Ice gleamed along the barrier islands thousands of feet below, and I grimaced at my leather dress boots, jammed under the airplane seat. Dispatched on a business trip to the western suburbs of Boston, I’d taken the precaution of wearing my New York Yankees underwear as protection against enemy baseball juju, but hadn’t prepared for... Continue Reading →
In-Flight Entertainment: Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love My Stories
Epiphany struck me 35,000 over Chicago. Dimmed lights in the plane cabin made my laptop screen glow conspicuously on the tiny tray table, an invitation to judge over my shoulder, but I didn’t have time for self-consciousness. I had revisions to finish. Faced with a cross-country business trip, I’d assigned myself a travel project of... Continue Reading →
Back from “Mars” and ready to blog
If I haven’t had much web presence the past few weeks, it’s because I just got back from Mars. Or at least as close to it as I’m ever likely to get! My Laddie and I took a hiking trip to Utah, where the stark red rockscapes let me imagine we were exploring the Red... Continue Reading →
Stories in the Stars: My latest book and latest adventure
Syzygy V: Red Shift went live this week! Like every title in my Syzygy hexalogy, this one is an astronomy term that implies various levels of significance for the story. What is red shift in the scientific sense? When an object in space (like a star) moves away from us, its light wavelength stretches out, "shifting" the... Continue Reading →
Land of (Kindle) Fire and Ice: Back from Travel, Back to Work
Why should my Syzygy characters have all the fun exploring planet Earth? I want to experience it, too, before it dissolves into one of my dystopian landscapes. So last week my Laddie and I took a journey to Iceland. We climbed a glacier, snorkeled in a frigid rift, hiked along a crater rim, and ate waffles from a food... Continue Reading →
Passion and Possession: Thoughts on Writing from My Former Self
Moving one’s residence is stressful enough without the complications of a historic snowstorm! Between shoveling, packing, and shuttling carloads of stuff down icy roads, I’ve hardly touched my computer all week. However, I did make a discovery that merits sharing. While boxing up the home office, I found several old journals, including one I kept... Continue Reading →