All posts in the ‘ The Writing Life ’ Category

“Wanna go to Australia?” Will asks after dinner. “Sure,” I say, and we settle down to binge-watching A Place to Call Home. This addictive TV melodrama with its gorgeous 1950s clothes and cars is the closest we’re going to get to Sydney, at least for a while. Otherwise, traveling these days is a matter of watching Rick Steves reruns and sorting through photographs. There are a lot of those, especially from the last time we traveled for real. …Read More

Studying languages is good therapy for me–the right blend of escapism and mental effort.  A few weeks ago, I decided German would be my latest target language. I’ve got some German characters in the novel I’m working on and I want to get inside their heads. For years, I was uneasy about Germany and I haven’t ever visited the country.  I remember playing “war” as a kid, with Americans and Germans chasing each other through the bushes. We …Read More

Last summer, I optimistically said I would be blogging again by fall, but real life intervened, and here we are, spring 2020, in a vastly different world. Those of us lucky enough to be hunkered down at home are living at one remove from reality. We’re not risking our lives caring for the sick, picking the crops, fire-fighting, or collecting garbage. In contrast, life’s all too real for the heroic folks that are performing these and other essential services.  …Read More

One of the stops on our recent tour of World War I battlefields was the “Advanced Dressing Station” at Essex Farm, near Ypres, Belgium. It was here that Canadian military doctor Lieutenant-Colonel John MacCrae wrote the iconic poem “In Flanders Fields.” I mentioned this visit to a friend the other day and she instantly started reciting, “In Flanders Fields the poppies blow, between the crosses, row on row…”  The Great War still has its stamp on us. Since I’m …Read More

Henry David Thoreau has been getting some bad press in the last few months. In a New Yorker article entitled “Pond Scum,” Kathryn Schultz blasts the hermit of Walden Pond for his hypocrisy, arrogance, and self-obsession. Even so, we’ll be quoting him for some time to come. A few months ago, I found him peering over my shoulder while I was refrigerator shopping, and tried to tell him off. He’s easy to make fun of, but somehow he got …Read More

Somewhere in between the planning and the execution of Jana Bibi’s Excellent Fortunes, I changed the name of the tea shop from the Hot Spot to the Why Not? (That question mark threw the spelling and grammar checking software into some confusion.) I also ended up leaving out tidbits about Mr. Joshi, the proprietor. Such as his view on planning: “Five year plan? Who can plan in life? Life unfolds according to the destiny of individuals, which has …Read More

This morning I found the original outline (55 pages worth) of Emeralds Included. My first concept was unrecognizable from the finished book—different characters, different subplots, different everything. There was stuff about an accident in a roller-skating competition and about a retired judge suffering from memory problems. All pretty groan-inducing. My editor, Marjorie Braman, had entered comments. On page 15, she said, “So far, you don’t have a lot of plot.” And later, “Not sure if this is going …Read More

It was odd enough to be experiencing mental double-exposures of past and present during my recent India visit, but how about combining fact and fiction? Walking through the town of Mussoorie, I kept my eyes open for the fictional hill station of Hamara Nagar (“Our Town”), where I set my Jana Bibi novels. Granted, it was hard to screen out the automobile traffic. Motorcycles beeped incessantly and swerved by, apparently trying to get as close as possible without …Read More