As I work on another time travel story, I find myself thinking deeply about what it would mean for the present to change the past. This is the kind of thing I ponder in my best thinking places — where running water or wind is involved. That’s why I dictate more and more poetry and prose on my phone. I think well in the shower, washing dishes, or walking my dog. Today I found myself…
Writing Love Scenes Some of the most challenging writing is creating compelling love scenes. Originality and emotion are the keys to selling a love scene. Readers will instantly be put off by predictability and cliches. What position does the love story occupy in the overall story arc? In a romance, the love story is the big story. In other genres — women’s fiction, mystery, thriller — it may be a sub-plot. They’d be handled differently…
Is It Romance or Women’s Fiction? The overlap between romance and women’s fiction is a juicy territory. It’s where characters grow deeper, learn more about why love is important, and develop into better human beings. The story may show how they plunge off a looming cliff of disaster but grow wings as they fall. In the overlap between romance and women’s fiction, a story involves the main character’s growth as a person.
Writers in Wartime We’re all watching a shocking invasion unfold. I’ve been following Ukrainians who live with explosions, sirens, and possible sudden flight. One of them is a writer. I’m wondering what I can do to help. This morning, I went to my favorite writing channel on Youtube, the Self-Publishing Formula podcast and watched an interview with Ukrainian science fiction writer Anton Eine. I was moved to see that my favorite writing community is helping…
Why Writers Love the Company of Pets Creative people spend a lot of time alone. For many of us, the silent presence of another being is both soothing and a spur to imagination. Dogs, cats, and their writers — a love story. Do you have a furry, feathered, or finny writing companion? On social media I see so many pics of dogs, cats, and their writers. Also birds and fish. My tiny terrier, Terry, is…
Book 3 in the Timegathering Series Is Out Undoing Time — my time travel novel of love and history — is out now! I’m thrilled to bring out a new book in my Timegathering Series. Each is a standalone, but each builds on the Timegathering world, where you can inherit the gene that enables you to move through time and history. Each book has a larger story than the time travel — for each protagonist,…
I have some special, time-limited deals to offer you! For your winter reading, the link below leads to novels featuring strong women. ALL FREE — when you sign up for the author’s newsletter. Offer deadline: December 31, 2021. For me, reading rekindles the fires of inspiration, love, and hope. I especially love reading in the winter months, when the fire of life turns inward, and we’re all bundled up. So many novels feature male characters.…
In my magical realism world, people are born with a gene that allows them to slip through time. Like all genes, the timegathering gene expresses itself differently in different people, and behaves differently because of environment and natural modifications. For example, the time traveling tour guide that threads all the Timegathering Series novels together, George St. James, has time agility and time flexibility. He can time travel quickly and to many different places in history,…
Self-publishing your NaNoWriMo book may be easier than you think — and take a lot longer than you expect. The above novels took me an average of one year to draft and another year to edit and polish, develop cover art and marketing materials, and launch. They each required an investment of money and time, and of the two, time was the more expensive investement — well beyond the month of November.
National Novel Writing Month We’re in the international month of goal-oriented novel writing called National Novel Writing Month, or as some of us veterans call it, NaNoWriMo. I’m not in a place to race into the many words of a new novel. I’m working toward finishing edits on my next, Undoing Time, the story of a privileged young woman who winds up time traveling as a spy for the American Revolution, with the help of…