Q: Hello Carolyn. Thank you for being here. A: You’re welcome! Q: Pantser or Plotter? A: Pantser. For those curious about what this means, a writer can be referred to as a pantser if they write “by the seat of their pants.” A plotter is someone who does a lot of outlining. Both terms are […]
Grateful
To all who celebrate US Thanksgiving, Happy Thanksgiving. I’m grateful for good friends and for every who reads. Here is a picture of an acorn that I took a couple of days ago. Recently the oaks started dropping acorns so there are loads on the ground, all of them full of the hope of one […]
Winter Rains and Oh, hey! Writing!
Winter Rains: My Favorite TBH My part of California is currently in the middle of a stalled out atmospheric river that is dumping some truly impressive rain on the area. I’ve done some preventative water diversions so the driveway runoff doesn’t flood the neighbor’s backyard. I also had to release water from the pond because […]
That feeling . . .
I have been working on this set of edits to Bound in Smoke, and well, all I can say is that it’s good. Really, really good, and that is exciting news to share with everyone.
Torcs and the Infamous Harry Price
This article by Tess Machling et.al. is the most fun and interesting thing I’ve read in some time. It’s about the provenance of a torc found in Pulborough that comes with a history of an infamous forger. You could skip straight to the section on Harry Price and then decide if you want to read […]
My Brief Career as a Pony Wrangler
I need to set the scene. Our house is well off the main road with a quarter mile driveway. One side of our house parallels the main road and has sliding glass doors. Looking that direction, there is about 50 yards of field with a gentle downslope south to the fence between two neighbors below, […]
When 24,000 Words Get Nuked
Today I nuked over 24,000 words from Bound In Smoke. By nuked, I mean moved the chapters to a sub-folder of my save this stuff folder in case I need any parts later. This is good news. I have been writing every day for some time and the rework slowly (as it always does) made […]
Miscellaneous Thoughts and Opinions
I’m skeptical that AI will produce a good book anytime soon. AI is trained on the finished product, not the human process that goes into writing. But of course tech folks see the finished product and because a good book reads seamlessly and effortlessly, assume that the writing process must be the same. The finished […]
Word Count is a Funny Thing
Numbers Can Deceive I keep track of my progress on a book by noting my word count. Word count is typically meaningful to writers and editors but not for readers. Roughly speaking, a 90K word book is about 300 printed pages, by the way. In a perfect world where all writers are Rex Stout (whose […]
Report From Jewel HQ
Writing Related News I am doing a paper read-through of Bound in Smoke and it’s going well. This is why I don’t have word count changes posted. The story is coming together in ways that matter. One of the fun things about paper read-throughs is using a fountain pen with pretty colors of ink. This […]