Category: On Writing
Sex, Lies & Scotch Tape: Exposing Secrets & Healing Wounds WITH Your Characters’ Help
Successful albeit intensely secretive husband wires all of your money out of the country, forges your name, abandons you and your two young children, leaving you with less than $1 in your bank account, and then he vanishes—never to be seen nor heard from again. It’s as though he never existed … A page-turner, right? […]
Symmetry and Picasso: What I’ve Learned From My Third Grade Art Students About Writing
Every year I present a week-long program at my kids’ elementary school called “Art Goes to School.” It’s a wonderful idea sponsored by the local art institute. I meet with volunteers weekly throughout the fall to study a portfolio (which changes annually) of about 20 reproductions of pieces located in art museums throughout the world. […]
Pieces Of Me: Rescuing My Kidnapped Daughters
“You should be glad you didn’t get your girls back yet,” a friend told me while we were in line at a coffee shop. “Your book will be that much better.” It was 1995, and I had just returned to Alaska from Greece after my first failed attempt to rescue my kidnapped daughters, taken by […]
Why I Wrote Les Parisiennes
In an early – and discarded – draft of the prologue to my book I wrote how one of the most common questions every author is asked when publishing a book is: ‘How long did it take you to write?’ If it did not sound so arrogant, I might this time be tempted to reply […]
Science and Writing
The spot I chose for my first ever experience of wild camping was on a Scottish cliff top overlooking the North Sea. It was the third day of my camping holiday and, although the previous two campsites had provided running water and toilet facilities, I’d had very little sleep for 62 hours. There was a […]
Deciding What To Write
The feeling a writer has when deciding what to write about is extremely exhilarating, but also very nerve-bending. At least it was for me. I knew I wanted to write something that would be especially appealing to women in midlife – my own age group. But what story? I love to brainstorm, sometimes throwing the […]
The Kindness of Strangers
Three years ago the opportunity came my way to interview Fay Weldon for the Historical Novel Society. To say I seized on the chance would be an understatement. Weldon is a household name, a woman whose writing career spans 5 decades, who has written 34 novels and many short story collections, TV dramas and plays […]
Cover Girls — Behind the Mask
“44 Sex Tips From Around the World — Prepare for Global Warming” . . . “Unexpected Sex Advice—How to Turn Yourself On” shouts the September 2016 cover of Cosmopolitan, one of America’s top twenty magazines by circulation. (Digital circulation 14.6 million unique visitors and growing.) The magazine’s mission: to empower young women “to own who […]
When the Words Come Naturally: How Nature Influences One Author’s Writing
When I set out to write my first novel, I knew the setting before I had fully mapped out my storyline. It was a given that FAMILY TREES would take place in Bayfield, Wis., a picturesque town on the shore of Lake Superior. My family had fallen in love with the area long before I […]
May The Story Sing
When I sign copies of my debut novel, The River Witch, I almost always say, “May the story sing for you.” I’ve never stopped to really wonder why those words came to me or what they might mean, except that I have a love of music. While I was on book tour, I asked the […]
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