La Divine Emilie
June 25, 2009: The day before yesterday I visited the chateau where I set the epilogue of my novel-in-progress. I walked around saying to myself, "this is Delphine's house," and "this is Lili's room," even though the two main characters in THE LAWS OF MOTION are fictional creations. To me, the fact that a very real and very frightened Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette stopped at Etoges on their failed attempt to flee Versailles has less resonance than Lili and Delphine's footsteps in the worn depressions of the marble stairs and the echoes of their voices in the salon. (Read More...)

Getting It Right, With Lots of Surprises
June 22, 2009: Best of all was the moment when I saw the game room inside the chateau and discovered, to my astonishment and delight, a table and two chairs set up for the popular game of trictrac--just like a scene in the book where my protagonist, Lili, gets the better of a young man she dislikes. Sometimes it's all so real it stops you dead in your tracks! (Read More...)