Catalyst For A Series: My Unexpected “Aha!” Moment from The Blackwater Lightship

Photo Credit: Dark light… come shine in her lost heart tonight, taken on 26 November 2016 by Nikk: The Maniac Macrographer/Flickr/CC BY 2.0 I’ve talked quite a bit about inspiration on my blog. In this blog post I discuss how I believe inspiration is something you don’t sit around and wait for but go out and …

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More Than Just a Gibson Girl: The New Woman

The New Woman prompted a lot of satirical photos and cartoons by the male establishment who felt threatened by her growing popularity and power. This photo depicts the “masculinized” New Woman. Dressed in turn-of-the-century male garb (the straw hat and knickerbocker pants), she stands over her man with a cocky, stern look on her face, …

Gilded Age Backlash: The Progressive Era

Although this cartoon refers specifically to only one of the reforms during the Progressive Era (women’s suffragism), it is visually a great example of what was going on with all reforms during this era. Photo Credit: Political cartoon about suffrage in the United States. Four women supporting suffrage on a steamroller crushing rocks "opposition". Illustration …

What’s in a Tagline? Picking Apart My Tagline

Photo Credit: Woman with veil, dark Gothic fantasy image, uploaded December 24, 2014 by LoganArt: LoganArt/ Pixabay/CC0 1.0 Last week, the Sisters in Crime organization held a webinar for authors about author branding. The idea of “branding” is relatively new buzzword in business and marketing (when it comes to people rather than products, that is) but …

Benicia, California, “City of the Straights”

Photo Credit: A photo of the Benicia pier with the dilapidated boat house and boat. Photo taken by me :-). “‘Benicia, the memorable ‘city of the Straits’…” (as quoted in Thompson, par. 9) Back when I first conceived my historical mystery series, The Paper Chase Mysteries, I knew location would be an important factor. One …

Not So HAE (Happily Ever After)

The epitome of the happily-ever-after romance ending — the handsome couple off against the sunset with the calm waters and the palm tree. Photo Credit: Silhouette of a loving couple against a sunset, uploaded 25 April 2017 by 5187396: 5187396/Pixabay/CC0 1.0 “We are writers and we destroy lives and worlds and ideologies. And sometimes, we …

It’s Camp Nano Time Again!

Photo Credit: Summer in Connecticut – The Old Barn at Branchville, J. Alden Weir, 1890’s, oil on canvas, Christie’s, New York: Trzesacz/Wikimedia Commons/PD Old 95 1934 Some of you might remember that I took a blogging break in April because of Camp Nano . Well, it's summer and Camp Nano is upon us again and I've decided to …

Adventurous Perception: The Individual Creative Process

Photo Credit: Photograph of Maurits (M.C.) Escher, around 23 Nov. 1971. Photograph probably made by Hans Peters (ANEFO), Ga het na (Nationall Archief NL): Vysotsky/Wikimedia Commons/CC BY SA 3.0 Many artists talk about the creative process. It’s one of those illusive ideas that fascinates non-artists and weighs heavily on the minds of artists because creativity …

The Emotional Badlands of Language, or, Language is Not Just Data

Photo Credit: Canadian singer Leonard Cohen in Trouville-sur-Mer (Normandy, France), taken 26 January 1988 by Roland Godefroy: Teddyyy/Wikimedia Commons/CC BY 3.0 “If words are the arrow, we ourselves — our interior landscapes, our outward actions, the authenticity of our lives — are the bow.” (Popova, par. 1) As many of my blog readers know, I …

Character vs. Plot Puzzles: The Two Sides of My Fictional World

Photo Credit: Multi-colored puzzle pieces, uploaded 17 February 2017: Pixhere/CC0 1.0 Last week, I announced in a live Facebook post on my author page that I’m exploring new directions with my fiction. I also created a Coming Soon page on my website with more details about what I’m doing and why and what readers can expect in …