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  Today I read in the news that, “Several days of civil unrest have rocked Poland as hundreds of thousands of people across the country protest the government’s bid to replace Supreme Court judges and the EU threatens to intervene.” My YA historical fiction novel, Rising Hope, tells the story of six Polish teens who …[ read more ]

I just read two thought-provoking articles that shared gems I hope to employ in writing the first draft of my next novel’s first chapter – hopefully by this weekend! One article discussed what the mantra of “show don’t tell” actually means. The writer boiled it down to the concept of “sleuthing” – creating scenes where …[ read more ]

I’m back in CA for a short trip to attend a reunion, and thought I’d do some more research for my next novel while here. Yesterday I spent several hours at San Jose CA’s MLK library in the California Room. I hunted down more information regarding one of the historical characters that will appear in …[ read more ]

Can you find any imperfections in this Japanese plate?   How about now?   The Japanese art known as Kintsugi, or Kintsukuroi (meaning “golden repair”), according to Wikipedia,  is “the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with lacquer dusted or mixed with powdered gold, silver, or platinum…. As a philosophy, it treats breakage and repair as part of …[ read more ]

I recent posted about a Webinar I attended that focused on story structure. The presenter, Beth Barany, has graciously provided a link to the Webinar that also included helpful slides. I highly recommend you take time to view it. I’ve recently struggled to nail down the proper structure for my current work in progress. After the Webinar, however, I …[ read more ]