Writing Historical Fiction: Make Sure You Write the Right Thing

I had the pleasure of getting to know E.M Powell, initially when she was one of the co-editors of the English Historical Fiction Authors blog, and continuing through our work on the HNS Social Media Team for the Historical Novelist Society. She is a bestselling author of medieval historical thrillers and has always been very generous with her time and encouragement of other writers. I first approached E.M Powell to participate in a genre discussion about how historical fiction and historical romance often co-mingle in works not typically considered romantic. The result is this wonderful guest post about understanding one’s…

NaNoWriMo from the other side

The first time that I completed NaNoWriMo (short for National Novel Writing Month) I did it backwards. I did in fact write the required 50,000 words that month, but by backwards, I mean that I wrote the last part of the novel, which became Traitor’s Knot. The prevailing goal (or at least the approach that NaNo diehards subscribed to) is that you have to start a new novel, not finish it. That year was a frantic race to the finish line and it felt good to get there! The next year, I decided to try it properly–start a new novel. I had…