What was a minstrel? What role did they have in medieval society? What type of music did they play? Here is a brief overview. The minstrel carvings in Beverley Minster are central to the plot in The Stonemason’s Secret. I’ve written about them before, but in this post I want to explore who the minstrels … Read more
Authors often use part of their life experiences in creating their novels. What elements from my life are woven into The Stonemason’s Secret? Quite a lot! This post is an answer to the question posed for the Open Book Blog Hop – what elements from your life are woven into your latest book? All posts … Read more
East Yorkshire is not as well known as other parts of England, but it is home to many medieval churches and sites. For The Stonemason’s Secret, I set the action in Beverley, York, and several East Yorkshire villages. I previously wrote about medieval buildings and sites in Beverley, so here is more information about the … Read more
Beverley is a town in East Yorkshire, England. Often overshadowed by York, 30 miles to the northwest, Beverley is home to a number of medieval buildings and sites. Beverley is also 10 miles south of where I lived in England. I visited quite often, volunteering at a charity shop, researching my thesis in the Minster … Read more
Research has changed in the 21st century. With the internet and an ever-expanding collection of online resources, the ability to learn about events, people, and places has never been easier. These changes were obvious when I began research for my novel, The Stonemason’s Secret. With degrees in history and art history, I want to be … Read more
Thinking of participating in NaNoWriMo? Below I share my experience of doing it for the first draft of The Stonemason’s Secret. What Is NaNoWriMo? NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month. The goal is for participants to write 50,000 words on their novel during the 30 days of November. That averages out to 1667 words … Read more
The Stonemason’s Secret, my forthcoming novel, follows the adventures of art historian Sarah Walker. While doing research for her dissertation, she discovers mysterious symbols carved on several of the minstrel figures in Beverley Minster. She has to find the clues, figure out how to read them, and recover the powerful Cup of Jamshid before the … Read more
“I’ll never write fiction,” I said. “I have no interest in writing fiction and besides, I have no ideas for stories.” This is what I told myself when I started writing two years ago. At the time I was drawn to personal essays, to telling my stories. I wrote and I wrote, pages and pages … Read more
After the thrill of printing off the first draft, I took a couple of days off then began a read-through. The idea was to sit back and catch the big things – where the plot didn’t make sense, information that needed to be added in, things like that. But I kept seeing, and marking, misspelled … Read more