Looking at the big picture

Looking at the big picture

I love it when someone blows my mind with an entirely new concept I had never even conceived of before. This happened to me recently when a prolific friend of mine told me that he doesn’t count how many words he writes day-to-day. He doesn’t count how many words he...
Google maps is great but…

Google maps is great but…

Google maps is great, but there is no substitute for actually being there. That was my lesson this past week. A few weeks ago, my husband told me he needed to be in London for a conference for a few days and asked if I wanted to join him. Naturally, I jumped at the...
Missing Chekov’s Gun

Missing Chekov’s Gun

Last week in the discussion on the Writers’ Block Party Podcast with Kathy Seidel on the motifs and themes used in my book A Token of Love and Pru Warren’s book Ellen and the Would-Be Gigolo, there was one important concept that we briefly discussed—Chekov’s Gun. Pru...
Deliberate Motifs

Deliberate Motifs

On the Writers’ Block Party Podcast, we recently had Kathleen Gilles Seidel back to speak with us about repeated motifs (note: this won’t air for a few weeks, sorry!). I wrote about them on this blog a couple of months ago, but Kathy did something unique: she...
Where do you learn to write?

Where do you learn to write?

Way back in the dark ages, when I started writing, I learned from books. I bought books on point of view, setting, story structure—everything I could get my hands on. I have two large shelves full of books on writing craft. I also went to conferences—you remember we...
What your characters need most

What your characters need most

As you know, if you’ve been following this blog, I’ve been going through some personal unpleasantness recently. I was living in Kyiv just before the war started and have been moving around in uncertainty since. My apartment in Kyiv is in a spot that easily could be...