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…

Every Tuesday, we go to the farmers market and I give Jessica four dollars to buy a chocolate-pecan cookie from the French baker (literally a baker who is French). And every Tuesday there just happens to be a second cookie that is broken or otherwise not quite good enough to sell to customers that makes…

I’m trying to describe my computer problem to Ken (not his real name; he didn’t ask to be in my blog), the guy who solves all my computer problems. Me: “I’m in Spain, Ken. I need a new laptop because mine is starting to freeze up. And my charger quit working last week – it…

In the U.S., today is Independence Day. I took the day off from work not because I wanted to celebrate the country (I’m actually quite alarmed at what is happening here) but because it is always a day where I reflect on my own Independence Day, which happened in a November more than twenty years…

When I started writing The Wanderer, I didn’t expect to wind up featuring gods to the extent that the story does. At first I thought of it as an historical romance set in medieval England, which would make all of the characters Catholic. Religion didn’t play that much of a role in the story itself,…

One of the things I like about traveling is that I always end up with a bunch of story ideas while I’m doing it. I need the butt-in-chair time of staying home to actually do anything with these story ideas but I almost never have them if all I do is stay at home. Which…