What a laptop can't do: Why a notebook is essential to my storytelling life, a guest post from Ginny Kubitz Moyer

In today's essay, historical fiction author Ginny Kubitz Moyer explores the benefits and pleasures of writing down her thoughts longhand.  My thanks to Ginny for contributing her post!

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What a Laptop Can't Do: Why a Notebook is Essential to My Storytelling Life

Ginny Kubitz Moyer

More than thirty years ago, as a college student visiting London, I was thrilled to see the handwritten draft of Virginia Woolf’s novel Mrs. Dalloway on display. It was fascinating to see how Woolf had crossed out certain words and written others above them, trying out various options before settling on the right one. As I left the exhibit, it struck me that with the advent of personal computers, writing a first draft has changed dramatically. A sleek font now stands in for an author’s penmanship, and a delete button has erased the need for a handwritten strikethrough. I remember feeling a certain romantic nostalgia for the old days, when a notebook and pencil were the primary materials of an author’s toolkit.

Back then, I didn’t know that I’d end up being a novelist myself. I didn’t know that I’d depend upon a laptop to write my stories, that I’d be lost without its ease and convenience. But I also didn’t know that in addition to my trusty Mac, I would always—always!—have a notebook and pencil at the ready.

Although I don’t use it for drafting my novels, a notebook—specifically, one of those composition books with the speckled covers—is an essential part of my writing life. It’s a safe space dedicated to play, exploration, and writing without pressure. It’s the low-stakes laboratory where I can mix words and see what results.

For one thing, the notebook is where I warm up at the start of the writing day. In her famous guide The Artist’s Way, Julia Cameron recommends a daily practice of three longhand “morning pages” to clear the air. I don’t always do three pages, but I do find it valuable to scribble a description of what the day is like, what I see out of my window, what’s in my thoughts. It’s a helpful transition from morning coffee into a creative frame of mind.

Notebooks are also where I figure out what will happen in my novels. This is essential, because one quirk of mine (shared by many authors) is that I cannot plot in advance. Try as I might, I can’t come up with a story idea in the abstract and draw up a scene outline before I begin. For better or worse, I have to write my way into it.

So I start with a general sense of who I think my main character will be. I’ll take a prompt from one of my writing books (usually something vague, like “write about a sunset”) and I’ll freewrite, with the character in mind. The more scenes I write, the more I get to know my protagonist and the setting. Other characters will appear in the freewrites, and conflicts too, and sometimes I’ll stumble upon insights that end up being the thematic heart of my story. It’s like being in a darkroom and watching a negative develop: from dim shadowy outlines, the details gradually emerge. Often it takes months of freewriting before I know the plot well enough to begin writing my first draft.

Sometimes I do this freewriting on my laptop for expediency’s sake, but more often I do it in my notebook. Writing by hand is liberating; the words don’t look perfect, so they don’t have to be perfect, not yet. When I’m fumbling my way into a new novel, I need to remove all expectation that it’ll be smooth and polished. Paper and pen are brilliant for that.

Pub. by She Writes Press, Dec. 2025

In the last few years, my notebooks have taken on another role as well: that of mood board or visual library. Because my genre is historical fiction, I’m constantly looking up clothing, interior design, and other images to spark my imagination. I have Pinterest boards for visuals that remind me of the time period or look like the characters, and that’s helpful, but not as helpful as having them before my eyes as I freewrite.

So a few years ago, it occurred to me that I could print out the pictures and paste them right into the notebooks. I love doing this, because it adds another layer of playfulness to my writing life. It’s fun to tap into my inner child by using scissors and glue, and once the images are there it’s like a little gift to turn the page and be greeted by a picture that I chose weeks before. (Sometimes, there’s an almost spooky connection between words and images: once I was writing about a character on a hill looking over the horizon, and turned the page to find a picture of a young girl standing on the top of a peak!)

I’ve got over twenty notebooks by now, and while they do take up a fair amount of bookshelf space, I can’t imagine my writing life without them. For something so modest and unassuming, those notebooks are precious. In that safe space between the speckled covers, anything can happen … and that’s the magic of being an author, in any generation.

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Ginny Kubitz Moyer is the author of the novels The Seeing Garden and A Golden Life (named one of Kirkus Reviews’ Best Indie Books of 2024). Her upcoming novel, The World at Home, is published in December 2025. She lives with her family in the San Francisco Bay Area. You can learn more at www.ginnymoyer.org.

The historical fiction cover art trend I wouldn't have predicted

When you think historical fiction, the color neon pink doesn't immediately spring to mind.  (Or green, purple, blue, or yellow.)  But there's no denying that the lettering on these novels makes a statement.  Their covers juxtapose historical images with electrically bright typefaces.

This design trend was noted in Elisabeth Egan's New York Times article (gift link) from June 21st, where the images were described as "the new signifiers of stylish literary fiction."  Unlike the examples in the article, the 11 novels below aren't necessarily all literary, and they don't all use old paintings in the background. Some could be described as dark historical fantasy, and the obvious color contrast jolts the senses, preparing the reader for the gothic thrills to be found within. Many are forthcoming for 2026, and there are likely more covers of a similar style in the works.

An acclaimed historical nonfiction author (Light of Days) focuses her fiction debut on the interlinked stories of two Jewish women in inter-war Warsaw, a city of artistic achievement and rising antisemitism.  Dutton, April 2026.

This gothic reimagining of Sheridan Le Fanu's classic vampire novel Carmilla, an inspiration for Bram Stoker's Dracula, is a sapphic romance set in Victorian times. Zando, February 2025.

A "propulsive novel of feminist resistance and rage" moving between modern Los Angeles and 1970s New York, following three generations of women, including some that take the law into their own hands under the moniker "Lady X."  Ballantine, May 2026.

Loyalty, friendship, and violent competition flourish among the girl gangs of late 1950s London in this debut novel. Atlantic (UK), February 2025.  

19th-century Mormon Utah goes gothic in another debut in which a young woman comes to live with her husband and her fellow sister-wives in a haunted Salt Lake City mansion; the characters are reportedly inspired by the author's family history.  Kensington, March 2026.

A young woman of mixed Indian-English heritage with an unerring sense of taste becomes a poison-taster for a French nobleman in the late 19th century, and he could really use her help.  Also a debut novel.  Berkley, June 2026.

Second in the Charlie James series from Australian novelist Manning, this historical mystery has its reporter heroine looking into the odd disappearance of an American tourist in pre-WWII Paris. Vintage, July 2026.

From the bestselling author of Mexican Gothic: a seductive con artist encounters two women who complicate his treacherous plans in small-town Mexico in the 1940s.  Del Rey, July 2026.

In this twisty psychological thriller with an unreliable narrator, a young amnesiac at a psychiatric hospital in 1954 Virginia must decide whether to trust her dystopian visions of the future or the mental health treatment she's told she needs.  Henry Holt, August 2025.

Art, upscale crime, and the allure of wealth mix in this dual-time novel set in modern Paris and the world of Vincent van Gogh's sister-in-law, Jo, who secured his legacy.  Dutton, July 2026.

Literary fiction and sapphic romance set in the Dutch Golden Age, featuring painter Maria van Oosterwijck and her family's servant, Gerta, who became a still-life painter in her own right.  Zando, September 2025.

Inspector Ian Rutledge returns in the post-WWI mystery novella A Christmas Witness

Can a story be haunted and heartwarming at the same time? Just like the holiday classic that inspired it, Charles Todd makes this unlikely pairing work in his latest entry in the Ian Rutledge series.

In late 1921, Rutledge, Chief Inspector at Scotland Yard, gets asked by his superior to take on a case of the utmost sensitivity. Rutledge knows that as a single man with a recent promotion, work must take priority over a planned Christmas with family.

At his home in Kent, Lord Edward Braxton lies recovering after a head wound, claiming he was mown down by a horseman in foxhunting clothes who vanished right afterward. As a colonel in the Great War who served on the personal staff of Field Marshal Haig, a man nicknamed “the Butcher” for the millions of British casualties under his leadership, Braxton poses a challenge extending beyond his impatience and surliness.

As long-time series readers know, Rutledge suffers from PTSD in the form of night terrors and terrible guilt, embodied through the imagined voice of a soldier he was forced to execute for disobeying orders at the Somme. The oppressive shadow of WWI sits at the forefront of this series.

Following his investigation into the mysterious horseman, Rutledge begins wondering if Braxton’s injury affected his memory, but he can hardly ask him that. He senses that Braxton’s devoted wife, Louisa, is hiding something, too.

Rutledge is a methodical observer of his environs, as exemplified by his fine eye for architecture and the step-by-step directions on how his Rolls Royce operates. While interesting from a historical perspective, all these descriptions do slow the pacing down, and suspense is negligible.

Those who read for ongoing character development should be pleased, however. The ending, reflecting the spirit of the season, provides new understandings for both Rutledge and others.

The novella A Christmas Witness was published by The Mysterious Press, an imprint at its new home of Penzler Publishers, in October, and I reviewed it for the Historical Novel Society.  This story can stand alone easily.

Charles Todd, formerly a longtime mother-son writing team, is now authoring his novels solo. Alison McMahan, writing for the Historical Novels Review in May, examined the writing, publishing, and legal complications that arose after the death of Charles's mother, Caroline, in her feature article "The Lost Writing Partner."

In Circle of Days, Ken Follett imagines the lives of the people who built Stonehenge

Follett brings his storytelling prowess to another epic about a marvel of human engineering, illustrating answers to the major questions (who, what, when, why, and how?) about the construction of Stonehenge. 

Pub. by Grand Central (US/Can), Oct. 2025

Circle of Days reflects his trademark style: easily digestible prose combined with a large cast of recognizable yet interesting characters. He keeps the plot spinning with the challenges that different groups face, from severe drought and famine to deep-rooted antagonism, though an immense cooperative effort is what gets the job done.

The time is around 2500 BCE. Seft, the inquisitive youngest son in a flint-mining family, has the ingenuity to put elaborate plans into action. His first goals involve extricating himself from his boorish, abusive father and brothers, and getting to know Neen, an attractive woman from the herder clan. Neen’s younger sister, Joia, has curiosity of her own, which leads her to spy on the priestesses who conduct the seasonal rites at the Monument. These events bring together everyone living around the Great Plain – herders, farmers, woodlanders, flint-miners – for holy purposes (sun-worshipping) and more secular ones (friendship, feasting, sex).

The priestesses hold knowledge about the calendar and mathematics, and they use the Monument and ancestral songs to track the days of the year. But, as Joia recognizes, the wooden circle of the Monument is susceptible to destruction, and so it proves. After becoming a priestess herself, this female visionary ponders her objective of rebuilding it in stone, with Seft as the brains behind the operation, but many obstacles lie ahead… ones that make even survival uncertain.

Follett emphasizes throughout how sophisticated the cultures of these long-ago peoples must have been, both technologically and in the customs of their daily lives. He also imparts a message, not intrusive but definitely there, about how societies that treat women poorly will eventually face a reckoning.

This review first appeared in the Historical Novels Review in November.

Also of note: archaeologist Mike Pitts, one of the consultants for Circle of Days (and whose own nonfiction book about Stonehenge inspired Follett), has an article up on his website about the latest research about the building of the legendary monument, which Follett incorporated into his story.

Voting is open for the the Goodreads Choice Awards for 2025

The first round for the 2025 Goodreads Choice Awards is open for voting through November 23rd.  The twenty nominees are as follows. Settings range from the 16th century through contemporary times.

This award has a broad umbrella for "historical fiction."  What Kind of Paradise takes place in the mid-1990s (I was in grad school then), Taylor Jenkins Reid's Atmosphere in the 1980s, and Good Dirt is mostly contemporary with some shorter historical segments. This doesn't agree with my definition, but I use the award as a bellwether of shifts within the industry.  It's true that I've seen novels set in the 1990s and even in the 2000s promoted as historical fiction.

Reid is a frequent winner of this award; likewise Kristin Hannah, but she doesn't have a historical out this year. Still, Atmosphere has serious competition from Claire Leslie Hall's Broken Country, which was a NYT bestseller and a Reese's Book Club pick. The former has the edge, but they were both rated on Goodreads over 300,000 times apiece.

I also noted the cover designs. It's a bright, multicolored assortment.  Compare these to the nominees from ten years ago, which were fairly muted.  Also, how many of the above covers say "historical fiction" to you?  Many could easily be mistaken for contemporary fiction. The "headless woman" trend we'd seen for so long has nearly vanished here.

Below are the first round picks for the general Fiction category.  I confess I'd checked out a few of them originally to see what they were about, since the covers looked appropriate for historical fiction (The Names, A Guardian and a Thief, The Wild Dark Shore in particular), then discovered they weren't. They still interest me, though.

What does it mean that historical fiction seems to be losing its distinctive look?  Readers who prefer to stay in genre will need to be more clued in to publisher blurbs, reviews, and other sources of buzz.  But the mainstreaming process we're seeing with their covers could also broaden their audience. I welcome your thoughts.

Review of Elinor Florence's Finding Flora, a #1 Canadian bestseller about a woman's pioneer homesteading life

For anyone wanting to lose themselves in a big-hearted historical novel, this is your book. The pace never flags from the first sentence, as Flora Craigie leaps from a train chugging past the darkened Alberta landscape in 1905, in a desperate attempt to escape the husband who turned violent after their recent marriage.

An emigrant from the Scottish Highlands, with the accent to prove it, Flora has few possessions save a small valise, identification papers, her savings, and “secret treasure” sewn into her petticoat. She also has inner know-how and gumption, and in this gorgeous yet harsh country, that counts for a lot.

At first, she catches a lucky break. In Canada, unlike the United States, most single women are disallowed from claiming homesteads, but Flora manages to purchase a land scrip coupon from a sympathetic female veteran. With no knowledge of farming, and condescension—if not outright hostility—from local men (and one snooty woman), Flora has a tough row to hoe.

She holds the reader’s sympathy as she struggles with breaking the land, planting crops, and surviving the intensely frigid winter alone in her small cabin. Her closest neighbors are, coincidentally, also female, all with interesting backstories: a Welsh coal miner’s widow with three children, two former Boston schoolteachers seeking a secluded life together, and an aloof Métis horse trainer.

More established settlers derisively call their small community “Ladyville.” Flora has doubts about their commonalities, though the five women reclaim the term as they help each other endure. Then Flora learns her husband is on her trail.

The author’s fluid narration moves along swiftly as it explores the rewards and difficulties of pioneer life on the Canadian prairie, but the descriptions of the land as it reawakens in green every spring are worth lingering over. This #1 Canadian fiction bestseller is joyously recommended.

Finding Flora was published by Simon & Schuster (trade paperback) in Canada and the US in April.  I reviewed it for the Historical Novel Society originally.  Elinor Florence is also the author of Wildwood, a multi-period novel set in Alberta during pioneer days and contemporary times, and Bird's Eye View, set during WWII. Both are, according to the author's website, sold out and will be reissued soon.

In remembrance of Christopher (C.W.) Gortner

I wanted to write a post about Christopher (C. W.) Gortner, who passed away suddenly on October 25th, 2025, to the shock and sorrow of the literary community. My friend Christopher was such a vibrant presence that the news has been hard to take in.

He had several specialties within historical fiction: the Tudor era and the Renaissance, the setting for multiple novels and a spy thriller series; and controversial real-life women, like Catherine de Medici, Isabella of Castile, and Coco Chanel. He delved into their motivations convincingly, exploring their inner lives with delicate skill.

Some readers mistook his insights into these women’s characters for full admiration of everything they did – not true – and it’s to his credit that he didn’t shy away from history’s moral complexities.

He spoke frankly about the craziness of the publishing industry, had no tolerance for snobs or injustice, and was the go-to person when you wanted to hear or share the latest gossip or snark (he could snark like no one else). He took on Facebook battles with panache and gallantly stepped in to defend his friends when they were attacked by online trolls.

Christopher had been a reader of this blog from its early days and stopped by here many times as a contributor and commenter. In 2006, when historical fiction was flourishing, he wrote an essay about what he called “histo-romance” and how it related to his publishing journey. He explored the backdrop to The Tudor Secret (a later edition of his debut) and the history and legend of Marlene Dietrich, and we did interviews for The Queen’s Vow, about Isabella of Castile, and The Confessions of Catherine de Medici.

Christopher first dropped into my inbox in 2004, as an up-and-coming author with a spy/adventure thriller (The Secret Lion) not yet printed. He was in search of future review venues and a community of like-minded souls. Before long, he went from joining a new community to creating and sustaining it, drawing other authors into his large circle of friends.  He soon got a mainstream publishing deal also.  He devoted time to participating in reader forums, because he was an avid reader, too.

On the surface, he and I may not have seemed much alike. He was confidently extroverted and a witty and effortless public speaker. It was typical for booksellers to run out of copies of his books after he spoke on panels. He also had more fashionable taste in shoes than me.

But we quickly built a shared interest in history and bookishness, trading honest takes on old and new novels and the publishing industry. We also had the same experience of having the Cat Distribution System working overtime at our respective houses; he adored the animals he rescued and was a fierce advocate for animal rights.

And about the shoes – they almost caused problems once. We had met up in Chicago for a past ALA Midwinter, where he had a book signing. After dinner, he accompanied me to an evening ALA event. We left the venue and emerged into one of the worst blizzards ever to hit the city, the snow arriving earlier than expected. A moment to laugh about later, but at the time, he, with his expensive footwear, looked aghast. Rather than our walking a few blocks to meet my husband at the hotel, we grabbed a cab, stat, and the shoes survived.

A favorite memory: at the Historical Novel Society conference in Schaumburg in 2009, we were chatting in the hotel lobby when a Publishers Weekly reporter stopped by. Christopher gave her a hilarious 40-second interview about getting into character while writing about Juana of Castile during her pregnancy.

No notes, no prep, perfectly timed – how did he do it?

He had exacting standards for his own writing and advocated for himself in an industry that often seems capricious and unfair. As any author knows, the business of writing can be all-consuming, and there were days if not weeks when his work was the main topic of conversation… but he recognized this intense absorption and would joke about it.

On his Facebook page, he made a point of memorializing those who enriched his life: friends, colleagues, designers, movie stars.  Given his impact on the writing community, it's not surprising for so many people to be doing the same for him, though he left us much too soon. He is greatly missed.