I started to write this post about my first Colorado Gold Conference, and I was struck by how much writing and publishing have changed since the early days of my career. Some things have definitely gotten easier. I printed out the manuscript of my first book on a word processor where you had to feed…
Tag: writing research
Know-It-All: The Art or Plague of Research
POLL: How many of you know what the 47th tallest structure is? (No googling, you cheaters). I do. Does that make me brilliant or lame? I have no idea. But I do know it makes me a writer. You see, I, like you, look for the smallest, seemingly inconsequential detail to breathe reality into my…
Medieval Viagra and the Curtain of Time
When writing historical novels I find myself as immersed in research books as I am with the writing. Research is one of life’s joys to me. It’s like stepping through a sparkling curtain into the past, and suddenly I’m in another time. If it’s during the nineteenth century, it’s a world in sepia, that soft…
Halloween – yea or nay?
Here we are the second week of October and already, I’m thinking Halloween. I’ve never been a big fan of Halloween. Oh, when I was a kid, we did the costumes and trick or treat thing. And in high school there were the parties. In college, I was much too “serious” a student to join…
Rigors of Research … by Katriena Knights
One of the great things about writing is that you can use it as an excuse to research almost anything. String theory, exoplanets, the Alaskan bush, ancient Sumerian literature, conspiracy theories—you name it, it’s story fodder. In fact, I’ve been known to tweak a story plot specifically to give me a reason to read up…