Bits and Pieces

Ariel, a dear friend of mine from college left me a lovely note at the end of my last post.  She is reading Nell and is enjoying the under-written quality of the emotional landscape.  It was a wonderful thing for her to write.  It is a big risk to just leave breadcrumbs scattered on the forest floor and hope they bring the reader to the gingerbread cottage heart of the book.

I find I am constantly battling a strong desire to leave enormous glaring, flashing, obvious, neon signs along the way to prevent any mishap and collect any stragglers.  'Battling'?  That makes it sound like I am riding into mighty combat with a three headed writing beastie, but that is a bit how it feels.  I am currently writing about a lesser known person but a more famous period in history.  The three headed writing beastie wants me to print out google maps for the readers so no one gets lost in the forest.  Tricksy stuff...

And, I wrote at the end of my last post that I had tea with the utterly lovely Philippa Gregory.  She astonishes me.  I love when historical accuracy profoundly matters to historical fiction authors.  They really will fall down the rabbit hole in order to track down the particular historical details that make the writing so rich.  I find that is a common thread with all of my favorite historical writers.

And, I got such a nice pixie dust surprise when I checked my email this morning.  Teddyree at the marvellous blog The Eclectic Reader wrote such a truly lovely review.

Apropos of nothing, I love my spell check.  It makes me giggle every day; like a straight faced butler it tirelessly serves up proper grammar on a silver tray.  But, I do not think my affection is mutual.  My spell check gets fed up with my using words like beastie...