Posts Tagged ‘Wilmington NC’
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 MoreCool 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 MoreBalderdash!
I drove down the long gravel driveway to the Weymouth mansion Thursday afternoon with a prayer of gratitude on my lips. Coming here is like flipping a switch from the world of laundry and grocery shopping and doctors’ appointments and phone calls to the world of writing and nature and friends. Sarah Shaber was the first…
Read MoreWith 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 MoreCartomancy 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 MoreMy Worst Cover Ever
I will say very quickly, before any of my readers totally freak out, this is not a new cover for one of my books. Not even a recent cover. But my last post led to a discussion on book covers and author input, so I thought I’d use this truly scary example as a jumping…
Read MoreDogged by Research
Dang, Shelties are cute, aren’t they? My two furry babies, who are sitting next to me on the sofa as I type this, certainly think so. But to the topic of this post. I love research. My favorite teacher in high school, Mrs. Westphal (who seemed about 100 years old to me, but was probably about…
Read MoreThe Backtrack List
Since my novels usually involve twists and turns, readers often ask me if I think all those plot points in advance. The answer is: I wish. What usually happens is that, despite my carefully plotted outlines, new ideas come to me once I really get into the writing. Sometimes it feels as though the characters are…
Read MoreMy Panicky, Enlightening, Educational, & Gustatorial Trip to Wilmington
The past few days are nothing but a blur, though a very nice blur–even if I did start out in a bit of a panic. John and I arrived in Wilmington, North Carolina Wednesday afternoon. We went out to dinner on the river, which was lovely (broiled grouper), but I was already getting anxious because I…
Read MoreGimme Shelter: The Winner!
Well, my loyal readers, you outdid yourselves this time! I’ve never had such an enormous response to one of my blog questions, and you made my job extremely difficult. You offered many, many ideas that would work well as a name for my fictional spit of water-logged land, and I had a hard time choosing. It was Glen,…
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