Walking through the words
How we write: Reflections on writing, walking, and words. I write to discover and I walk to explore. Walking, I've found, helps me see things in a new way. Walking [...]
The Notorious Captain Hayes; a conversation with author Joan Druett
The American-born seafarer William "Bully" Hayes was a notorious celebrity in his own lifetime and in the century after his death became the antihero of numerous accounts, novels, secondhand memoirs [...]
White witches, pirates, and night walkers, oh my!
"To fight pirates, you use a pirate. Acorne will suit very well." "And you think you can trust him?" "I do not trust him in the slightest. Which is why [...]
How to help a story to fly (without killing it).
When your manuscript stretches its wings for its first flight be careful who you ask to critique it. Well-meaning readers can inadvertently clip the wings and strangle the voice of [...]
The power of Setting in fiction
I'm reading Birds Without Wings, by Louis de Bernieres -- a novel I chose partly because I enjoyed Corelli’s Mandolin and partly because the particular setting is one I know [...]
Beyond Research: Creating Verisimilitude in Historical Fiction
Here are a few of the slides from my power point outline, Beyond Research, shared at the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writer's spring Genre Con, May 14, at Table Mountain Inn [...]
Weymouth’s First Maritime Literary Festival March 12-13 2016
I'm looking forward to attending England's first maritime literary festival and meeting up with many of my nautical writer friends and acquaintances, and hopefully making new ones. Organized by James [...]
Water Ghosts — the terror of the doldrums
dol-drums 1. a state of inactivity or stagnation, as in business or art 2. the doldrums, a. a belt of calms and light baffling winds north of the equator [...]
Novel writing: Finishing the first draft
Welcome to the art of novel writing. How many of us have a good idea for a novel? Hands shoot up all over the room, waving with excitement. How many [...]
How to Write A Novel
November is National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). Right now thousands upon thousands of stories are being spilled onto the screen as writers around the world commit to 50,000 somewhat meaningful [...]