Why I Have Not Been Blogging
<edit> <edit> <edit> <coffee> <edit> <rewrite> <rewrite> <tear out hair> <rewrite> <edit> <edit> <write new stuff> <write new stuff> <write fantastic new stuff> <run up and down hall shouting whoo-hoo!> <scare doggies> <edit> <edit> <edit> <coffee> <edit> <edit> <edit> <edit>……..
I Suppose This Means…
…we don’t get a walk today, Mama? I mean, it’s just a little snow. We like snow! Really! There are lots of good smells to smell under the snow. We won’t be cold. We have fur coats! Please, Mama? Please, just one little short walk? Pleeeeeeeaaseeeee….?
My Favorite Sporting Event…
…is Animal Planet’s Puppy Bowl!
It’s Duncan the Beagle for MVP (Most Valuable Puppy, of course) in Puppy Bowl VI, beginning at 3:00pm eastern time on Sunday. What Saints? What Colts?
Ferrara Live
Am immersing myself in sixteenth-century Ferrara. So much of the old city has been preserved—the medieval city walls, the Castello with its four massive towers, the magnificent Romanesque cathedral, the many palaces of the Este including the Palazzo dei Diamante, which today houses the National Picture Gallery, and the Palazzo Schifanoia with its incredible fifteenth-century frescoes. My Barbara would have known them all, walked their floors, touched their walls, breathed their air. It’s a daunting and delightful thought.
Sometimes I watch the various webcams of modern-day Ferrara.
Città di Ferrara, various webcam views
Today, for example, it’s clearly sunny and cold—the sky is blue behind the clouds but there is snow on the roofs and here and there in the streets. Much of my story takes place in December, January and February of 1565 and 1566, and I imagine the weather to have been similar. I imagine Barbara’s breath as a visible cold mist when she goes out into the city to pursue her secret plan…
The Second Duchess
Read the First Chapter
The Second Duchess is available on iBookstore!
