Steady, cold rainfall here.Trick-or-treaters will need to wear layers tonight–and carry umbrellas. Even though we’re oddly not an umbrella-wielding bunch in the Pacifc Northwest. It was one of the first things I noticed about autumn rains when I first  moved here. Not that no one ever carries one, but they’re sometimes a rare sight in […]

I was cobbling together dinner earlier as rain fell against my porch’s metal roof and the news jabbed at me from the living room. And I looked out my window at the Douglas firs which seemed to have grown taller this past year, and wondered how it can possbily be November. And how the gloom […]

I’m always thinking in stories, aren’t you? Yesterday I visited a nearby farmer’s market, not imagining it would be overrun with merry kids in costumes. I’d just heard that there was a shortage of costumes because of global shipping slowdowns, but this wasn’t in evidence as the witches, superheroes, and ghouls dashed around accepting treats, […]

Thousands of writers around the world are getting ready to buckle in for NaNoWriMo, an accountability community and method for writing 50,000 words during the month of November. Fifty thousand words of a novel, that is. No matter your writing level, your story needs a kickass main character. Now, I don’t mean you need a […]

Well, I made it through the election, champagne and all. I’ve been working with a historical fiction writer, writing, chopped and simmered another batch of soup–Italian wedding, picked more late-harvest tomatoes, visited an art show that has stayed within me, walked amid the golden colors of this ongoing autumn, and have started shopping for the […]

A few suggestions: Don’t edit–this is a first-draft mad dash. Remember your story is essentially a problem that needs solving. Not your problem, the protagonist’s problem. Keep asking yourself ‘what’s the worst thing that can happen next?’ Remember you’re sending your protagonist into new emotional and physical territory. Start at least one subplot. This subplot typically […]

Yesterday there was a break in the rains and I managed more yard clean-up. I tossed out two large hanging plants with relief since I started watering them in May. Still more plants to care for, but they’re blooming away. I want to recommend another starting place for fiction or as part of your preparations: […]

More rain around here, but I managed to get in a few walks over the weekend including trails at the Hoyt Arboretum, or Portland’s Museum of Trees. If I could offer a single piece of advice about creating characters it would be this: Take risks with your main characters. Make them stand out from the […]

It’s raining here, but we’ve had the most glorious spate of Indian Summer weather and the amber, lemon, and copper colors continue to bejewel the trees. I’m cleaning up the yard, moving plants, and planting bulbs. And hallelujah, I’m back to cooking hearty food–soups, stews, and a big batch of Beef Bourguignon and mashed potatoes […]

Reading fiction makes us  tense and often scared. And I’m not talking about only horror or thrillers. If a reader isn’t afraid about what fate awaits the central characters, and if the main characters aren’t vulnerable, then the story won’t work properly and readers won’t lose sleep to discover if the character survives. In Anthony […]