Pen to Pen: Liv Rancourt on Plotting and Character Motivation for Novelists

I’m thrilled to welcome Liv Rancourt back to my blog in this installment of Pen to Pen, a series of guest posts by authors about all aspects of writing. Here, she talks about plotting versus pantsing—that is, do you plan your story ahead of time, or discover what will happen as you write? …Read more

The Quick & Dirty Guide to Exporting Your Books from Pronoun

Here’s my quick-and-dirty guide to the essential information you should download from Pronoun before the site ends distribution on January 15. (Previously, MacMillan had promised to keep account information accessible through February 15, but I can no longer find this promise on its site. So stop whatever you’re doing and DOWNLOAD YOUR STUFF NOW.) …Read more

Studying Penis Bones at the Smithsonian

red fox (vulpes vulpes) skeleton at Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History

I got to visit one of my favorite exhibits at one of my favorite museums this week: Bone Hall at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History. And what better to focus on this trip than the baculum, aka the penis bone, an actual bone that appears in the penises of many actual animals—just not in humans. …Read more