Blog
As a curious observer of life, I blog on writing, marketing, my prairie - anything that interests me in the moment. I like to have conversations with readers, so don’t hesitate to leave a comment. I'll respond.
There are NO vegetables. Everything we call a vegetable is actually a fruit. So said the host of the TV show On The Spot this past weekend. What? I’m a farm kid. I grew up…
Read MoreEarly 20th century photos inspire writing. Whether writing memoir or novel, I’ve found photos a great source of inspiration. Today, almost everyone has the ability to take photos. Digital cameras allow us to take pictures…
Read MoreA night in jail offers a change of venue to explore issues of control. I’ve slept on floors that were softer than the mattress in my cell. The pillow was hard enough to knock someone…
Read MoreThe 2013 Historical Fiction Reader Survey is underway. More than 1,400 people have participated so far. More is better. Here’s the info. Click on the title to get to the A Writer of History site…
Read MoreDid farm women wear corsets in 1913? Is there a particular name for the everyday dresses they wore? How many acres could a farmer plant in a day and what was the equipment like? How…
Read MoreMy novel set during WWI has had me digging into how the war affected Americans in their everyday lives. A popular women’s magazine of the era, Ladies Home Journal showed that even before the United…
Read MoreWhen I was a kid growing up on the farm in the 1950s, I waited everyday for the mailman to stop at our mailbox. It wasn’t as though anyone was going to write to me,…
Read MoreSince I’ve written memoirs and am close to completing my first novel, when the question of differences in writing fiction and memoir came to me in response to a blog post, you’d have thought I’d…
Read MoreA fresh read of a manuscript points out all kinds of problems: flat characters, scenes that though beautifully written go nowhere, leaps in logic that were clear to me in the writing but not to…
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