Give me back my Internet!

An awful thing happened yesterday.  At two in the afternoon, I lost my Internet connection.  Oh, my Wifi still had full signal, but Comcast was not reaching it. This wasn’t a total surprise.  I’d been hearing trucks outside my window during the few hours preceding that and figured work was being done in the neighborhood. …

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Word Revolution, Part 2: YOU

You wordsmiths, you!  Thanks so much for reading last month’s blog and jumping in with your own suggestions.  I was thrilled with the words you posted – and dismayed at not having thought of them myself!  In an attempt to rectify the latter, I hereby revisit the word revolution issue.  Just to refresh your memory,…

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Word revolution

Here’s a fun exercise. But first, a bit of philosophy.  Contrary to many people in the news who use words to destroy, writers use them to create.  I love words – love putting them together in a way that paints an action, a sentiment, a hope or a dream.  I play with them endlessly when…

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Mockingbirds

Just finished my next book! I’ve been working on this baby for more than a year, and that doesn’t count the months before I started the actual writing, when I focused on research. This book – no title yet – demanded a lot of research. I had to learn about the tools a carpenter would…

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Notice any changes?

The new, gorgeous, trade paperback edition of Sweet Salt Air is now on sale! It’s the second generation, so to speak, which means it’s been improved upon. The changes are subtle. You may not notice them unless you study both editions side by side. I’m telling you about the changes here, so that you’ll know…

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I hear you!

The notes you send have a huge impact on me.  The most  obvious instance occurred in June, soon after Sweet Salt Air came out.  One reader said she thought the book started too slowly.  I promptly turned to my work-in-progress, reread the opening with a critical eye, then switched Chapters 1 and 2 so that…

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My favorite character in SWEET SALT AIR

  Do I play favorites when it comes to my characters?  That depends on how you define playing favorites. For starters, I couldn’t spend a year writing a book about people I didn’t like.  That said, if each of them is totally loveable, the book is boring.  Also, I like to see growth in my characters, which…

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Are you a typo freak?

Inevitably, when each of my books first comes out, I get notes from readers catching typos.  “ Doesn’t anyone proofread anymore?” they ask plaintively. The answer?  YES!  I carefully read through looking for errors, as do my editor, my agent, my assistant, and more people at the publishing house than I care to count.  And still, when the…

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Revising SWEET SALT AIR

Here’s how it works.  The author writes her book and sends it to her editor, who reads it, thinks about it, reacts to it, hopefully loves it – but also comes up with a few recommendations to make it even stronger. Sounds great, doesn’t it? Well, it isn’t always.  Authors have egos.  We have pride and fears.  Let me…

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What comes after THE END?

I’ve been absent.  At the end of writing a book, when my creative energy is focused on climactic scenes and tying up loose ends, it’s hard to think about writing anything else.  So my blog takes a hit.  I apologize. But Sweet Salt Air is now done – at least, the heavy-duty, mind-drain part of…

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