The summer after high school I worked in the graphic art department of the National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution. It was an internship position I earned on the strength of an essay, (ironically, because I was far more interested in becoming an...

How is a novel born? What's the first step? Get ten writers in a room and probably each will have a slightly different answer to that question. Since I'm in the very early stages of story-weaving Jesse, working title for my up-next novel, here's my answer: It all...

Thought I would share a few things I'm looking forward to in the coming days, weeks, and months. On the writing front, I'm looking forward to printing The Quiet in the Land in hard copy and reading it for the first time ever, straight through. I'll print it on Sunday...

My brother called on my birthday and during the conversation asked me what was my favorite part of writing a novel. That's hard to pin down, because when something goes perfectly right at any stage of the process, then of course that's my favorite part. But one thing...

So much for fall like weather. It's edging toward 100 again today. But that's okay. Summer's grip is waning. I'm SO ready for fall. My friend, historical author Laura Frantz (The Frontiersman's Daughter, Courting Morrow Little), is hosting debut historical author...

Over at Novel Matters there's a discussion going about encouragement, and the question was posed who is that person, or persons, who stand out in our memories as those who encouraged us as writers. I was immediately reminded of the first time someone (unsolicited and...

I expect there are going to be many more "firsts" in my near future than I've experienced in a long while. Some of them honestly I'm trying not to think too much about yet, but yesterday I took care of a fun first: the need to have a few head shots taken for... well,...

In the months since April 2009, when I attended the Mount Hermon Christian Writers Conference (blogged about here), my historical novel, Kindred, has been sitting on several agents' desks. I've spent most of the past year waiting to see if one of these agents who...

Last post I wrote a bit about my struggle to write again after chemotherapy, and how different my process was compared to how I wrote before chemo. Now that I'm on my second novel since that period, I'm noticing my writing process edging back toward the old pattern. I...

I don't think I've posted this before. It's the bibliography of my research for Kindred. Each of these books I've read in full (in a few cases, in part). I'm sure I forgot to log a few along the way, and this doesn't account for the hours spent on internet sites, or...