#PennedPossibilities 330 — How does your MC go about expressing or not expressing their sexuality?
Suetonius, like many gladiators, is pimped out by his lanista -- and he's very popular with the clients. When he falls hard for Drusilla, his experience is translated into tenderness.
#WordWeavers
5/30 — Are you comfortable writing from the POV of a child? Written any?
One of my characters in "In The Eye of The Storm" and "Through the Opera Glass," Clarice, is a child when we first encounter her, and a teenager later on. I admit that she was rather like me as a kid, bookish and rather serious. I found it easy to take some of my childhood experiences and translate them to her life during and after WWII.
The Luminous Life of Lucy Landry is a timelessly sweet tale of found family from rising Ojibwe voice Anna Rose Johnson, author of NPR Best Book of the Year The Star That Always Stays .
#PennedPossibilities 326 — Do any of your characters have a favorite place that they've ever visited?
Characters in both "Bayou Fire" and "Pompeii Fire," as well as my current #wip, are travel writers. I've never really considered whether they have a favorite place that they've visited, if I'm honest ... but I suspect sentimental attachments to particular spots all the same. #nospoilers
A young girl learns of her grandmother and great-aunt’s involvement in the Dutch Resistance during World War II in this heartbreaking middle grade story of family, history, resilience, and hope from acclaimed author Liz Kessler.
Drusilla's father leaves her, at age 6, to be fostered by Julia Felix in Pompeii. She's lost her mother in the 62 AD earthquake, and now her father's disappearing as well -- because he doesn't want to be hampered by a little girl while he establishes a new business (and life) in nearby, wealthy Herculaneum. Drusilla's only companion for the moment is Invictus, her puppy ... but she becomes friends with Julia's daughter Claudia. Still, she's effectively orphaned for convenience.
mybook.to/WalesRising OUT NOW! The Luddite rebellion against mill owners in Yorkshire, the Merthyr rising for a living wage against the ironmasters, and the Rebecca riots, the battle against crippling tolls on the roads of rural Wales. #historicalfiction
#WordWeavers 20: How did you settle on your antagonists' appearances?
In "Pompeii Fire," my antagonist is an actual, documented person: Stephanus, the fuller. Now, he may have been the nicest guy in town for all any of us know ... but not in my book. He's way older than my female protagonist (he's her father's age), and wants to marry her. He's not particularly good-looking, and he's always trying to hide that his hair is thinning. But the worst part of him really is his odious personality.
#WordWeavers
How did you settle on your MC's appearance?
I often have a good idea of what they look like ... but sometimes it's more vague. I use storyboarding to help me consolidate who they are so that I can translate that a little better. Pinterest is super-handy for this.
A DELICATELY HAUNTING THAI novel unfolds like a late-night story from its protagonist, a monk in his 90s telling tales of his youth in the remote jungles of the late 19th century, where tigers and crocodiles lurked in the darkness. Stunning. A MINUS