Incubating. What does that mean, someone recently asked. This person had first asked if I was taking a break, now that my new book is finished and in production. Lord, no, I said. Writing is what I do. It’s what I think about when I’m up the creek without a paddle – e.g., in the dentist’s waiting room, in the supermarket checkout line, or lying awake at two in the [...]
If I knew the answer to that, I'd save myself a lot of angst. Picking a title is easy. Picking the right one, not necessarily so. Who picks the title? Sometimes it's me. From my initial conception, Flirting with Pete was Flirting with Pete. Same with Lake News, Heart of the Night, Not My Daughter, and The Vineyard. My publisher picked other titles, like Coast Road and Family Tree. My agent came [...]
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. When my aunt developed Alzheimer’s disease, I wrote Shades of Grace. When I felt overwhelmed [...]
I’m a fiction person, which isn’t to say I don’t read the newspaper or watch the evening news, but simply that my entertainment of choice involves pretend. Add to that magical elements that sometimes creep into my own work, like the coyotes in Escape, the wishes in Three Wishes, and the herbs in Sweet Salt Air, and the willing suspension of disbelief permeates my life. The willing suspension of disbelief. [...]
Well, I don’t do it all the time, but here I am, asking you to preorder the paperback of Escape, which goes on sale Tuesday. So let’s take a minute to discuss the pros and cons of preordering. Pro. You don’t risk forgetting; the book is on your doorstep the day it goes on sale. Con. If forgetting is a problem, you may preorder the same book twice; I’ve actually [...]
Let me make one thing clear. I don’t blog to express a political opinion. As a novelist, my taking a stand on anything political or religious is disastrous. When I talked here last week about civil discourse, it was to vent not about what we say but how we say it. So there you go – one reason why I blog. I blog to vent about something, be it civil [...]
We were at the lake this weekend, and it was amazing. The foliage is past peak, but there were still a few brilliant shots. The lake water is colder now, so you don’t get the mist rising as it did in September when the water was warmer than the air. And the water is very still -- I mean, it doesn't move. I’m always struck by that in fall. All [...]
A book title either hits me, or it doesn’t. When it doesn’t, I defer to my publisher. After all, a title is a marketing tool, and they’re the marketing experts. Of my last five books, from FAMILY TREE to the present, the only one I came up with myself was ESCAPE, but that was a no-brainer. ESCAPE was about … escape! From the first, that was the only title I [...]
