writing
Beauty Surrounds Me
My lunch apple today was just gorgeous, glowing and powerful, so much that I had to just stare at it before I could cut into it. I am surrounded by beauty.
Rome
I have this theory about sensory detail and reading. Since normal intake of our world reaches our brains through our five senses, if a writer can describe things clearly enough that a reader sees, smells, hears, tastes and feels them, then the words on the page have co-opted the brain. It’s a polite form of mind… Continue reading
The Terror and the Trust of Not Outlining
I’m a seat-of-the-pantser. I’ve done books using an outline before when I plotted out romances in ten chapters (major intimacy in Chapter 7) so I know it’s possible, but that is not how I wrote Birthmarked, and it is not working for the sequels. The main problem is that I have to be in the scene, imagining it, in order to live where it’s going with Gaia. Since she can’t see into the future, neither can I. If the reader is to be surprised, I… Continue reading
Gaia’s Voice
Nan Mercado, my editor, asked me the other day how I came up with Gaia’s voice and how I developed it, and I had no idea how to answer her. What’s strange is that I know Gaia inside and out. I know her personality, and how she talks, acts, and thinks. Her belongings have history. How she perceives her world and how that changes are all part of her, too. I know her so completely that when I wrote a little story about Gaia at… Continue reading
Learning Revising from Picasso
Postcards of Guernica
In the Reina Sofia Museum of Madrid, in the white-walled gallery that showcases Picasso’s Guernica, across from the masterpiece is a series of six photos Dora Maar took of the painting while it was in progress. If you have the stubborn tenacity to thwart the crowd, you can stand in front of each photo and examine it closely, then go on to the next to see what Picasso changed and what he kept the same. The horse rises. The eyeball light emerges from… Continue reading