think I’m nuts. Well, it is true. I don’t watch TV and perhaps I am nuts but I have my reasons. I had known co-workers and friends who had turned off TV completely. I read about journalists and writers who did the same and I always thought they were a touch nuts but then I read Stephen King’s book On Writing. In it he says, and I paraphrase, if you want to write novels, what the hel...

Sunday, August 19, 2012 Similar words that can cause confusion. Me included. ECUADOR—Country on northwest coast of South America. Includes the Galapagos Islands. EQUATOR—Zero degree latitude. Splits northern and southern hemispheres. The equator runs through Ecuador. Frommer's Ecuador and the Galapagos Islands by Eliot Greenspan The Rough Guide to Ecuador by Melissa Graham, Harry Ades Posted 2012/08/19 at 12h59ET in Words , Writing .

Friday, August 17, 2012 ... using a real life character to write a narrative about what could happen ... A couple of years ago I read an article on Julian Assange in The New Yorker. At the time, he was a minor celebrity. Times have changed. Today he garners headlines all over the world. Most know something about him. To some he’s a hero. To others he’s a villain. I’m not here to take sides; I’m here to analyze the narrative aspects of his current situation. In other words, use what we know to write the next chapter of the story—create a political thriller if you will, one that could even include plots for assassination. Hey, I’m making it up and want to create suspense. At the moment he’s holed up in Ecuador’s embassy in London, England. The Swedes want him on a criminal investigation. There’s an INTERPOL arrest warrant. The British have agreed to extradite him to Sweden. He has lost all appeals with British courts. If it weren’t for the protection provided by Ecuador and ...

Thursday, August 16, 2012 ... The publishing industry and it is a business first and foremost ... G reat article in Forbes about the current state of publishing and the digital revolution by David Vinjamuri . Must read article that covers the state of publishing and does so with precision. Some added thoughts. Brad Thor thinks if you’re good enough, you’ll find an agent and a publisher. He fails to take into consideration the “luck” factor, as well as the benefits of self-publishing for niche markets or mid-list type authors. His mindset is NYT bestseller list and it shows. As Vinjamuri writes, “most new authors who make it through the arduous process of finding both an agent and a publisher are surprised to learn that it is the author who is responsible for marketing and promoting his or her own work.” Until, and if, you break out, you’re on your own. So why go with a traditional publisher? He’s correct when he says the amazon rating system has become us...

Friday, July 6, 2012 ... Great ranking on Amazon UK. Thank you wonderful readers ... A big thanks to my readers for their support. Posted 2012/07/06 at 04h50ET in Project Nevis .

Friday, June 15, 2012 ... why I don't bother with turning on DRM for my e-books ... W hen I was in high school, a bunch of years ago, one listened to music from a radio or a turntable. You know those machines with a needle on the end of an arm that went round and round. Yeah, there were tape cassettes and some still had 8-tracks but mostly it was vinyl. Pirating was about B movies at the Saturday matinee. There was bootlegging, something about secret recordings of concerts, but I was never part of any in-crowd so I only heard a few words from a distance. Fast forward a few years and the digital world turned the music business upside down. Pirating took on new meaning and things haven’t been the same since. The book business was slow to see the effects because people weren’t willing to read books on their computers nor were they willing to spend a small fortune for a portable device. Enter Amazon and its Kindle. They sold it at a loss to create a market. It’d say it’s ...

Monday, June 11, 2012 ... have you been accused of misspelling a word you know is correct ... S usanne O’Leary wrote an interesting article on her experience with the variations of the English language in different countries. You know the obvious ones like colour with or without a “u” but less obvious ones like travelled versus traveled. Growing up in Sweden she learnt English in school—the UK variation. In publishing her books, she read reviews where she was criticized for improper spelling. False accusations as it turns out. While I write tire and cozy, it’s not incorrect to write tyre or cosy. Same language. Both accepted. Just different. You can read her write-up here along with the numerous comments posted by readers. I found it interesting, but that’s me. As a Canadian I deal with this issue everyday. I feel her pain when she’s criticized for something based on ignorance. No fun. I was told by a boss that “data are” isn’t correct. It should be “data is.” Read...

Friday, June 1, 2012 ... if you want to grab a reader, you hit the ground running, right? ... H ere is a summary of the first sentences of the novels written by David Baldacci . Do they meet the requirements of agents, editors and, most importantly, readers? You be the judge. 1. Absolute Power (1996) "He gripped the steering wheel loosely as the car, its lights out, drifted slowly to a stop. A few last scraps of gravel kicked out of the tire treads and then silence enveloped him. He took a moment to adjust to the surroundings and then pulled out a pair of worn but still effective night-vision binoculars. The house slowly came into focus. He shifted easily, confidently in his seat. A duffel bag lay on the front seat beside him. The car's interior was faded but clean." 2. Total Control (1996) "The apartment was small, unattractive and possessed of an unsettling musty odor that suggested long neglect. However, the few furnishi...