It’s early evening in New Mexico’s high desert, the beginning of the end of Thanksgiving 2015 in America. I am thankful for all the blessings in my life. I am grateful for the roof over our heads, even though it’s a bit leaky in places. I’m grateful to wake each morning to the sound of birds–when so many people huddle awake in the darkness surrounded by the explosions of missiles or the stutter of gunfire. I am so so so grateful for my beautiful daughter, and I pray that she stays safe and flourishes in this challenging world. I am …

Don’t fall into the “black or white” trap! It’s easy even for experienced novelists to fall back into stereotypes when it comes to heroes and villains. I’ve asked more than one war hero why they believed they were motivated to act courageously under fire? Two of them answered more or less this way: “I was terrified I would be a coward so I just ran into the fire!” Remind yourself that every hero has flaws and every villain has tried to do the right thing–at least once in her life. Quick exercises: 1) List three good things your villain has …

  Around 1915, Danish psychologist Edgar Rubin developed his vase illusion (sometimes known as the figure-ground vase), an intentionally ambiguous visual tool for studying human figure-ground perception. It is known informally as the “Rubin vase” because the central image is a vase or goblet, in this case filling the white space. But if you focus on the black background around the vase, it usually takes very little time for that “background” to morph into two black faces in profile, their noses almost touching each other. One of our brain’s jobs is to interpret visual patterns in the eye created by …

I was a guest speaker this weekend with Valerie Plame Wilson, former CIA NOC and my coauthor for the “Vanessa Pierson spy-thrillers.” We were invited to talk to a smart, witty group of journalists at the New Mexico Press Women’s annual conference, “The Power of Storytelling.” This year’s event was held at Ghost Ranch, near Abiquiu, NM. Famed painter, Georgia O’Keefe, visited Ghost Ranch  in 1934; she was so drawn by the astounding natural beauty she spent many summers in residence, painting the countryside and soaking up the solitude. Eventually she managed to purchase a few acres and a house …

I’ve quoted below from writer Benjamin Moser’s thoughtful “Bookends” essay for The New York Times, January 27, 2015. “We never know if we are doing it right. Even the best writing will never have the immediate, measurable impact that a doctor’s work has, or a plumber’s. To discover if we are on the right track, we can, and do, become obsessed with our “careers,” which is the word we use for what other people think of us…there is something dreary about wanting writing to be a real job. The sense of inner purpose, so often unmentionable in a society enamored …

A writer friend trying his hand at fiction recently asked, “…since my protagonist is a woman, what traits might both men and women find appealing in her?” My first response: Whether readers are male, female, gay, straight, transgender or some combo thereof, almost everyone is drawn to someone who passionately and actively yearns for something we consider meaningful. The person on the page who truly catches our attention, emotion and heart is the character who shows desire, yearning, drive and who takes all steps possible to achieve their desire, no matter if the pursuit is misguided, and no matter the …

An eloquent and elegant statement by French writer Anatole France of what happens to the hero at the climactic turning point of the most profound narratives, those books we love and those stories that have the power to transform us: “All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another.”