It wasn’t until I joined in National Novel Writing Month (Nanowrimo) a few years ago that I finished a full draft of a novel for the first time. For anyone unfamiliar with Nanowrimo, it’s a national challenge to write a 50,000…
Welcome to 2017, a year in which I am determined to note the big and little things for which I am grateful. I need to do something to combat the shadow of despair that has been with me since Election…
Like many writers, I’m quite introverted. I like quiet. I like a room of my own, a state of low stimulus equilibrium. I’m a listener more than a talker; a watcher more than a doer; risk averse, rather than a…
The New Years resolution at the top of my list is to finish The Black Sea, my novel in progress. And not just to finish it but to wrap it up in two to three months. Admittedly some of my…
So, First Draft, we meet again. I just finished your brother a few weeks ago and stuck him in a (virtual) drawer. Don’t worry. You’re definitely meeting the same fate. Oh, stop screaming. Doesn’t the certainty of what’s going to…
I had written twenty, maybe thirty, pages of my first draft when I had the idea of setting the climax at a theme party. I thought it would be fun to put my characters into costumes and get them in…