The Pledge: Where Did Day Four Go?

I truly don’t know what happened to today. I got up early with great plans, but one thing led to another and the day disappeared with only two pages in the can. I accomplished non-writing things, but that wasn’t part of the pledge, was it? And tomorrow we leave, so I doubt I’ll get much…

Read More

The Pledge: Back Slidin' on Day Two

Well, I woke up today with a small health crisis. Not a big deal, but big enough that it couldn’t wait until I get home, so I spent the morning searching for a clinic where I could be seen and remembering why, although I adore being far away from home on an island,  there’s a lot…

Read More

A Pledge to Myself

December has been a fascinating month–so fascinating that I’ve gotten almost no writing accomplished. I had some health challenges, followed by fairly minor-ish surgery, followed by some more health stuff, all of which resolved beautifully and I am well, or as well as someone with Rheumatoid Arthritis can be. Then the holiday preparations hit. The…

Read More

Books We Loved in 2009

Time for a year-end wrap up of the stories that touched us most in 2009. I’ll start, and then I’d love to hear about your favorites. With the exception of The Help, these are not in any particular order. The Help by Kathryn Stockett: Sometimes you simply want to thank an author for writing a…

Read More

Brainwashed

One of my favorite ways of coming up with book ideas is to stroll through the stacks at the library and see what books jump out at me. Years ago, a book that caught my eye was Gordon Thomas’s Journey into Madness. As a former therapist, how could I resist pulling that book from the…

Read More

Up, Up and . . . Down.

Over the next few posts, I’m going to share some of the research that went into the writing of my recently resissued novel, Breaking the Silence. I’ll write about the secret CIA Mind Control experiments in which my character, Sarah Tolley, was a participant, and I’ll talk about  my personal experience with selective mutism, which is five-year-old Emma’s affliction.   …

Read More

Cool New Toy

Want to waste some time? Go to Wordle and paste in something you’ve written. Wordle creates a word cloud displaying the words in your document according to how often you’ve used them. You can pick out any colors and fonts and layout you like. I’ve pasted the first chapter from Breaking the Silence (which you can…

Read More

Tears and Laughter

I asked my Facebook readers if they like books and movies that make them cry. I found the answers fascinating because there were so many different takes on the subject. Some people feel manipulated by a writer if they’re moved to tears. Others like a little tear-jerkiness as long as they don’t feel manipulated. Still…

Read More

With Writer Friends

I just returned from a reunion with my old critique group. We all lived near Mount Vernon–George’s home–when we first got together, so we named ourselves the Mount Vernon Writer’s Group. Our first meeting was a very long time ago. As a matter of fact, it was the day I sent my first full manuscript to my first agent. I was so…

Read More

Cartomancy and Character

I’m not much of a believer in the occult, but I do love Tarot, not in any small part because the 78 cards in a Tarot deck can be so beautiful. There’s something undeniably fascinating in the symbols and images, and it’s easy to get caught up the magic. My first reading was done by a…

Read More