Last summer, I signed an option with PalmStar Productions for a screen adaptation of Doc and Epitaph. So much time had gone by with no news, I was starting to wonder if they’d dropped the project, but yesterday an announcement appeared in a number of outlets, so I am free to talk about it now. … Read more…
Some novelists start with an outline. For them, a book is like a sculpture that will be modeled in clay. In the beginning, there’s just a wire armature. They add and add and add until the story is complete and rounded. For others — and I am among them — a novel starts out like … Read more…
“Quit teasing us!” That was a message from a reader on my Facebook page this morning. She was kidding (kind of) but many of you seem to enjoy these Natural History of a Novel blogs, so here’s another. I started writing Epitaph in the spring of 2011 and completed the first draft at the end … Read more…
From the dawn of the movie and television industries, the image of men in broad-brimmed hats marching toward a showdown has been a set piece. There is an ultimatum, and defiance. Townspeople scatter, leaving the combatants alone in the street. There is a moment of truth. Fingers twitch near holstered pistols. The bad guy makes … Read more…
Wyatt has been absorbing most of my mental energy lately, which is why nobody has heard much from me. I recently sent the first half of the manuscript (290 pages) to a fresh reader, and she alerted me to a serious imbalance in the way the story was developing. It took me a week to … Read more…