So, book club started the year with FIFTH BUSINESS, by Robertson Davies, this first of his Deptford trilogy. I read it in two days, enjoying the flawed narrator and the epistolary structure. This reads like a mature writer’s work, with hard-edged wisdom amid the old-fashioned storytelling.
But I have never thought that traits that are [...]
There’s still lots of time left to win during National Novel Writing Month. One year, when SfN’s annual meeting was in the first week in November, I didn’t even start until Nov. 9, and I still squeaked out a victory!
According to NaNoWriMo’s blog, 2008 posted an all-time-high win rate (18.2 percent of 119,301 registrants [...]
So, in clearing the decks for National Novel Writing Month, I’m crash-reading NORTH AND SOUTH by Elizabeth Gaskell, and, no surprise, it’s not working. Gaskell’s writing demands a slow read, tasting all her clear phrases and cogent observations. And I know I said this earlier about MARY BARTON, but it reads so darn modern, I [...]
Less than a week until National Novel Writing Month! I have my characters, motivations, some shreds of plot and high hopes I can spew out far more than the minimum 50,000 words in November.
And you?
My boss at the Dana Foundation died today. The New York Times obit sketches his personality pretty well. He kept us here on our toes, for sure, and was correcting proof pages for one of our publications not even two weeks ago.
During my interview with him in 2003 to get the Web reporter [...]
I’m working up the characters for the new story, and they are a slippery bunch this time. This story started in my head with a visual, a moment of shared realization that the other was the most important person in the world to them. But that leaves a lot of wiggle room—like what, when, why, [...]
So I’m working up a new story, and thinking I’ll do a big scene around Peterloo, a mass meeting in Manchester, England, in 1819 that was bloodily dispersed by ill-trained, sabre-wielding near-vigilantes. I don’t usually think much about protesting for social change, beyond the latest march on Washington, but lately it seems like that’s all [...]
On Wednesday, the Romance Writers of America national conference opens its doors to the public from 5:30 to 7:30 pm for its annual “Readers for Life” mega-autographing session. Buy books! Get them signed by one of 500 romance-loving authors! The money goes to ProLiteracy Worldwide. It is free (except for the books you buy, of [...]