Category writing
Works in Progress
I’ve been MIA on the blogging front. Ironically because I’ve been busy promoting Endurance but also distracted by life as well as crunching out a draft of Book 2, which follows Endurance and is now safely out for critique. With that off my desk, I launched into Book 3, which is incredibly exciting. I love […]
My First Solo Author Reading
Last week I gave my first solo reading. And it was in person. I hadn’t done any public reading since my short story collection came out, but that hardly mattered. There’s a huge difference between being given five to ten minutes with a bunch of other authors and having to fill an entire hour by […]
Q&A Part 3
More of my updated Q&A with the wonderful Women and Words (sadly “on hiatus”). A lot of the answers are still good, and I’ve updated others. Here’s the rest of me. Is there a book by another author that you wish you had written? I don’t know that there’s another book that I would like […]
Q&A Part 2
Several years ago, I did a Q&A with the wonderful Women and Words (sadly “on hiatus”). A lot of the answers are still good, and I’ve updated some others. Here’s Elaine! Part 2 Tell us about your biggest guilty pleasure. For example, do you sit naked in your pantry in the middle of the night […]
A Question of Character
There’s much discussion among writer about how to craft characters and reader questions about how writers come up with their characters. Are they based on real people? I’m surprised at the number of writers who admit they are. I can’t imagine that. I mean, lately when I’m deep in the writing and I’m trying to […]
So, Back to Writing
I’m reading a very cool book, In Search of the Canary Tree, by Lauren E. Oakes. It’s early yet, and in it she’s just starting her Ph.D. research project analyzing yellow-cedar forests on an island in the Alexander Archipelago of southeast Alaska, near Sitka. What does this have to do with writing? I’m enthralled by […]
Writing Prompt: Table
I haven’t posted one of these in a while. Twice a month, I get together with some other writers. We pull a prompt from an envelope and write for 30 minutes, then read to each other and chat. Sometimes I have to cogitate before coming up with something to write. Not this time. I plunged […]
Worldbuilding
Each morning, when the weather is nice, I sit on my porch and eat my snack while my second cup of coffee perks. It’s now late June. The yard looks lush and at peak greenery. The mountain laurel are flowering—white and pink snowballs covering the bushes. The smaller sheep laurel dots the surrounding green with […]
There’s No Birding in Space
At heart I’m a nature girl, so it was hard to write a novel that takes place mostly on a space ship. In Endurance, Captain Lyn Randall even laments about wanting to hear bird song and feel the wind. It’s summer now here in New England and the days are long. I’ll wake up at […]
