Memories

The notebook I’m currently writing in has a little golden retriever puppy playing with a ball on the cover. I ran out of writing materials on my recent travels and my daughter had an extra notebook so she let me use hers. I feel like I need to write something really excellent in order to…

As the novelist Haruki Murakami says, “By viewing it through an unreal lens, the world looks more real.” One of the reasons I enjoy writing fantasy and paranormal and have basically given up writing contemporary romance is because fantastical settings allow me to explore big questions in a way that isn’t mundane or implausible. I…

I was five years old when I decided I wanted to make my living writing novels. It’s the only thing that has never changed about me. As I grew older, friends and family let me know how difficult it was to make a living as a writer. Becoming a writer, it seemed, was not a…

An acquaintance refers to her husband on social media as “MC” and she’ll recount how “MC and I went to the movies.” I can’t help but read that as “Main Character” and I keep wanting to take her aside and say, “Don’t be a sidekick in your own life! You be the MC!” Fortunately I…

One of the things I have missed in the pandemic is getting new inputs and having new experiences. These lead to serendipities in my writing (problems solved and new directions taken) and keep me engaged and energized. A few months ago, just emerging from our isolation, my daughter and I went to a harbor-side restaurant…

When I started writing The Wanderer, I wanted to share my love for Old English literature and language but I’ve also been a writer and editor long enough to know that a strict adherence to the truth makes for poor storytelling. Fiction that is too self-conscious is metafiction, a story about story, or a story…