For the longest time I've admired those ladder bookcases, you know the ones with the slanted front, with shelves that get narrower as they go up. The bigger ones look like an A-frame sliced in half, at least from the side. With every new novel in progress, I expand my...

Or We-Search Wednesdays, for alliteration's sake. Today I'm highlighting a little book that packed a big punch when it came to outfitting botanist, artist, and physician Neil MacGregor, one of the main characters in Burning Sky. Living History, Drawing on the Past by...

Though it doesn't have a snappy alliterative title like Teaser Tuesdays, still I thought it might be a nice feature for this quiet blog each week to share a research source I'm finding particularly helpful or engrossing.Today I'm highlighting a book I bought as sort...

  Coming to terms with times of waiting is inevitably part of most writers' journeys. Mine too. I started "seriously" writing in December of 1991 I wrote several novels, queried many publishers (back in the 90s you could do this without an agent in the Christian...

Narratively speaking, would you rather have description served dense, like pound cake, or light, like sponge cake? I confess that most times now a little description goes a long way, if it's well considered and carries the flavor of the character through whose eyes...

You can tell by that silly post title that my head's in a bit of a spin. Today I bring you one of my life's more surreal moments....         These are ARCs, or Advance Reading Copies. They aren't the finished book, but they are very close....

We have back cover copy! Here it is: “I remember the borders of our land, though I have been gone from them nearly half the moons of my life. But who there will remember me? What I have seen, what I have done, it has changed me.   I am the place where two rivers meet,...

The galleys for Burning Sky have been turned in (a day early!). Thanks to everyone who wished me well and prayed me through. I finished them up before lunch, and so I decided to take a quick trip to the grocery store for supplies, then take the rest of the afternoon...

On Tuesday, March 26, I celebrated 14 years since my diagnosis with cancer, and one year since the signing of my first book contract. Today, March 28, I mark another milestone, and I've celebrated the life, and home-coming, of someone who was there at the beginning of...

A sticky note of sorts to say... while I'm waiting for galleys for Burning Sky, which will be my last chance to make any changes to the story (a sobering thought for this fiddler), I will be tackling: 1. Preparing two finished manuscripts (one set in 1793-94, the...