Who are they? How can you know if you’ve never met ? Can you represent them in your fiction just by watching them from a distance? Or can you summon them realistically from your imagination? Creating believable characters people empathize with is no easy task, but it’s essential if fiction has to sing on its… Continue Reading
A Child Is Born
Why in heaven’s name would I consider self-publishing my first novel instead of giving it to someone else to grapple with? I’ve been asked that a lot recently, often by other writers but also loyal blog readers supportive of the gestation of my works of fiction. The answer came to me out of the blue,… Continue Reading
Riding the Wave
That used to be one of my mother’s favorite expressions. ‘You have to be on top of the wave,’ she’d say; ‘that is, if you really want to enjoy New York.’ Translation—you have to be really ‘up’ to succeed in New York. I thought I understood what she meant, but often wondered how she’d come… Continue Reading
One Step Forward…
“Strive as you will to elevate woman, nevertheless the disabilities and degradation of her dress, together with that large group of false views of the uses of her being and of her relations to man, symbolized and perpetuated by her dress, will make your striving vain.”– Gerritt Smith c. 1860 To paraphrase Mr. Smith’s somewhat… Continue Reading
In The Long Run
A little boy in my new novel needs to swing into a room on the same 19th century door his father did a generation before. What does the door look like? Is it heavy oak or a cast iron frame with tempered glass? I can’t remember. A major character from a previous novel is going… Continue Reading
Foreground, Middle-Ground, Background
Looking at a visual image through photography, video, paint or our own eyes, we’re aware of objects in three dimensions. They inhabit different grounds, and that gives them diverse prominence and meaning; all pretty obvious, except when we start to pay attention to the details drawing us into the story. I’ve been paying a… Continue Reading