Shorter Days, More Reading

The time change fell on us last weekend. Either I need to hit the ground early every day or learn to work in my office after dark. Why don’t I usually work in the evening? I have to close the blinds on the nine windows that surround me, and I miss the light and view […]

Beginnings

Is this crisp weather we’re having here in the urban wilds the end of summer or the beginning of winter? We went from one to the other rather abruptly. Meanwhile, Bluestocking Belles and Friends are looking at the very end of a project, the day Love’s Perilous Road is launched into the hands of readers […]

Progress!

We had a productive week here in the urban wilds—with a little help from my friends. The big news is that Merry Belles is now up for preorder! I will go live December 20. I think you’ll like my little holiday homicide, “The Angel’s Announcement.” It begins, “They found the shepherd eight days before Christmas. […]

Moving Ahead

Carefully. The big lesson of the month is “don’t rush!” I’ve read through the first of the books in the Great Rewrite Project. With the help of Caroline Warfield’s Fellow Travelers I am close to a series title. This week I plan to send the first for cover specs to the artist. Covers will motivate […]

Not So Fast

Is it Monday? No? TUESDAY??? Oh dear. You may suspect things have been peculiar. Just as a reached a sense that I am back and my writing is in a groove, I fell. Details unneeded, except to say nothing is broken/no permanent damage. What are a few days in the hospital, follow up appointments, home […]

Back to Work

I’m back at my desk, rested and energetic. If you read my newsletter that went out yesterday, you will have read that I feel like my writing picked up speed this summer until it is almost back to normal. Since I got back I did a final edit on Well Done, Harry for the Winter […]

Working Hard

I write this on Labor Day and I am reminded that labor comes in many forms. It be done with hands, with shovels, with machinery, with cloth, with muscle, with mind, or even with a keyboard. However it occurs, it should be done lovingly and with pride. I’m a believer in Lincoln’s statement that capital […]

Is August Still Summer?

While the western US continues to suffer from dangerous heat, here in the urban wilds of eastern Pennsylvania, we’ve cooled down a bit, and there are other signs the season is waning. I’ve been peering over my monitor at the apple tree next to my patio. It is an aging tree covered in woodpecker holes, […]

Old Friends and Archtypes

Once characters, fully formed and alive, populate an authors head, they and their friends and relatives keep coming back. You may remember the complicated family connections in The Ashmead Heirs, in which the old earl’s bastards were named in his will and given all the unentailed property. The Bensons and the Caulfields and their friends […]