This and That

Hi, everyone. It's been a challenging few days at our house. We have an elderly Dalmatian, Jarvis, who has some health problems. He had a turn for the worse over the weekend, so I rushed him to the vet on Monday. The good news is that he is still with us and on new medication. I am beyond grateful for that.

The other good news is that the time I spent at home monitoring the dog for medication reactions, etc., was put to good use. I've written another 3500 words on In The Eye of The Storm ... in no small part because I realized I had taken a wrong direction. I've created an additional character, Clarice, and that's helping to drive the story far more actively than my original plan.

Of course, that also means some re-writes, but that's okay. It's taking the story in a better direction and will be a plus in the end.

This past Saturday, I attended Joie de Livre, an event sponsored by Women's National Book Association - San Francisco Chapter in conjunction with Litquake. The panel consisted of three historical fiction authors: Amanda Coplin, Anita Amirrezvani and C.W. Gortner. The moderator was also an author, Amanda McTigue. The discussion was a fascinating examination of gender roles throughout history, the rise in popularity of historical fiction (as a historical fiction author, this delighted me no end), and about writing processes. I bought two of the featured books, Equal of the Sun and The Queen's Vow: A Novel Of Isabella Of Castile, and look forward to reading them in the coming weeks.

What have you been up to?