6 Reasons for Joy This Week

Spring has finally taken up residence in the urban wilds of Eastern Pennsylvania, and it is a joy. Really. Beloved and I have been taking walks, enjoying the sunshine, trees leafing out, and flowers. Not only that, it is Holy Week, one of the most profound weeks of the year and the greater joys of […]

5 Things I Learned About 1835

The Reluctant Wife is in the final stages of editing and on track for an April 26 release. It is set in 1835, and in the process of writing it I learned quite a bit about that era. Sometimes I think collecting odd bits of facts is the most fun part of my job. The […]

Titles and Other Painful Decisions.

Readers may have noticed that I’ve been participating in the Marketing For Romance Writers (MFRW) 52-Week blog challenge. The idea is that all the participating authors post on a single topic, and we get to see the wide variation in approaches to the topic. It is a bit fun, and I plan to continue, but […]

4 Things That Matter

As is our routine, I reviewed the family calendar and my convoluted to-do list with Beloved. Why convoluted? I use a tool called Toodledo that lets me assign every task a due date, an importance level, and a category or folder. The web-based tool lets me sort on all three of those. Obviously a task […]

5 Reasons Not To Hate Valentine’s Day

What’s that you say? Valentine’s Day is just another bogus holiday created by Hallmark, the floral industry, and retailers to empty out our wallets. You might think that expressions of love that have to be coerced with guilt messages and commercials are worth nothing and you’d be right. Love and romance, however, aren’t to blame […]

4 Things To Do After You Type The End

First draft writing can be a long agony. Once you reach that tender, soul-satisfying conclusion, wipe away a tear, and type The End, you take a deep sigh, certain the story is right. You ask, “Now what?” The temptation is to either a) send it off now because, of course, it is perfect OR b) […]

Impetuous and Scandalous

Highlighting Historical Romance presents Kelly McClymer Hi, I’m Kelly McClymer and I want to thank Caroline for giving me a chance to talk about my favorite intersection of topics — history and women. You may have heard that women in the past couldn’t do many things that men could do. While that is true, it […]

4 Blogs and Then Some

Blogging gives any and all of us an opportunity to express ourselves. Many of us may wish there was less of it—particularly when the expressing takes the form of politics or celebrity culture are concerned, but then either we all have the right to speak freely or no one does. Most writers use blogs to […]

A Dysfunctional Royal Family

Highlighting Historical Romance: Regan Walker William the Conqueror died in Normandy in 1087. Robert, the eldest son, inherited the dukedom of Normandy. William, his middle son, succeeded his father as King of England. William was quick to seize the opportunity. Called “William Junior” by his contemporaries and dubbed “Rufus” by historians because of his ruddy […]

8 Reasons for a Slow Start

I usually have this column ready on Sunday, but this morning is fleeting and I am just putting my Monday thoughts together. Something about that first week of the new year had me wallowing in holiday mode. A number of things got in the way. I spent the weekend getting myself organized, and as of […]