How do you like to spend your evenings?
I’ve always been a morning person. I find that I do my best writing from breakfast time until early afternoon, when I slow down and eventually grind to a halt. Then I’m usually good for business or household challenges until dinnertime. After that I have an hour, maybe two or three, when my brain doesn’t seem to want to work, but is oddly susceptible to ideas and impressions. If I use this downtime well, it can be incredibly useful later.
A medieval depiction of the Ecumene (1482, Johannes Schnitzer, engraver), constructed after the coordinates in Ptolemy’s Geography and using his second map projection.
I recently had to take a trip out of state to an unfamiliar area. I’m a recent convert to the delights of GPS, so I traveled without fear or fore planning. I just got in that rental car and drove.
I got to my destination safely and without confusion, but I was also a little disconcerted. I hadn’t used a map, so I hadn’t known even the direction in which I headed, since a downpour obscured the sun. If it hadn’t been for the road signs, I wouldn’t have known if I was driving north or south.
I thought of a blog post by Barbara O’Neal that I’d read recently. She describes how novelists draw maps of their fictional worlds so they know what everything looks like and how everything and everyone is placed. I’ve done that myself. I once used graph paper to draw in scale the room where my characters were going to have a shootout. If they stood this far apart, what were the odds that the villain’s gun would shoot straight at that range? I moved the furniture around to give my hero more cover (would it work if the doorway was a little more to the left?), and I drew lines in different colors to show how everyone moved in the course of the scene.
It’s a holiday weekend here in London. Spring is in the air. The sun is shining, the birds are singing, the city is full of flowers, and my husband just offered to take me out to dinner. Nothing but good times ahead 😉 .
I was planning a Good Book Squee, but that will have to wait until next week. All of a sudden, my head is full of lobster cocktail, shrimp tempura, steak, cheesecake, great conversations and lots of laughter. I’m smiling just thinking about it.
We’ve been going regularly to Goodman Mayfair since it opened in 2008. It’s been my favorite restaurant for almost nine years now and I don’t expect that to change any time soon. Every time I go, I’m blown away by the excellence of their offering, and I always think about what it takes to keep their customers coming back for more, year after year.
A superb steakhouse has a lot in common with an outstanding piece of genre fiction. Continue reading
I might have mentioned a few (hundred) times here on the blog that I love a good physical challenge. A few years ago, I had an idea for one that would not only get me in better shape, but would also train me in self defense. So I started searching for Krav Maga classes. Before I could sign up and start kicking ass, I broke my finger.
Fast forward a year and a half. Did I mention it was a serious break? So yeah, a year and half later, I finally signed up for a 6-week introductory class to the fighting style developed by the Israeli Army. And hey, they developed it so anyone of any age and fitness level could learn defensive fighting quickly and easily! So said one of my instructors while he had us doing brutal sprints and one-arm planks at the end of hour-long, full-out hitting and kicking sessions, when I was pretty sure I was going to die of exhaustion.
After expending so much energy, sweat, and – not gonna lie – a few tears, though thankfully no blood, I feel stronger and maybe a little better prepared to take up a fighting stance and protect myself if it ever becomes necessary. But I like to get a big return on my investment, and I can find writing lessons in almost anything, so behold my Lessons from Krav Maga: Writing Edition.
1) Don’t be surprised; be prepared. If I had to boil my Krav Maga experience down to one line, this would be it. While the techniques do teach you how to fight (and flee!) effectively, there’s more to surviving a street fight than that. You have to be prepared for the unexpected and ready to fight the unknown. Continue reading
Full disclosure: today’s post is an update of one I wrote in 2015. Given the subject matter, I make no apology. I hope I’m lucky enough to post another update next April.
Four years ago this week, my husband almost died. One moment I was cracking jokes about man-flu, wondering if he had a chest infection and needed antibiotics; the next, we were in an ambulance heading for the resuscitation room. It was a very, very close-run thing, but with the help of the fantastic staff at the Whittington Hospital in North London, he pulled through and is (almost) as good as new.
I’m embarrassed to admit that while it was happening, we had no idea how much trouble we were in. We were too busy worrying about whether my husband would have to give up wine and asking if he’d be on his feet in time to go to the ballet the following week. Even when the consultant said “I think that’s the least of your problems,” the penny didn’t drop. It wasn’t until much later that I got the shakes.
I’m sharing this because there will never be a better day to say don’t take tomorrow for granted. If there’s anything that you’ve always promised yourself you would do, no matter if it’s trivial or life-changing, do it today.
Do it now.
Don’t wait for somebody else to make the first move. Don’t leave it until you’ve paid for your house, or the kids are a little older, or you’ve retired. Continue reading
In many ways, writing is like working out. The more you do it, the easier it is, and the more stamina you have. On the flip side, when you stop working out, it’s a bitch to get back into it again.
One of my New Years Resolutions was to get moving for 30 minutes a day. Aside from not writing, I’ve also been neglecting myself, and I decided, after reading this stunning NY Times article about how much of your LIFE you can lose by being inactive, that I needed to Continue reading
Mark Gottlieb, Trident Media Group
One of my favorite blogs did an ongoing bit last year called “Write Your Novel In A Year.” It ended with Week 52: Keep the Momentum Going. The goal for the last week is to work on ideas and strategies for your next book. And then the blogger says, take a break, immerse yourself in someone else’s stories, and do imagination exercises. The last ‘pin it, quote it, belief it’ of the year was “I oscillate between thinking I’m crazy and thinking I’m not crazy enough” (Joyce Carol Oates). Yep, been there. Continue reading
