I thought I’d share a few updates: Currently Researching/Writing I’m in the midst of finishing the first draft of “Broken Journey,” a story set during the American Civil War. This novel is written from the points of view of a teen slave and his best friend, a white farm boy. To make this work, I’m […]
So here it is. Finally after six years of intense writing, editing and rewriting. After finding a literary agent and letting him go, after endless rounds of edits, I’m officially published. I expected this occasion to feel momentous, yet I’m finding that I’m more anxious than excited. All these years I’ve written in the privacy
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I put together a cool collection of facts about the Middle Ages. For those of you who enjoy medieval stuff, all the information comes from Germany. There is a description of torture methods, a collection of illnesses and a lot of info about the way peasants and nobility lived. After putting this piece together I
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Every year around this time in December I experience a longing for home. Well, I have a home, of course, a beautiful one I share with my husband and two adult twins. I’m talking about the nostalgic idea of my former home in another country—Germany. A long time ago I left to start a life
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This morning I was reading on the Writers Unboxed blog about how readers who don’t like the book you wrote may post bad reviews. The author talked about the content kicking off the reader’s imagination and that sometimes a reader is just not taken by a story. Whether it’s not to their taste, period, or
How Chain Hotels Poison Us and the Environment This post is a bit off my usual subjects, but I’m feeling pretty strongly about it so I wanted to share. Lately I’m traveling quite a bit, staying in typical mid-range hotels. I’ve been annoyed for a while now about hotel breakfasts. I guess years ago hotels
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In March 2012 I submitted a travel story to goNomad, a pretty well-known online travel magazine. At the time I was still into writing travel stories and I’d developed a longer piece about a trip we took with our friends, two American couples, to Germany. For a good two weeks I played guide as we
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Two weeks ago my husband and I set out to go camping in Michigan. We’d prepared well, bought a tent, dusted off sleeping bags, cooking utensils and air mattresses. We’d bought Michigan’s Best Tent Camping and Trout Streams of Michigan, we had bicycle gear, fishing gear and everything in-between. The GTI was packed to the
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As I’m renewing my struggle with the first chapter of a manuscript I wrote five years ago, I’m perusing a lot of the advice on first chapters. I’ve noticed that the majority of first chapters of contemporary fiction, no matter what the genre, are extremely well written. Often the quality diminishes later in the book,
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Last night I went for a bike ride. Nothing special except that I hadn’t been in the saddle since May. While my husband was chugging away the miles and training for a triathlon I’d found excuses not to ride. It was too hot, I was too tired, laundry was piling up, I had to walk
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