Plus Ça Change – July 7, 2026 You may have played with this toy. You have a wooden cup attached to a handle. There is a ball attached to the handle by a string. You swing the ball up and try to catch it in the cup. I’m crafting the… Continue reading
Plus Ça Change – July 5, 2026 I have a child use the word “yum” about the prospect of good food. A colleague asks, is that a period-correct term for 1822? It isn’t. It turns out “yummy yummy” dates back to 1861. A diary entry written by an English journalist… Continue reading
An update on life… Having a lot of fun reading Victor’s short stories. Check out his profile to sign up!
Plus Ça Change – July 4, 2026 …a flood rises to drown her soul, searching for its way to the sea. There is a pulse to writing. It has a beating heart. A story is a living thing. So it wakes up, gets shit done, goes to sleep for a… Continue reading
Plus Ça Change – June 21, 2026 I’m plotting out the series of chapters about the cholera epidemic in New Orleans in 1832. Lots of ideas… focusing on Marie as a healer. She has discovered empirically a way to treat this new disease. Marie has an uncle, Josias Kerr, an… Continue reading
I have been helping Elizabeth with her new novel, Horngard. It’s one of the fastest manuscript-to-publication timelines we have ever seen. It’s already got a cover and a release date: October 6th! A lot of time (and laughs) were spent on getting the manuscript ready for production. I’ve never had… Continue reading
Plus Ça Change – June 19, 2026 As noted yesterday in Antebellum Catholic Racism, I’ve returned to detailed plotting. This is my happy place. However, I have a tendency to fall deep into a rabbit hole of research and then bludgeon the reader with the results. Over time, I’ve learned… Continue reading
Plus Ça Change – June 18, 2026 I’ve returned to serious plotting, abandoning pantsing for the moment at least. The intricacies of family finances, property transfers, and inheritance (Gran Catherine dies) requires some serious thought on how to spin a fictional narrative that plausibly allows for all the details. Most… Continue reading
The Origin Story of Marie Laveaux These are the research articles and musing of my discoveries writing Laveaux: Dancer. Along the way, I learned a few things about the early 19th century in old New Orleans. I list them from newest to oldest. In the Flow of Time – the… Continue reading
In The Flow of Time – June 13, 2026 And here I thought I was done. 🙂 HA! Darn my accomplished writer friends. The critique group is going through the final chapters of Laveaux: Dancer. In almost all cases, the suggestions are tweaks, writerly ideas from skillful colleagues. Not this time…. Continue reading
