Some weeks before my artist friend Vicki Paret’s baby arrived, she stretched nine canvases of equal size. She gridded nine rectangles on each canvas. Eighty-one rectangles would form one epic painting. She worked methodically, left to right, top to bottom….
I told myself I wouldn’t write about winter weather so much this year. But here we are on the verge of another snowstorm. Instead of bemoaning the bitter cold, I’m trying to focus on the benefits: lots of time to…
Every novelist builds a world, but if you’re writing fantasy or science fiction, worldbuilding is a bigger job—one I’m often tempted to skimp on. It’s great fun to think about magic in a new world—not so fun to figure out…
Twenty years ago, I moved to Boston, not because I had any plans but because a friend did and I didn’t have anything better to do. When she asked me if I’d like to come along for the ride, I…
Editing your novel manuscript can be a painful, embarrassing process. For me, one of the many humbling things I find in a stack of freshly drafted pages is how often I’ve been entirely unoriginal. During the first pass of anything,…
“First Sunday in Ordinary Time…” Saturday evening. Five-o’clock mass. I am eight. Squished into a pew between one of my brothers and my mother. Half-listening to the priest while I watch the last of the slush drop off the rubber…