These are the questions I’m most often asked. (Click to see my answers.)
How much is fact and how much is fiction?
Are you ever criticized by historians?
Who is your favorite character?
Questions about reading, writing …
A newsletter, finally!
I'm about to send out a newsletter — my first in six months! I've been MIA here on this blog, as well, the result of moving into a house still under construction, all the while working to finish my next novel, THE GAME OF HOPE. Those of you who are already signed up...
read moreTrying to write in 2017 …
I sent draft 9.8 of The Game of Hope to my editor – a partial deadline met, which is always a wonderful feeling. Right now I'm organizing my beta-reader and consultant feedback notes and making further changes. The final-final draft is due in only two-and-a-half...
read morePhantasmagoria: the first horror picture show
I have been doing quite a bit of research into Phantasmagorie for the Young Adult novel I'm writing about Josephine's daughter Hortense. Phantasmagoria was an extremely popular "show" put on for both children and adults in France after the French Revolution, featuring...
read more4 Formulas for Figuring out a Story
Figuring out a novel’s “elevator pitch” — the summation of a story in a sentence or two — is invariably difficult for novelists, at least it is for me. My mind does not lend itself to reductions. I’m more of the expanding type. (Not an asset.) These 4 formulas — which...
read moreElection day, the Woman’s March, and the morning after — a diary in Hope
The day before the Woman's March Election Day. The Man Who Shall Not Be Named was sworn in as President of the most powerful nation on Earth. Some were cheering. The majority were in depression. This is a watercolour I finished that day, titled, simply, "January 20,...
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Draft 8: check. Drafts 9, 10, 11: yet to come. On my painfully slow revision process
Yesterday was a big day for me: I woke at 4:00am, and shortly before 8:00am I emailed my manuscript to my editor and agent. It was Friday 13. I am not superstitious, but that did give me pause. Some writers are able to write a perfectly good novel in two or three...
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