The 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)…
Read MoreSunday Inspiration: Perseverance
My new book, The Color of Light, illuminates the lives of several people living in Asheville, North Carolina, who are undergoing struggles of different kinds, all of which have to do with perseverance in one way or another. One of the most heart-wrenching struggles is a family who has become homeless through no fault of…
Read MoreThe Writing Process 2015: Multitasking for Novelists
If you’re new to The Writing Process 2015, these posts are a chance to share my journey through my latest novel, starting right at ground zero. What do you get when you cross promotion and creativity? Nothing simple, that’s for sure. Truthfully sometimes you get a cranky novelist who loses the thread when she’s writing her new…
Read MoreSunday Inspiration: Sometimes Our Light Goes Out
This month I’m using the image of light in my Sunday Inspirations to introduce my new novel The Color of Light. These words by Albert Schweitzer have long been a favorite of mine. Sometimes our light does goes out, and no one could give a greater gift than to blow it back into flame. In…
Read MoreHave We Forgotten We Belong to Each Other?
If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other. Mother Teresa I’m a particular admirer of Mother Teresa of Calcutta because my beloved daughter joined our family from the Missionaries of Charity orphanage in Calcutta. At first Jessie didn’t speak English, but she did know a few words. One…
Read MoreSunday Inspiration: People Are Like Stained Glass
Since my new book is coming out this week, I thought you might appreciate quotes about light for my next few Sunday Inspirations. If you read The Color of Light you’ll see that a rose window plays a large part in the story. This quote spoke to me since some of my characters struggle to let light shine from within during dark…
Read MoreInspiration for The Color of Light
With one week left until The Color of Light appears on bookstore shelves, I’ve been busy. Not only am I hard at work on When We Were Sisters, but this week I completed a guest blog and an interview about the novel. Yesterday I asked to rewrite the back cover copy for Sisters, and I…
Read MoreSunday Inspiration: The 9 Nanas
Want a true life Goddesses Anonymous story? Very, very anonymous? From MarloThomas.com. Thirty years ago nine women decided to do their own laundry and use the money they saved from sending it out to help people in need. They paid utility bills for those who couldn’t afford it, they dropped off food for people who…
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