The Northwest Angle: A geographic anomaly, a small triangle of American territory completely isolated from the rest of Minnesota, cut off from the United States by sixty miles of Canadian wilderness and the vast, mysterious waters of Lake of the Woods. Lake of the Woods: One of the largest bodies of water on the North … Read more
One of the first tenets pounded into my head in every writing class I ever took was this: Write what you know. We’ve all heard it. But when most authors in my genre sit down to write a book, they’re faced with the realization that they know little or nothing about much of the information … Read more
A couple of weeks ago I attended the semi-annual retreat held by my writer’s group. It took all of Saturday and most of Sunday. There were eight of us. We each read aloud from a piece we’re working on and the others read along silently and then critiqued the work. By Sunday afternoon, we were … Read more
Every good author does research to make sure the facts are right. But sometimes mistakes occur. More often than not they’re just stupid errors, things we think we know, so why look them up? Or continuity errors—we start with a particular make of automobile in a scene and somewhere along the line change our minds … Read more
I’ve taken a long break from blogging, for two reasons. First, I’m not sure anyone reads blogs, mine or most others. And second, honestly, I’d rather be writing fiction. The first book I ever tried to write was horribly—embarrassingly—autobiographic. Isn’t every author’s first attempt? Since that time, I’ve written only what I imagine might happen … Read more