The Lady Astronaut of Mars, by Mary Robinette Kowal This work of fiction is short—I didn’t realize it was a novelette and was surprised when it ended because I wanted more. I loved it. Sort of an alternate history of space travel (and, oddly, the Wizard of Oz, and yet …
I sat down at the computer this morning to check my to-do list. But instead, I became delightfully lost in mid- to late-19th century Devon, England. Literary Devon beckoned to me. The poet John Keats, who lived and wrote in the Devon town of Teignmouth, once called the place a …
Maybe you have no idea how to write a novel, but decide to write one anyway. But hopefully in an informed way. You don’t want to write a BAD novel. Maybe you’re even a professional writer already, like me. But not of novels. Perhaps it’s crystal clear to you that …
If you’ve been following along, you’ll know I’ve been trying to decide between two fiction writing projects to devote my head and spare time to this year. And ta-da! I have chosen the new novel idea, which is historical fiction. I chose this over working on the children’s novel …
It’s time to make it happen. It’s one week into 2019, the year in which I proclaimed I’m going to write (and actually finish) a novel, and I thought I knew my plan. Suddenly, though, I have two projects to choose between. I need to make a decision. Let me …
Why make it a goal to finish writing a novel? The quote below explains why Wyl Menmuir and I are into the whole novel-finishing thing. Q:What made you decide to start a novel? Wyl: I read somewhere that action tends to happen when the fear of not doing …
2019 is going to be the year I “Make It Happen.” I am going to finish some personal writing projects I’ve been working on for way too long without completing. And I’m going to finally take each to its next steps. I’m also going to do it “out loud.” I’m going to write here about how I get all these big goals to the finish line.
I could read about writing, sometimes instead of sitting down and actually writing, until the cows come home. (“What cows?” asked my then-four-year-old with a puzzled look, once, when I used that expression.)
Except a living man there is nothing
more wonderful than a book!
A message to us from the dead,
– from human souls whom we never saw,
who lived perhaps thousands of miles away;
and yet these, on those little sheets of paper,
speak to us, teach us, comfort us,
open their hearts to us as brothers.
– Charles Kingsley (1819-1875)
A little library, growing larger every year,
is an honourable part of a man’s history.
It is a man’s duty to have books.
A library is not a luxury,
but one of the necessaries of life.
– Henry Ward Beecher
