Renewed and Energized

I returned from Sin City this weekend ready to write and confirmed in the general direction of my plans. The master class on Tension and Conflict was super helpful and so were sessions on Female Archtypes, Marketing, and Medical History among others. Hobnobbing with other writers is always motivating and motivational. What did I learn? […]

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 […]

War Wounds and Veteran Care

Alina K. Field brings facts about the use of prosthetics in the Regency Era as used in her novel Claims of the Heart June 18 th this year marks the 210 th anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo where so many combatants died and others experienced dreadful injuries such as amputations. Surprisingly to me, not […]

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 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 […]

WIP: Damage and Neglect

Here’s a teaser from the first part of “Charred Hope,” a novella for Love’s Perilous Road. It is the hero and heroine’s second meeting. The day before she all but threw him out when he came unannounced to bring her something. When she opened it, she was flooded with chagrin and embarrassment. She has come […]

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 […]

Heading Down a Rocky Road

Staring at my lovely pink planner I’m a bit overwhelmed. Just a bit. I can do this. I leave on Saturday for a week away with my Grandson—more on that later this week. There is a long list of things I need to do before I depart. There are also church commitments, family commitments, and […]

Details Details

Working in historical fiction is so much fun. You can trip over all sorts of unexpected details. In “Charred Hope” my story for Love’s Perilous Road, I wrote that the innkeeper served my hero pancakes. One of the beta readers asked, “Did they call them pancakes?” Yes they did! I had the same question and […]