It being January here in the rural Rocky Mountains at almost nine thousand feet up, it was cold: minus two degrees. Pure white snow lay upon the land at least three/five feet deep everywhere. Skies were crystal clear and blue. All the same, my wife and I were driving to town for our weekly run
A highly successful writer once told me, “I don’t start writing a story until I know the last sentence of the story.” It worked for her. I have never ever been able to do that. Well, not quite never: The one time I did was for the fourth book in the Crispin series. Except, while I had that last line, I never wrote the book.
A couple of days after 2020 Christmas I sent in two novel manuscripts to two different editors. No, this is not the result of being ambidextrous and working on two keyboards simultaneously. It comes about because of the complex ways of publishing. Let’s consider each book in turn.
The pandemic has touched everyone in 2020, and that includes writers and publishing. In my own writing life, I have been touched, influenced, and hampered in almost all the ways cited.
The pandemic has touched everyone in 2020, and that includes writers and publishing. In my own writing life, I have been touched, influenced, and hampered in almost all the ways cited below. The world of writing and publishing is one that has traditionally been highly collegial. Much of that is gone. It may be virtual but
Every year around Christmas time— “this rolling time of the year”—I re-read Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. Part of this comes about because the reading has become my tradition, and traditions, I think, help measure one’s life. I also read it because I feel it’s a lesson to me, a lesson I should heed
I’m often asked about the research I do for my historical-fiction novels. That is determined, first, by the nature of the book I am writing. If I am trying to set a story within the context of real events, real people, in real places, that requires rather deep research. If I am only using a
I once read that the occupational disease of writers is depression. It’s not difficult to know why. Shall I suggest some reasons? The sheer all-but-impossibility of writing a perfect piece of work. The isolation. Low (if any) income. (The trend these days is ever lower,) Negative response to one’s work, which these days includes dismissive criticism on
The Thanksgiving tradition in my household is to go around the table and allow everyone to say what they are thankful for. There will be no such table at my home this year (thanks, Covid) though if the weather is decent, we shall share some outdoor dinner with my jobless (thanks, Covid) son and his
One of the questions I am often asked is, “Do you get your characters and stories from real life?” The answer is partly. An early book, No More Magic, had its inception at my oldest son’s fifth grade birthday party. It was a super hero costume party, and we held it in a park. One boy