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The Way to a Character’s Heart
Confession: When I’m diving into characters and trying to get at the heart of them, I sometimes write poetry as my characters to get inside their heads. For example, if a character faces heartbreak or loss or a hardship, along with character sketches, I may write a little poem or two from various characters’ perspectives. It would be as if they would write the poem themselves. I’ve always written poetry for fun, and I enjoy writing poems that uncover emotion. And while I’ve only published one small collection of poems to date in The Postcard, I continue to write them and keep them to myself…just for these purposes. Today, I’m…
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Day Trip to Oxford and Easton, Maryland (where my new novel is set)
My mom and I typically spend a day together before my kids get out of school for the summer, and today, our day trip took us to Oxford, Maryland. This trip was for fun, but it was also for another reason: we had to do a little research because my new novel takes place there. I like to use the names of real places in my settings to make the fiction feel as real as possible. Therefore, it was up to us to do some legwork so I can finish writing this novel and keep it as true to the setting and feel of Oxford as possible. As I have…
