Why I included what I did in BLUEPRINTS

With Blueprints going on sale in paperback this week, I just reread it to refresh my memory.  Does it surprise you that I would need to do that?  But consider this.  I’ve written and published more than 80 books.  No human mind can keep straight all the details of 80 books.  Moreover, it’s been two…

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When books mirror life

I have a childhood friend, living far away now, who swears she knows what’s going on in my life from my newest book. She is certainly right where Blueprints is concerned.  During the early months of the writing, in real life I was gutting and redoing the bathroom off my bedroom – totally fitting when…

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Where’s your comfort zone?

I had a heart-to-heart once with the guy who does my hair. He’d been doing it for a long time, but we were increasingly at odds about style, cut, and color, with him urging me in one direction and my urging him in another. Finally, seeming exasperated, he said, “Barbara, you need to get out…

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How we got a cover for BLUEPRINTS

  If you’re reading this blog, you’re currently looking at the cover of my new book, BLUEPRINTS, which debuts this coming June. What do you think? Does the cover draw you in? This isn’t an idle question. It’s one that my publisher and I have been asking ourselves since this cover became “the one.” We…

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I have a title!

Book titles arrive different ways. Some crop up at the get-go, even before I start writing a book. Others come when my publisher reads the opening of the book and a word or phrase pops up that is perfect. Others take longer to find. My preference? I like having a title early on. It helps…

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When I write about home construction

Does life imitate art?  Not for me.  For me, it’s the other way around.  When life happens, I write about it.  For instance, after my husband and I built our house, I wrote about home construction in the Crosslyn Rise Trilogy.  When we began spending time in small New Hampshire towns, I wrote Lake News. …

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What’s coming for Barbara in 2014

Young chick, old boots.  That’s my theme here.  As 2013 fades to 2014, it’s only natural to think about ending the old and beginning the new.  But is that what really happens? Not in my book.  And I mean that both literally and figuratively.  I don’t see that we end and begin.  Life is a…

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