Poll help and call for questions

I'm still collecting votes about my upcoming 202 followers contest. Once you fill out the widget at the top of the page and click "VOTE," it should give you poll results as a...

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Too, oh too cool

Well, friends, I've reached another blog milestone--202 followers. Those who've been following a while know of my geeky love of symmetry, as evidenced in my Eleventy-one followers...

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Critique perspective

Putting ourselves out there to be evaluated by others--whether it's for critique partners or blog readers or agents and editors or the reading public--will involve risk every...

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The best training to write for publication

...was not my bachelor's program in English or my master's in journalism, though they certainly helped. According to Steven Pressfield in The War of Art, my best preparation for...

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A writer's worst enemy...

...is Resistance, according to Steven Pressfield's The War of Art. What is Resistance? It's your inner hard place, my friend. The seat of fear and of just keeping it safe. This...

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In sickness and in health

My daughter is home sick today instead of having an outing with her grandparents. I found myself wanting to make her tea, even though she doesn't like it, because it's what my...

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Swimming in the crick: delving into dialect

Tomorrow I'm heading to my old stomping grounds for a mid-week getaway, so I'll be posting Monday and Friday this week.While it will look like "vacation," I'm hoping to do some...

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The drive to drive

High school kids don't drive in New York City. It's illegal. This has sent me on a big research dig for my book in progress, because my characters won't be IN the city for this...

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Gene pool: fun with secondary characters

Creating a fully realized cast of characters is for me one of the most fun aspects of writing. Part of what makes fictional characters seem real is their webs of relationships--including...

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