This will be my last blog.  It’s time to start a new novel – which I promised myself I would do months ago.  I have a few more weeks to finish biographies on Jefferson, Napoleon, and the memoir on writing and publishing recently published by Gail Godwin, one of my favorite novelists.  Then, I will make a storyboard, outline a few scenes, and start typing.

It took me nine months to write a first draft for The Excellent Advice of a Few Famous Painters.  I hope that’s the schedule I’m looking at for this novel.   The story has been floating around in my head for about six months now and it will be very different from Excellent.  No art.  No Matisse.  Something softer.  Perhaps.

I will miss writing the blog.  I usually wrote them early morn on weekdays and coming up with the ideas was as much fun as writing because after all, I am my best audience.

And so, Dear Readers. . .

. . . a hiatus.