writing novels

The Greco family is, in ways, beyond mildly dysfunctional, for the patriarch of this family is a severe alcoholic.  Frank’s alcoholism has profound effects upon all of the family members.  It affects them both individually and as a group.  Each

Artists who wait for inspiration to strike spend a lot of time waiting.  I know this because I was formerly such an artist.  I believed that I should not force my writing, but that I should let it come to me naturally.  I thought that discipline

If characters had nothing to struggle against, they would stay the same.  They wouldn’t transform and grow and arc.  A character changes because she is either in conflict against another person, or herself or the world.  In Olive Branches

In several reviews of my book, readers mentioned that they were invested in the novels characters’ and that they really cared about what happened to them.  This feeling of concern is what motivates readers to stay with a book and to turn the

The quote above from J.R.R. Tolkien resonated so much with me because I felt that it really spoke of my own process for writing my novel. My novel began with a description of a single character that I subsequently incorporated into a short