I’m in the zone. I know just what needs to happen in this particular scene, and it’s practically writing itself. As I type away with a satisfied grin on my face, the Plot Police burst through the door and stop me dead in my celebratory tracks. “Halt! Hold it right there!” the tall, handsome one orders. “We’re the Plot Police, here on behalf of your readers. Take your hands away from the keyboard—slowly.” “What’s the problem, officer?” I smile at … Read More »

The start of a new year often brings with it the desire to improve our lives over the next year. Are there ways we can improve our writing lives? Always! Get Real Although we’re all writers, we are as individual as the quintessential snowflake. It seems obvious, but a glance at any writing forum often reveals writers insisting that “everyone” should read a book a week or commit to 2500 words a day or write every single day without fail … Read More »

In this season of gift-giving, I look back with a grateful heart and mind at those I received that had a direct influence on my present status as a writer. I had no notion in those early years, but now I see that my family was (perhaps unknowingly) planting the seeds that would lead me to where I am today. I was read to. Often. Bedtime stories were a mainstay in our home—read to my sister and me by my … Read More »

Santa Claus flies a sleigh pulled by reindeer, lumbers down brick chimneys, and stashes gifts under light-strewn evergreens. In operating rooms across the country, surgeons dress in hospital-green outfits, don paper masks, and remove tumors from unconscious patients. Behind closed doors, writers sit in desk chairs reading, thinking, and writing stories, poems, and plays. We hear, “You are what you do.” How about, “Do what you are.” Are you Santa? Are you a surgeon? Are you a writer? If you’re … Read More »

As we celebrate another holiday season, gift-giving tops our to-do lists. As writers—and this may be preaching to the choir—we have a perspective on that both personal and universal. Most of us have books on our wish lists. We want books, and constant reading anchors our growth as writers. But asking for books also helps keep afloat our industry, the industry of the written word. When our friends and families buy us those books, book people—writers, publishers, editors, agents, readers, … Read More »

This has no specific connection to historical fiction, but it might be worth thinking about anyway in this month of NaNoWriMo, when we’re all pushing ourselves to write as if the devil were at our heels. Is it possible to be too productive? I think it is, and I may have broken that sound barrier lately… to my detriment. A Case of Logorrhea We all know the cardinal rule of writing: butt in chair and fingers on keyboard. This sort … Read More »