Category: How To and Tips
How To Be Patient, or “Why Hasn’t Your Book Been Made Into A Movie?”
Since becoming a writer, I slightly dread family gatherings. In many ways, “How’s the book going?” is a perfectly normal question to ask, but it isn’t an easy one to answer. I reply with variations of “great, thanks”, but I’m really thinking, which book? The one I’m drafting, the one I’m copy-editing, the one just […]
The Birth of a Novel
In 1999 a good friend called and asked if I would like to join her for a writer’s workshop in Leavenworth, Washington. “Have you heard of Barbara Kingsolver?? She’s one of the teachers.” I almost dropped the phone… of course I knew her work – loved her work – slept with her work under my […]
Humoring the Muse
My muse, a.k.a. the voice in my head, is a wonderful, fickle, and demanding soul. She’s opinionated, diverse, and relentless. If I weren’t an author I might consider handing her over to the care of a mental health practitioner. But alas, as she’s my bread and butter, we’ve worked out a compromise. I write what […]
Switching From Literary To Historical Fiction
When I set out to write my historical novel, the research shelf on my bookcase overflowed onto the floor. I approached the story with the eye of the scholar, the young woman I was when I developed my doctoral thesis all those years ago. It was the day of card files in the library and […]
Bundle of Joy
My husband and I both have high-pressure jobs. We both have two children at home who are under the age of eight. We both have a house to pay for and maintain. We both need sleep, food, haircuts, a social life, and downtime. And we both need to find time for the new season of […]
Why I Ended Up Writing What I Knew
They say a writer writes best about what they know, and I have followed this dictum in my second novel, Wyld Dreamers. It’s broadly based on the years I lived in the English countryside in the 1970s. Milking cows, baking bread and hay-making, I fell in love with it all and became what some people […]
From Writing Blogs to Books and Beyond
Once, when I pitched my Filipino food cookbook idea to an editor of a big-time publishing company, he curtly cut me off and arrogantly said “You’re a niche market. Ethnic food is a hard sell.” I felt awful and humiliated. I felt unworthy and unsure of myself. It hurt like hell to be rejected. But […]
The Power Of Music In Writing
Most writers passionately declare that they either Do or Do Not listen to music when they write—the issue is about as divisive as plotters vs. pantsers or people who like pineapple on pizza vs. those who don’t. If you’ve never tried writing with music or fall into that Do Not camp, I’m here to encourage […]
The Book of Ceremony: Shamanic Wisdom for Invoking the Sacred in Everyday Life
I have been passionate about teaching people in our modern day world about the power of bringing ceremony into our lives to restore our connection to the divine within and the power of the universe. Performing ceremonies has been a core practice in shamanism for tens of thousands of years. Ceremony helps us navigate the […]
3 Common Plotting Mistakes to Avoid When Writing a Novel
After plotting, writing, and selling over fifteen novels and teaching thousands of other authors how to plot their own novels, I’ve seen (and made) several plotting mistakes that can quickly cause a story to fall flat. These are fairly common mistakes that countless authors make. But fortunately, they’re also mistakes that are easily fixable. […]
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