Books don’t write themselves, as anybody could tell you. While writing a book, I look more like this: Than this: But what might not get as often a mention is that books also do not edit themselves. For that you need, at the very least, a beta-reader (mine is the unrivaled talent of Wendy Rathbone), […]
At Lodgings In Lyme Chronology
Keeping track of the chronology of a story is important to me, so here is the chronology of Oliver & Jack: At Lodgings In Lyme. Earlier, Wendy Rathbone and I were talking via email about our current projects; though the characters and settings are very different, the topics and tropes we are working with are very similar, […]
Fagin’s Boy Chronology
When I write my books, I’m a stickler for chronology, the timeline of the events in the book. Part of this is due to my sense of OCD, the other part has to do with Victorian life. I mean, if it’s Sunday, are the shops open? Maybe yes, maybe no. At any rate, for any […]
A Less Well-Mannered Outline
With another NaNoWriMo beneath my belt I am pleased to announce that the next book in my Oliver & Jack series entitled Oliver & Jack: Out In The World, is 73K words done; I’ve written Oliver’s point of view in those words, because, as I determined early on, this particular story was about what happens to […]
Historical Maps at the NLS
I’ve recently discovered the National Library of Scotland (NLS), a repository of ordinance survey maps that help me with accuracy in my historical novels. I’m the kind of writer who likes to get a Google map of the area I’m writing about, or better yet, to actually go there and walk the streets. What usually happens […]
NaNoWriMo 2015 – Winner!
I am a winner at this year’s NaNoWriMo, and I have a certificate to prove it! My validated word count was 55,916, but my end goal for November is 60K so I have some writing to do today. But that’s no great hardship, eh?