Last week, I had an experience I had not had for at least 10 years. Someone interviewed me for a corporate job as a writer. I did that work for years, and mostly I loved it. It was so nice to go to an interview and have them take...

I didn’t imagine when I started writing novels that I was also starting a virtual business enterprise, but that’s what happened. What an amazing experience it is to look for, and find, all these talented people to do things I cannot do for myself: printing, designing the cover, proofreading,...

My new novel, which I’m writing now, has one quality that the first two novels in the series seem to lack: humor. The first two books in the series, A FALSE DAWN and SUNRISING (not published yet) didn’t have much room for humor. The first book was a melodrama,...

A female actor interviewed in THE NEW YORKER made some comments I found interesting. She said that “we” have not yet evolved a hero story that’s female. She said we tend to fit women’s stories into male structures: rising action, powerful conflict, falling action, which to me is the...

I love reading interviews with other writers. They usually make me feel better about things I feel guilty about, like wanting to rewrite already published works, or handling criticism from others. I’ve often felt badly about my first novel, A FALSE DAWN, because it’s such an obvious melodrama. Intense...

A lot of established writers like to advise new authors that “if you do the work, the recognition and the money will come.” Hooey. Or that “the joy is in doing the work, not in receiving acclaim.” Also hooey. I want some recognition for my efforts. I don’t need...

It’s not an either-or situation, but when I start a new novel, I get tangled up in issues over plot versus character. I tend to spend a lot of time at the beginning of my writing on “what happens next” and ignoring the need to think about what makes...

I suppose it’s reading that opens doors most for me. In my ongoing research, I’ve been reading about Jamie Wilkerson, an incredibly corrupt and devious politician from the early 1800s. One day last month, a door opened in my mind, and not a door to a closet. This new...

The characters are coming faster now after writing two novels, the first of which had a carefully worked-out plot and somewhat superficial characters; at least, characters whose motivations I did not care to deeply explore. I figured that what the characters did – what actions they took – told...

I have a dilemma that is deeply disturbing for a writer. I’m working on the outline for a new story, what I thought would be the third and next novel in the FALSE DAWN series. I always write plot outlines first; the characters come later. But as I’ve finished...