by kristinoakley | Feb 9, 2018 | Creativity & Craft, Newsletter
“The snow doesn’t give a soft white damn whom it touches.” — e.e. cummings Winter has once again decided not to be ignored. It’s that time of year when we get blasted with cold and snow, a slight warming trend reprieve, and then another blast. This past...
by kristinoakley | Feb 2, 2018 | Fictional Research, Newsletter
(Also known as “Help with Poisoning Cows – Part Two”) Novelists use a weird combination of imagination and reality when writing a book. Generally, if the novel doesn’t follow real-world logic, the reader finds it unbelievable and, possibly,...
by kristinoakley | Jan 26, 2018 | Fictional Research, Newsletter
A few weeks ago, I mentioned how the internet has made research so easy for writers. Need to know what birds would be flying around an Illinois gazebo in October? Google it (sparrows). Wondering how long a voice-activated bugging device can record? Google it (144...
by kristinoakley | Jan 19, 2018 | Creativity & Craft, Newsletter
Leonardo “Leo” Salvatore Townsend, the protagonist in my series, is attractive (okay, he’s hot), a womanizer (particularly in Carpe Diem, Illinois and an award-winning journalist with a strong sense of justice. He also has a phobia and a fatal flaw,...
by kristinoakley | Jan 12, 2018 | Creativity & Craft, Newsletter
One of the most common questions readers ask writers is where do we get our ideas. Neil Gaiman used to tell people that he gets them from a little idea shop in Bognor Regis. Now he just tells them that he “makes them up. Out of his head.” (Check out his...
by kristinoakley | Jan 5, 2018 | Newsletter, Writing Life
It takes an average of five years to complete a debut novel. J. D. Salinger and Margaret Mitchell spent ten years writing Catcher in the Rye and Gone with the Wind while J. K. Rowling wrote Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone in six (check Infographic: How...
by kristinoakley | Dec 30, 2017 | Books and Movies, Newsletter
For the first five and a half months of 2017, I lived with Paul Salvage in his dystopian world as I completed the second draft of The Devil Particle. I stayed in that world the rest of this year writing about Paul’s rival, Gaige Devlin, and his struggles in the...
by kristinoakley | Dec 22, 2017 | Fictional Research, Newsletter
One of the things I like best about writing fiction is that I get to play God by creating worlds and the people in them. Even so, my places and people have to be plausible. That’s where research comes in. Like most authors, I’m certain I’m on FBI,...
