“Where do your ideas come from?” I am asked that question fairly regularly. My answer, depending on the audience, will be a variation on, “I am inspired by the books I’ve read.” Sometimes it’s “stories I’ve heard,” or “an epic poem,” or “comic books.” But the gist is the same: I steal ideas. Gasp! Well. [...]

My writing philosophy is something like: If that’s what it takes, that’s what it takes. Whatever it takes to find the sweet spot of my writing soul. I court this space. Very much like The Little Prince taming his fox. The fox told him everything he needed to know: Come every day, come at the [...]

Authors, like everyone else, thrive on positive feedback. Perhaps the greatest compliment of all is when a reader who loves one of their books, shares it with others. Aunt Isabel Tells a Good One has been in print for 19 years, and it stills garners fans. Aunt Isabel, with the help of her niece Penelope, [...]

In my last post I wrote about turning my studio into a retreat, my own private Breadloaf, a one-woman MacDowell Colony. There my imagination would roam unhindered by worries about everything that’s going on in the world at large, and the publishing world in particular. Such a charming idea. But I want to change the [...]

Waiting for the print-publishing world to settle down and start buying again a a real downer. You can start to spend way too much time trying to read the minds of editors and publishers. You wonder if you should change your style. Switch subjects? Do a complete rewrite of the manuscript you love?  And surely [...]