I’ve always written what people call strong female characters in a way they never say, “He writes strong male characters” of male authors. I love strong female characters but encountered few of them in fiction as I was growing up, so that’s one reason I like to write them. Another is that I’m kind of…
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Farewell, romance, until we meet again
One of the things I have always enjoyed about reading romance is the happily-ever-after. I’m perfectly fine with terrible pain and trauma happening to all of the characters so long as they kiss and hold hands at the end. And as a romance writer I often enjoy figuring out how I’m going to get these…
Sometimes a character isn’t a character
The character of Stephen gave me significant trouble throughout the various iterations of The Wanderer. He is of course a key character because without him there’s no story, but I had a great deal of difficulty getting to know him. In early drafts I gave him his own viewpoint scenes. This process usually helps me…
Why I’m okay with imperfection
One of my favorite tools is my dragon fountain pen; that is, a fountain pen with a dragon embossed on it. It’s a nice heavy pen that feels good in my hand and is easy to drive across the page, at least when I feed it the right ink and paper. Sometimes I think I…
Traveling and the creative spark
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…
Creating strong female leads
One of the things I enjoy about writing strong female leads is that strong can mean so many different things. There is the superficial kickass heroine – the one who is what most people think of when they think of strong female leads. I myself have been known to enjoy kicking men in the balls…