New article - Pluto, New Horizons, and Awesomness

Better late than never, here's the link to my article about Pluto and New Horizons... and a photo of Pluto.

New Horizons – Pluto Flyby Success!

Pluto (Public Domain Image)

Writing News, Articles, and an Oxford Comma

Guest Posts

The guest posts posted last week is on two very, very different subject matters – the Greek Economic Crisis and the eleventh season of Idols SA! This week I had a chance to choose my own topic – so obviously I chose New Horizons and Pluto. I’m still amazed by the level of detail the flyby was able to capture. And, of course, there’s the giant “heart” on the planet.

Here are the links to the guest posts (the Pluto link will follow next week):

New Austerity Measures for the Greek Economy 

Idols SA: Who Will Be This Year’s Idol? 

Writing News:

I am finished with my Camp NaNoWriMo word count goal! I am waiting to see how much I get written over the weekend before I validate my word count, though. Instead of working on one project, I found myself flitting from one thing to the next. So I can’t say “here’s my finished project”, but I did get quite a lot done. I think it was a good warmup for November.

Photo by Florian Klauer

Writing Links of the Week and Flash Fiction

Here are the links to my articles published last week. To read some more (on a wide variety of topics) go to my webpage.

Important Facts About Food Allergies

What is Fool’s Paradise Day?

Affordable Winter School Holiday Fun

Monday Flash Fiction

This micro fiction story was written for last week’s Friday’s Flash!Friday competition. The full prompts can be seen over here.

At the End of the Rainbow

“It’s just half your soul. What do you want a whole one for if half will do?” the scaly man in the black suit grinned.

Chemical Factory. CC2.0 photo by Astrid Westvang.

Behind him the behemoth stood half finished. Soon the factory would start belching smoke and leaving traces of soot on every shack. The bright lights of the city beyond sang of future riches as they danced and swayed seductively in lines of yellow and red. The siren song pulled at heartstrings, dulled the senses, made promises of skyscrapers and mansions it could not keep. Just like it’s called to you for the past decade. 

“Just half?”

The sirens sing of a pot of gold just out of reach.

You can’t shut out the song forever. It grows and changes and stretches its way into lying promises spilling from so many mouths.

The man nods.

The sirens close in on their prey.

Writing News!

Today is 1 July, which means Camp NaNoWriMo kicks off today - and I have 31 days in which to write 20 000 words as a warm-up to November’s NaNoWriMo.

In Other News

Here are the links to some of the articles I’ve written in the past weeks. You can go to my website to see all of the articles I’ve written.

End the Stigma Surrounding Chronic Illness

What is Self Mastery and Why is It Important?

A Weakened South African Rand – How Will the Weak Rand Affect SA Consumers?

Winter has arrived

Father’s Day for All Father Figures

Other Scribbles

Apart from the above articles, I wrote a short non-fiction piece (which was accepted) for CANSA/KANSA’s anthology which is to be published later this year. I’m not sure if it will also be available in e-book format, though. This piece is probably the most personal I’ve written; as it deals with my mother’s cancer and her death. (As always, I write about happy topics.) Luckily it turned out to be more bittersweet than simply sad. This piece was also written in Afrikaans.

And yet more news!

At long last not only my website, but also my Facebook page is up and running. I’m still finding my feet with the latter, however, though I’m sure I’ll learn how to make the best use of it quite quickly.

I’ve also been away on vacation for the first time in a couple of years - just what the doctor ordered. And just what was needed to get the creativity flowing again.