It’s almost like time travel exists! As it does in my new WIP, THE RENAISSANCE CLUB. We now have a new masterpiece by the inventor of the Baroque, seventeenth century artist Gianlorenzo Bernini (and one of my novel’s main characters). According to the New York Times’ article, the Getty Museum just came upon one of the rarest of finds, a new work by Bernini, one that was thought long ago lost. The minute you look…
Clearly writing this novel, THE RENAISSANCE CLUB, has wiped the floor with me. I haven’t worked on my new poetry manuscript, thoughtfully blogged, wittily tweeted, or amusingly updated in … let’s just say furlongs of seasons. I’m trying to pick myself up off the floor of a rigid and focused writing routine that produced a 416-page, carefully revised manuscript over a period of years. I’m trying to remember the carefree writer who could take a…
Starting off with two of my recent fantasy/fairytale/science-fiction poems, I’m starting what will be a great summer run of poem publications. Gingerbread House has just published my poem “Transparency” about a superhero dead-drunk on dilithium crystals and impossible to manage. Sharad Haksar‘s “Superhero,” that accompanies the poem, is fantastic! Mockingheart Review, a new publication under the direction of Clare L. Martin, began the sequence with publishing my poems “Giraffes” about a mythical herd that inhabits…
Long absence from blogging because … a novel, a play, many grant proposals, a poetry manuscript, and I have words coming out of my ears, dangling over my head as I sleep, raining into my bedroom, puffing out of my puppy’s nostrils. (Can you see that one? I do!) Really, novels take too much time to write. I love reading them and writing them. I hope I’ve learned enough to write faster the next time.…
RAIN! In honor of El Nino’s “moisture plume” that’s predicted to sweep into droughty California this weekend and next week, I’m posting a couple of rain dance poems. One was based on an authentic rain dance I was taught in Hawai’i. We hired this teacher and he came with his drum to work work the four of us who were sharing a house on Kaua’i. He played and we danced on the lanai, summoning the…
I’ve had poetry in a lot of journals over many years, but I’ve rarely been so pleased to have work alongside such a great group of poets and writers. I was talking about publishers and poetry presses with a friend this morning and we agreed that even if it’s on a paper bag, it’s the quality of work that outlasts any reputation, prominence, or publicity a publisher might be able to boast of or gain.…
My poem, “My Wishing Star on a Long Ride,” which appeared in Eclectica’s July/August 2015 issue, will soon appear in one of their four forthcoming 20th anniversary anthologies! It’s nice to have a poem make several appearances, and not just one or two. Eclectica is running a Kickstarter campaign to sponsor the anthology, so if you feel inclined to make a contribution, follow the link — every donation helps! Here’s the poem — it makes…
To help us all tilt our pens forward and launch them into a vibrant and productive 2016, I thought I’d share some bad news and some good news about writing. First the bad news. Kristen Lamb’s blog entry today sums up the bad news about publishing, for the writer. Never mind if book sales are up over Kindle sales, and don’t bother with the debate about Amazon vs. Indie bookstores. You’re almost never going to…
Unless your main character has OCD, s/he has somewhere she habitually leaves messy. A MC’s mess can point to her attitude in life. Kitchen? Living room? Bedroom? Mine is my desk. Where I can pile books and file folders, defining me as someone always looking forward rather than paying attention to details. Your protagonist’s way of making a mess may be an important trait. It may even involve magic. In magical realism in women’s fiction…
Emotion is important in fiction, but thought and will are also a huge component of character and character development. You can identify with a character’s thoughts and decisions when she’s under stress. One of life’s pleasurable but stressful activities is travel. Since my novel’s main character is on a three-week, intensive tour of Renaissance Italy, stress is a given. May Gold combats it through her Gratitude Practice. I gave May this habit of enumerating things…