This picture of Keeper and Jet pretty much describes how we spent Thanksgiving. Hope yours was equally restful!  

Remember way back in October when I was interviewed for an NPR program about being agoraphobic as a child and adolescent? Well, it never aired because of NPR’s fundraising week, but it IS in their archives in a truncated version. If you want to hear it, go to http://tinyurl.com/yzfdur and fast forward to minute 44.00…

  Well, we have the red sofa, but now we need to work on lighting and picking out the wall color. Can you tell we’re struggling with that decision? LOL. One of our friends says it looks like we have a camouflage pattern going on. We need the right color to go with John’s art,…

First, I must address the fact that you could ask a dozen writers what the difference is between literary and commercial fiction and get a dozen different answers. For the sake of simplicity, I’ll say that literary fiction is more about the writing than the story, while commercial fiction is the opposite. Literary novels are those books…

At the conference this weekend, I donated a “character name” as a prize in a raffle. In other words, I will use the name of the winner as a character in my work-in-progress. Well, guess the name of the person who won? Jabeen Akthar! LOL. She called me yesterday and sounds like a delightful woman…

Well, I came home from the North Carolina Writers’ Network conference to a crashed computer. Sigh. Typing on my laptop right now and it’s not nearly as easy to use online as my desktop. I’ll find a geek-on-call, or whatever the North Carolina equivalent is, tomorrow. On a happier note, the conference was fabulous! The workshop…

This weekend will be the North Carolina Writers’ Network Annual Fall Conference. I’m looking forward to meeting other writers and teaching a class on Saturday. I spent some time today thinking about what material to present. My goal is always to give my students “nuts and bolts”–techniques they can use right away to make their fiction better.…

Well, let’s see. I got home yesterday (Saturday) afternoon, and wow, was I ready! I had a fantastic and productive week. The Weymouth experience was incredible–it’s amazing how much I can get done when I have no TV, boyfriend, radio, newspaper, dogs or Internet nearby. The two other writers–former strangers to me–and I kept mostly…

As promised, here are some pictures of the Weymouth House, the mansion where I’m staying. It’s in Southern Pines, which is another adorable little town less than two hours from where I live.                 Here’s the house itself, taken from some of the gardens. The writer residency program…

I didn’t realize how accustomed I am to noise and activity. Earlier this evening, I was sitting at my little desk at the mansion, scribbling notes, and all I could hear was the sound of my pen on the paper. Wow. I don’t know when I’ve ever actually heard that sound before. I arrived around…