Off and Away

I’m jetting off to Vegas tomorrow. Lest you think I’ve take a sudden and uncharacteristic turn toward decadence, I should clarify that I’m going to attend the Historical Novel Society of North America conference.  I will be able to hobnob with authors, chat with agents, take a master class on Conflict that Hooks and one […]

Summer Daze

Do you define the beginning of summer as Memorial Day? I tend to, meteorology aside. First of course, we remember the fallen, but it is always a joyful, if hectic, time around here. No parade this year, alas. We headed to the shore last week–feet in the surf, towel on the beach, toes in the […]

Pressing Forward

Big accomplishment last week! I finished “Music in the Night” and shipped it off to Dragonblade for inclusion in Dukes All Night Long. Now, by “finished,” I mean that I merged comments from four beta readers and did a light edit, considered a major insight from one of them, deleted half of the first chapter, […]

Pesky Characters

Last week, as I mentioned in this blog, I started a new novella, one for a Valentine collection to be published in January. I plunged in and wrote a few scenes but bogged down by Friday. I. Could. Not. Write. Saturday morning I realized why. I hardly know the hero and heroine. When I don’t […]

Buzzing!

How did I get so busy? I’ve been going in circles the past two weeks, so much so that I didn’t even get to this blog post last Monday. First of all, writing writing writing. “Music in the Night”, a novella for the Dragonblade collection, Dukes All Night Long, is finished! I typed THE END […]

A New Day

Whether you celebrate Easter in the Christian fullness of Resurrection like I do, or spring and the goddess Oestra as the Anglo Saxons did, this time of year is about new beginnings. It seems I’m about to take a new look at some older works and begin again with them. My Dangerous and Children of […]

A Writer’s Brain

In order to produce a good story, your author needs to climb into the story, if she can. Focus and imagination are required. With luck, she’ll be as involved with the characters as you are when you read a good one and lose track of the world around her. Alas that is not always (sometimes […]

Blooms and Weeds

Spring has come to my world with a vengeance. Forsythia, hellebore, daffodils and their relatives, hyacinth are all in glorious bloom. The rhododendron is covered with buds ready to pop. Flowering trees are coming out up and down the street. My patio border is lagging behind. It looks like my hummingbird mint and ground covers […]

Back to work

We crawled home—weary, pleased with ourselves, and refreshed—late Saturday night. Yesterday involved A) sleep B) laundry and C) sharing our adventures with my travel buddy’s parents. This morning I face a pile of email, the deadline to finalize my story for Love’s Perilous Road, and urgent messages from The Author’s Guild about Meta’s use of […]

Eternal Rome

I hope you’re pleased with the return of Caroline’s Rambles. I don’t plan to post a weekly ramble as I once did, but between my stories and my travels I should have material to post about places, settings and cultures regularly. This week: Rome. I’m leaving tomorrow for one of my favorite cities, and I’m […]