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Into Draft 3: Finding a New Balance
It’s been a couple of months since I wrote about my work-in-progress. The good news is that Draft 2 is finished (and didn’t take as long as I thought it would). In Draft 2 I focused on addressing what I saw as the major problems in the manuscript. I worked through comments from my critique partners, filled a few plot holes, reworked one subplot, and spent a great deal of time strengthening the…
America at 250: Out of Many, One
Last Saturday was our nation’s 250th birthday. Along with many other people, I’ve been thinking about the question of who is an American. For me, the answer is simple—an American is anyone born here or who has been naturalized. Although my own family history in the U.S. stretches back for generations, I see no reason to limit citizenship to those with deep ancestral roots. We were all immigrants…
New Lenses: Seeing the World Differently
I wrote after my first cataract surgery about that experience. Later in June, I had the second cataract removed. I still haven’t had my eyes refracted so I can order new glasses, and I expected my distance vision to be poor at this stage. What I didn’t expect was how much my view of the world would change—at least temporarily. I mentioned in an earlier post that I got my first glasses when I was…
Denny Party: Through Mountains and Desert
By June 1851, the Denny Party had already traveled more than a thousand miles from their homes in Illinois. The excitement of beginning their journey west had given way to the daily realities of the Oregon Trail—dust, illness, exhaustion, and uncertainty about what lay ahead. Whooping cough continued to trouble two of the children in the party. In the 1850s, before vaccines and modern medical…
Treasured Time with Family Visitors
This past weekend, my son and his wife visited from Brooklyn, New York. They are very good about making the trip to see us, but their schedules only permit a couple of visits each year. I understand the challenge. When I lived in Kansas City and my parents lived in the Pacific Northwest, I couldn’t see them as often as we all would have liked. Even after I retired, it was hard to leave my home…
Living Between Two Worlds: One Cataract Gone
Last week, I had cataract surgery on my right eye. The left eye is scheduled for three weeks later. The morning after surgery, I discovered that the walls of our apartment are bright white—not yellowish white. I’d been told colors would seem brighter after cataract surgery, but I had scoffed. I thought the colors I saw were already vibrant. Apparently not. The procedure itself was quick and…
The Rain Falls Mainly on the Plain
My father used to tell me, “It never rains in the Pacific Northwest.” That was when he lived on the Olympic Peninsula, where mornings were often damp and gray. Yet by afternoon the sun frequently appeared. And even when it rained, it was usually drizzle—not the thunderstorms, downpours, and hailstorms I was accustomed to in Missouri. I’ve visited Seattle and other locations in Western…
The Denny Party: From the Missouri River Along the Platte
I’ve written before about emigrants crossing the Missouri River at Kanesville, Iowa (now Council Bluffs). The Denny party made that crossing on May 6, 1851. Earlier that spring, hundreds of emigrants crowded the riverbanks there, preparing to leave the settled East behind and begin the long journey west. The Dennys had already encountered hardship before they even reached the Missouri. Crossing…
My Thoughts on Finishing Another First Draft
This past week, I finished the first draft of my current work-in-progress. I began this book in August 2025, just after publishing A Life of Joy. That novel was the last in a seven-book series centered on the same families. By then, I knew most of my characters well—I had spent more than fifteen years with many of them. This new novel features an entirely new cast of characters, so my first task…
The Little Engine That Could (Redux)
One of the presents I gave my three-year-old granddaughter for her sister’s birthday earlier this month was a copy of The Little Engine That Could. I happened upon a Little Golden Book edition that used the same illustrations as the copy I had when I was in preschool, which made me feel like I was giving her a small piece of my own childhood. I wrote a few years ago about my mother reading The…
A Second Granddaughter’s First Birthday: More Icing on the Cake
As I’ve written before, when my daughter was born I thought she was the “icing on the cake” in my life. I already had a wonderful son. I would have been happy with another boy, but having a girl was “icing on the cake” because I wanted a daughter. That daughter grew up and now has children of her own—two girls. Her older daughter is three, and her younger turned one last week. For many years, I…
Jumping Off with the Denny Party in 1851
I’ve mentioned before that I’ve been researching the Denny party, who traveled from Illinois to Oregon in 1851. Once there, most of the group decided to continue north to Puget Sound, where they would eventually found Seattle. I decided to share some of my research about the Denny party in monthly blog posts this year. They left Cherry Grove, Illinois, in April 1851, and so this month I’ll…
On Taxes, Accountants, and Staying Too Long at Anything
I wrote last week that I had planned a post about taxes. It would have been more appropriate on April 15, but as I wrote, a friend’s death trumped taxes. Still, taxes must be paid, so here is my post. For twelve years, I stayed with the same accountant. That sentence, on its own, sounds like a testament to loyalty—a long-term relationship that worked well for both parties. But in truth, it was…
Sedulous Writers Group: Another Requiem
Nothing is certain but death and taxes. I was going to write about taxes for this April 15 post, but death trumps taxes. A good friend and writing partner, Beth Lyon Barnett, died last week at the age of 97. Beth and I met in 2008 through the Kansas City Writers Group, which has been active in the Kansas City area for many years. A sub-set of KCWG formed the Sedulous Writers Group nearly…
70th Birthday on Easter: Reminiscences and Anticipation
Eleven years ago, I wrote about my birthday falling on Easter for the first time ever. This past weekend, it happened again—only the second time in my life that the two have coincided. And this time, it marked a milestone—I turned seventy. The week of my sixtieth birthday, I wrote this about being in my fifties: I think I’ve learned in the past ten years that every decade has its ups and downs.…
A Visit to the Burke Museum
Cascades Rapids on the Columbia River: Then and Now