This has been on my mind a lot the last few years. We’ve had dark times before, but what we’re experiencing now is unprecedented in terms of the erosion of basic civil norms, the rule of law, trust in institutions, and other things we used…
Category: books
For over a year (?) now I’ve been following the progress of writing a new novel that Jennifer Crusie is generously sharing on her blog, Argh Ink. I’m learning so much about her process, and it’s incredible that Jenny is documenting so much, because we…
We’ve had a really interesting week for weather here in Southern California. The joke, of course, is that LA is invariably 72 and sunny. But not this year! This year, we get a sunny day followed by a rainy one. Yesterday morning I went for…
This week was Spring Break for me so naturally I got sloshed on wine coolers. No wait! I wrote and brainstormed A LOT. (And then got sloshed.) There’s something both so wonderful and also so upsetting about the blank page. Because I turned in my…
My thoughts on POV! Check out the Genre Hustle episode 2.02 I reference. Love to my GH peeps, you are all smarty pants, and I learn so much from you every day! The craft books I mention here are: John Gardner, The Art of Fiction;…
You are a writer and reader. You love books. So do I! We can talk together about books for hours. Let’s say we decide to. Let’s say we get together a group of like-minded writers and book-lovers and we talk about books together. Then I…
Just a quick note to say that the eBook edition of one of my favorite craft books, The Emotional Craft of Fiction by Donald Mass, is available on Amazon right now for $1.20! One of the notes I get consistently is that my readers can’t…
Mademoiselle: Coco Chanel and the Pulse of History by Rhonda K. Garelick. I’m usually wary of celebrity biographies but this one is great. It’s thoroughly researched and unflinching in its coverage of Chanel’s ties to Nazis and her role as an agent for the Vichy occupation.…
The Origins of Totalitarianism by Hannah Arendt. Slow going, because of density as well as subject matter. But illuminating. The Berlin Stories by Christopher Isherwood. A series of loosely linked, semi-autobiographical stories about the author’s time in Berlin in the 1930’s. At times funny, at…