Category Archives: General

Ottawa Romance Writers Association presents…

In celebration of our 25th anniversary, in collaboration with Algonquin College, please join us on September 25, 2010 for Story Mastery by Michael Hauge. This day-long seminar with one of the most respected experts in the industry will help you with your story-telling abilities no matter your target audience or stage of your writing career.

Detailed information, including registration forms and fees, can be obtained at the Ottawa Romance Writer’s website…
http://www.ottawaromancewriters.com/events/workshops/michaelhauge.html

For information on Michael Hauge, visit his website at
http://www.screenplaymastery.com

Hope you’ll come out and join us!

Productive Day – not writing

Yesterday turned out to be a very productive day… not on the writing front but on the “fun stuff” for my website front. Jigsaw puzzles and word search puzzles lots of them to choose from! Best of all they’re linked through the main page of my website now.

Hmm… wonder what I can get up to today that doesn’t involve writing???

Cooling mat for laptop

After sweltering on Sunday working on my laptop computer in a non-air conditioned environment, I decided it was time to buy a cooling mat for my laptop and hopefully one that would keep me cool, too.

My local computer shop had one of the thermal varieties on display so had me sit on it. Within moments, my bum was cooling off rather nicely. The beauty of this type is it doesn’t require power to run the fans which cuts down on your battery life big time. It’s light and will fit easily into my laptop case.  It didn’t take much convincing after I’d done the “sit on it” test. I purchased it and now can’t wait to use it!

Here’s the link to the cooling pad I bought.

http://www.thermaltakeusa.com/Product.aspx?C=1135&ID=1599

Most recent wordsearch puzzle

I’ve come to the conclusion after doing this one myself, that it’s just a wee bit too big. 66 words is just a bit much when the border on the puzzle remains the same size. The first one I did, had 55 or 56 words which seems to be a bit better. I tested the new one today and have decided on a few things…

1. fewer words

2. sort the list into alphabetical order before creating and uploading the puzzle, although I just loaded wordsearch1 and I don’t think the word list is in the same order as earlier… hmmm…

And as I was testing the puzzle, printed and done on paper rather than the screen, I realized I’d left a good portion of the early parts of the book this one is based on out of it.

Oh well, I’m flying by the seat of my pants so what can I say? I’m certain the more of them I create, the better they’ll get. At least I hope it turns out that way.

Dying scanner

I think my scanner is dying. It’s flashing a red light… not a good thing… You can unplug it and plug it back in and briefly get the green light and the scanner initializes but almost as quickly, it goes back to the flashing red light.

Wonder if it’s jealous because I got a new front loading wash machine AND a new car?

Dunno…

Wordsearch puzzle

I created and uploaded a word search puzzle to my website last night. 56 words in total. I’d created one before as a test but made a mistake by putting a space in between words which doesn’t work and I couldn’t delete it afterwards. It’s really difficult to type a two-word clue and not hit the space bar between the words.

Click on the first letter, drag the mouse across to the last letter and click again. If you’re right, the letters will highlight in green and the word will be crossed out on the list below. If you’re wrong, the word will highlight in red. Like the jigsaws, it’s not linked to the website right now but it can be accessed at…

http://www.melanierobertson-king.com/wordsearch.html

The words/letters in the puzzle itself aren’t circled but this is the best word search puzzle generator I’ve found so far.

Good luck! Please leave a comment letting me know what your thoughts are.

Fun Stuff

I’m going to add a “Fun Stuff” area to my website. One of the things I’ll be adding is jigsaw puzzles of some of the photos from my photo gallery pages. Not sure what else will be going up there yet, maybe some “Free” short stories, crossword puzzles or word search puzzles.

Like I said… Fun Stuff!

When I get it finished, I’ll post the news here so keep checking back.