Book Review - Playing With Fire - Edited by Coral Russell

Book Review - Playing With Fire edited by Coral Russell

For me, the stories in this horror anthology that I really enjoyed were:
Coral Russell's Devil of a Ghost Tour which had some genuinely creepy moments.

Brian Fatah Steele's Flawed and The Stuff Dreams Aren't Made of, both were quirky and unusual.

Chryse Wymer's This Dark Magic, a fun story of black magic with a well developed character.

Overall, all the stories are vastly different from each but the others didn't do it for me

Rating 3/5
The publisher's blog is here and the amazon link for further info is below:





Product Details

• Format: Kindle Edition
• File Size: 325 KB
• Simultaneous Device Usage: Unlimited
• Publisher: Alchemy of Scrawl (11 July 2011)
• Language English
• ASIN: B005CDD4IK

Other reviews you may be interested in:

Houses Without Doors by Peter Straub

The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 20

One Buck Horror Volume 1

ROw80 - Round 4 - Check in 14

Good morning Wednesday, how on earth did you get here? I nearly missed prepping my check in post.

I'm getting more and more behind on visiting your blogs. Sunday ended up being a bit of a sleepathon again. In happier news I have 3 days off work coming up, a long weekend which will be given over to studying.

Goalwise, *refers to the task manager*

On Sunday, I finished heading up all my location sheets for the novel. I have over 30 locations and journeys to fill in with the cold hard details. Novel and pretty much everything else is being put on hold now while I concentrate on studying.

• I caught up on 3 of my poem a days
• Wrote in my writers journal for studies
• Plugged some more poem data into the database
• Read another writing related article, can't remember what now.

On Monday:

• Wrote in the journal again
• Wrote a poem a day, still behind on a few, will catch up on my break.
• Did yoga - decided to cut back to every 2 days until I have one less project whipping around my head.

On Tuesday:

• Began the 4th project for studies and somehow lost an hour.

I took a leaf out of Sharon Howard's book and dropped into my course forums and am now part of an email group with fellow students. So I don't feel like the only student in the world and it's been nice learning about other's experiences on the course. I'm also starting to figure my attitude and approach to writing and realised that there's this one huge area where I have a shortfalling, so that needs work. It's the same reason I'm detailing all the locations in the novel as well.

I've put up a good fight so far during November but it's time to admit I took way too much on. So I'm narrowing my immediate focus back down to studying, I need this next assignment done before feedback comes back on my last one.

Hope you're all doing great.

My Top 5 Favourite iPad apps - Part 2

Yep, there are technically 10 apps on my favourite gadget.

1)Feeddler Pro - Multiple blogs across multiple blog platforms all synced to one nifty app for the luxury of digital reading on an ereader.

2) Core Yoga - Great for starting a beginning yoga routine, good graphics with a virtual tutor. But be sensible and grab Yoga for Dummies for plenty of practical advice and tips if you've never done yoga before.

3) Pranayama - Deep breathing exercise on your ipad. Great for relaxation.

4) Kindle - I hate that it uses percentages instead of good old fashioned page numbers and has no way of sorting books into virtual shelfs but it's a necessary evil for ebooks. Plenty of free samples to download so you can always try before you buy.

5) AudioMemo's - Voice recording, simple and straight forward. I use it to practice reading my poetry aloud

Missed My Top 5 Favourite iPad apps part 1?

ROw80 - Round 4 - Check in 13

Just a quick update from me.

I finished and submitted my 4th Assignment last Wednesday, being excited that I had extra time on my hands I came home from work Thursday night and fell straight into bed. So Thursday and Friday I didn't get much done as I was feeling pretty run down.

I've missed a couple of the poem a day prompts, been missing yoga this week as well. Oops.

I made up on reading though and have headed up more of the novel's locations sheets, one more evening on this and I should have them all set up and ready to be filled in, added more developmental notes to the file as well.

In other news, I added my blog to technorati and set myself up on google+.

Also have two blog posts scheduled for the week. Still feeling a bit dazed as to where the week went. Need to have a goal review methinks.

Hope everyone else is doing well.

My Top 5 Favourite iPad apps - Part 1

I'm addicted to my iPad, not only does it double up as my laptop when I'm away from home, it's my portable library, poetry organiser and yoga coach. This is a 2 part post listing my personal 10 best apps.

1) Story Tracker - Acts as a database keeping records of all my written stories and poetry from word counts, markets, submissions made to rejections and acceptances. I'm patiently waiting for the desktop version to become available.

2) Toodledo - My task manager tracking to-do's across multiple projects. I love it. See my post on using a task manager here.

3)Ibooks - Although the ebooks in the store are pricy, there are free books and samples to download and allows for sorting into lists unlike the kindle app. I have lists for complete books, pdfs, samples and wishlist. I like the interface. Download it free from the app store.

4) Docs to go - I can produce word compatible files on the go and either sync to the desktop or email back to myself. Handy to be able to work on my fiction or poetry when I'm away from home.

5) Twitter - I actually prefer the twitter app to the browser, easier to add hashtags and followers handles to your tweets. Again, I can keep in touch when I'm away from home.

Some are free apps, some are paid apps. I'd suggest trialing free alternatives and demo's until you get a feel for how much use you will get from an app. It may sound good but there may be bugs or short falls that render it useless.

What apps or software are on your must have list?

other posts you may enjoy:
My Top 5 Favourite Blogs

2012 Ebook Challenge

As the ebooks are mounting up on the ereader and keep getting sidelined in favour of my paperbacks, I stumbled across this challenge on Books and Beyond. It's hosted by Workaday Reads, the sign up and full rules can be read here and the challenge begins on the 1st January 2012.

I'll be going for level 2 - CD - 10 ebooks.

Wish me luck.

Remembrance Sunday - Poem - The Poppy

The Poppy
by Katy Bennett

Remember the poppy
worn on an old man's blazer,

Stained red from the fallen
soldier far from home,

stained from the memories
kept in history books,

stained from the continuing
atrocities blaring from a flat screen.

Remember the poppies
who came home,

hero's against humanities
obsession for bloodshed and power,

stained from the memories
seen on the field,

stained from the deaths
of families and comrades.

Row80 - Round 4 - Check in 12

As tomorrow is Remembrance Sunday, I decided to check in today as I have written a poem to go up tomorrow. I'm back moving forward with goals.

Yoga'd twice since wednesday.

Back to reading regularly, studying is going slower than I would like, I'm hoping to have the current assignment done by Wednesday.

For the most part I'm keeping up with daily journalling as part of my second module. There's something inspiring about writers who have kept journals for decades.

I've also been making notes on the novel and the novella. Started heading up my location sheets but haven't filled in any details yet. Keep finding more and more areas to research, is there no end?

I've missed 2 prompts on poem a day but enjoying the challenge and will catch up at some point on the 2 prompts.

I've been reading Write Good or Die ed. by Scott Nicholson which again is inspiring and has me thinking about my attitude towards writing and my perspective. Also hoping to knuckle down and clear my current reading pile soon so I can concentrate on the study books.

Have a great weekend