Sunday Inspiration: Finding Peace
This week marked the 14th anniversary of 9-11, and I know for many if not most of us, this was a solemn, difficult day of remembering the victims and all those who loved and honored them. Most of you know my husband is a Unitarian-Universalist minister. Several years ago when he was the senior minister…
Read MoreFinishing a Novel: The Old Is Made New Again
When you read this I’ll be on my way home to Florida. Since I’m clearly in a car and not at my computer I thought I schedule a blog from a previous September to share with you instead. I found this one, published first in September 2011 when I was finishing One Mountain Away, and it seemed so appropriate. Once again I’m…
Read MoreSunday Inspiration: I’ll Find It At Home
I’m on the road home to Florida today, and this inspirational quote from Rumi seemed perfect. That’s Sarasota’s Myakka River in the background. Have you ever found satisfaction after a trip away taught you the true pleasures of home? I’m lucky I have two places I love, but I am always thrilled to find meaning waiting…
Read MoreBook Titles, and Why They So Often Sound Alike
Back in March I told you about my struggles finding a title for my book in progress. Here were some of the contenders: Really, Truly Sisters Life After Love More Than Sisters Sisters Once Removed Joined At the Heart Well, really? Now that I look at them, I can see why my editors weren’t doing back…
Read MoreSunday Inspiration: Operation Inasmuch
After reading my latest novel, The Color of Light, one of my readers sent me the link to an organization called Operation Inasmuch. Their name comes from these words from Jesus: “In as much as you did it for the least of these, you did it for me.” The reader believed this group was in…
Read MoreThe Writing Process 2015: Writer’s Block
A day late here. Blogger writer’s block? Quite possibly. Why not my blog along with everything else? I’ll confess I’m not a big fan of the phrase “writer’s block.” For a long time I’ve believed that it might be shorthand for: “I’m interested in other things right now.” Or possibly: “The story’s not coming easily anymore so…
Read MoreSunday Inspiration: What makes you come alive?
So, what makes you come alive? Perhaps it’s cooking or raising children. Maybe it’s traveling or your job or maybe even changing the world. I became a novelist because writing makes me come alive. I love creating characters who discover what makes them come alive, then watching them leap off the pages. What brings you to life?…
Read MoreThe Writing Process 2015: Do We Need A Happily-Ever-After?
If you’re new to The Writing Process 2015, these posts are a chance to share my journey through my latest novel, starting at ground zero. As I head into the final section of When We Were Sisters, the ending is now clearly in view. I’m delighted something is clear because how I’m going to get…
Read MoreSunday Inspiration: “There’s a crack in everything”
This quote from a song by Leonard Cohen was one of my inspirations for my latest book The Color of Light. The quote reminds me of a story by Rachel Naomi Remen in her book, My Grandfather’s Blessings. Remen is a physician as well as a therapist, and one of her patients was a young man with…
Read MoreProfanity: A Relief Denied Even to Prayer.
“Under certain circumstances, urgent circumstances, desperate circumstances, profanity provides a relief denied even to prayer.” Mark Twain Sooner or later, in this age of email, Amazon reviews and Twitter, today’s novelist will turn on her computer and discover that an unhappy reader is complaining about her language. The emails follow a pattern. I read your book and found XX word(s)…
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