The Pen and Inkpot

I always think of poetry as a very broad term and the writer can seem to get away with writing whatever they like in whatever structure they like these days. The only problem with that is now we don't know how to start writing a poem when there are so many styles to write in. In this post I will give you a few tips on how to write poetry that is unique and sounds good when spoken aloud.  Iambic Pentameter If you have read any of Shakespeare's works, you may have picked up his use of iambic pentameter. In simple terms, iambic pentameter is stressing certain syllables in a line of poetry. There are five sets of two syllables and in each set of two syllables there is usually one strong and one weak beat.  For example: I soar / a- cross / the sky / a- bove In this example, the bold syllable is stressed more and throughout the line, the stressed syllable alternates with a weaker syllable. You don't have to follow iambic pentameter exactly (I don't), I jus...

Madeline was diagnosed with a rare form of Severe Combined Immunodeficiency when she was a baby. In other words, she is allergic to the world. Unidentifiable triggers cause bouts of sickness so she has stayed in her house for the past seventeen years. When Olly and his family move in next door, Madeline watches from her window, entranced by Olly's freedom and appreciation of the world. When they start messaging online, it doesn't occur to her that she would be given the opportunity to meet him, or that they would fall in love. You would think that a story from the point of view of someone who cannot ever leave the house would be quite boring. But you would be wrong. Madeline sees the world from a different point of view and she helps the reader see like this too. 'Everything Everything' is a very original novel unlike anything I have read before. The story was told in a variety of ways including emails, drawings, schedules and other miscellaneous scraps of the ...

I was recommended this novel by a librarian based on my love for mysteries and at first I was unsure of whether I would like it. It turned out to be far better than I expected. Although the mystery of the novel wasn't mind boggling, it did give the reader a close connection to the characters and gave an insight into the life of one unfortunate girl. The main character goes through many conflicting emotions and the author has done well to express them efficiently without boring the reader.  Lauren Matthews has always known she was adopted, but that is all that she knows. Her parents refuse to tell her anything else about where she came from. One day, eager to find out about her past, Lauren goes on a website called missing-Children.com, and finds an American girl named Martha Lauren Purditt, who went missing less than two months before Lauren was adopted. This seems like more of a coincidence until Lauren embarks on an adventure with her friend, Jam, and discovers that the ...

I have long been admiring the book sleeves created by the company Book Beau, their pretty patterns and practicality. Book sleeves protect your books especially when taking them in bags and travelling, so that your books can stay in good condition. As much as I wanted to purchase a book beau, I soon found that the postage alone would cost $50 to get from the US to Australia. In the end that didn't matter, since I figured out how to make one myself.  The instructions are pretty straight forward and you can hand sew it if you like, but I found it much quicker to use a sewing machine. Please pay close attention to the direction that the fabric is facing when sewing and read the instructions carefully. It is easy to sew the fabric the wrong way (I have done it many times), but my advice is to read the steps several times and think before you sew. Also, if you do mess up, just unpick your stitches. The measurements that I have recommended are for fitting a regular, small novel. ...

I hadn't actually heard of this novel before it appeared in my August Once Upon a Book Club Box, but I am definitely glad I read it. It is difficult to put a single genre to it because there was so much variety in the novel: adventure, paranormal, romance, mystery. All of these genres got blended together to create the unique novel that is "Notes From My Captivity". Adrienne's father was killed by a drunk driver seven years ago. Now she lives with her worried mother, evil step brother and obsessed step father. Adrienne can't help but dislike her stepdad, Dan, because he is trying to take the place of her real father and no one can do that.  He also happens to be fascinated by a mythical family called the Osinovs who supposedly live in the Siberian wilderness. When Adrienne pretends to be interested in Dan's obsession, she gets brought along to an expedition into the Siberian wilderness. Her secret plan is to stack up the evidence against the existence...

I have started watching Miss Marple and Agatha Christie's murder mysteries on TV for a while now and this is the first of her novels that I have picked up. It did not disappoint me. After every good mystery novel I read, I am overcome with awe at how the author managed to create so many complicated layers to the crime, and this was no different. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd ties three crimes into one messy mystery making every character seem suspicious. I am the sort of person who likes to try and solve the crime alongside the detective in the novel and multiple times throughout The Murder of Roger Ackroyd I thought I knew who did the crime. In the end I was entirely wrong which meant that it was a good mystery. The biggest crime for an author is a predictable ending. A very brief summary: (because I don't want to spoil it for you) Mrs Ferrars died on Thursday, September 16th. Mr Ferrars had died one year earlier. Rumour has it that she poisoned her husband, but the l...

The editing process for most of the photos I use on my blog is quite simple and only involves adding filters. On the other hand, if you have checked out my instagram account, you will see that in some of my photos, I use a lot more than that. I currently do not own a laptop or computer, so I do all my editing on my iPad (which is not as difficult as you might think). In this post I will take you through my editing process and the apps I use. Keynote This is an app that comes already loaded onto an iPad and is meant for making presentations, but I have found it useful for other things too. When an image is added to a slide, you have the option of using "instant alpha" which is kind of like green screen. It means that I can take away the coloured background of a photo. I can also use keynote to  layer images on top of each other and play with the opacity. Also, if I want to cut out part of an image that is a difficult shape, I can use the app Picollage which...