This week Berkeley Arcane, fifth book in my Braided Dimensions series, went to the editor. I discussed the value of writing acknowledgments with a writer friend. That discussion, about what to include, not just thanking those I feel were part of building the book, which is, let's be honest, more fun for those mentioned than for anyone else. We talked about sharing the process, how it came about, the ups and downs. That discussion led me pull my Author Corner notes from my newsletter over the past nine months to create a running journal. Here it is.
Aug 15 2025 Urban Intrigue
Contemplating writing Berkeley Arcane, Book 5 of the Braided Dimensions series, I wasn’t sure if I was up for the switch in flavor out of medieval magic. I didn’t know if it would bubble up as easily as the first books in the series. I’m finding the experience of writing this latest book awesome so far. Plenty of juicy ideas are emerging. I’ve started imagining how the medieval world will come into the story. I’m showing a close up of part of Berkeley Arcane’s cover here because I find the atmosphere utterly perfect. This corner depicts Galfride, enigmatic mage who has been both adversary and ally at times. The opening pages of the book are set in this very cafe, The Alchemy Collective, with him lurking in the shadows..
Sept 1 2025 Arcane Developments
The picture here shows another part of the cover.. You see one of the main characters, Rousseau, son of Kay. If you happen to download the Berkeley Arcane excerpt in this month’s BookFunnel promotions, you’ll start to get involved with Rousseau’s dilemmas. He’s cute, right? A human rights lawyer with unique abilities.
One of the ways ideas come to me is when I’m lying awake at night. I might wake at 3 am and, tired of worrying about work or family, set myself up in my latest scene, then imagine myself into what follows. I love to have that fuel ready for the next time I sit down to write. Of course, an idea might come when I’m driving, or waiting somewhere, or in the shower. The thing is to trust that an idea will build itself into the story. I love the alchemy of it, an organic process that often lights fireworks.
Oct 1 2025: Currently…
It’s quite interesting to step away from my sci fi series and return to writing my Braided Dimensions time travel series, with Berkeley Arcane. I live slightly farther south on the same coastline from where I was living when I wrote the first book in the series. So far, Berkeley Arcane’s setting is mostly the East Bay, a place I’ve lived for long stretches. I can pull up scenes from those cities—Berkeley, Oakland, Albany, Emeryville—easily in my mind, with layers of memory and meaning encoded. I’m enjoying placing Galfride and others in those familiar places. But I promise we get back to the medieval era a bit later in the book. Already, Baird has returned to the scene and is getting a taste of the twenty-first century, for better or worse.
Oct 15, 2025 Emerging Berkeley Arcane
Kay Halefin is about to teach again for the first time in a couple of years. If you’ve been following the Braided Dimensions series, you know what a big deal that is for her! I feel almost selfish having so much fun writing BD Book 5, seeing what emerges in the story each week. Not that the characters are always enjoying themselves. The plot has begun to weave into today’s world, and they’re learning some difficult truths about the course of events.. So far we’re not tied up in any medieval troubles as in the past novels in the series, but we know the past might be threatened by those discovering ways to go back in time.
Nov 1, 2025 BD / Urban Fantasy
The writing of my Braided Dimensions Book 5 has moved into some real world darkness. I took time this week to dive deep into research and it was hard to countenance the grim reality in many articles I found but I think it’s important. I went back through my chapters, embellishing from what I now know, giving details that build the emotional impact which will make what happens next more meaningful. This is my first foray into including current life truths but it’s something I’ve wanted to tackle. Don’t worry — there’s plenty of fantasy and medieval atmosphere ahead, which will be all the more powerful in contrast.
Feb 1 2026 Book Launch in July
Last week I made the decision to launch Berkeley Arcane, Book 5 of the Braided Dimensions series on July 18, 2026.
I chose this part of the cover this time because in Berkeley Arcane right now, Kay is with a shamaness of a thousand years ago on the tallest mountain in Norway. She could be contemplating spirit travel here.
Feb 15 2026 Berkeley Arcane
The manuscript is about three-fifths written.
March 15 2026 Interview
Here’s my recent interview with suspense writer Lisa Towles. It was fun to be asked about my books and process by someone who’s read some of them. Of course, afterward I was thinking of what I wished I’d added. For instance, Lisa commented that she could imagine writing fantasy fiction after working for seven years on a dissertation must have felt freeing. I said it was, yes, but it was more than that. I wanted to say that, in writing a dissertation for a PhD, I’d worked a muscle so hard, metaphorically speaking. A psychic muscie, I guess.. At the same time, I starting doing depth work, to survive the process. After all that, I felt strength to express my thoughts and ideas, to find that well inside me,. The competence felt different from before. Now it wasn’t just freeing; I could open to how characters felt, live their moments. There was new ease, new satisfaction, fulfillment, and thrill, to give characters life, in a way that can climbe into others’—readers—minds and live there, too. A wondrous process. I was freed but also married to something else, a well now accessible.
April 1, 2026: Dreams into Writing
Sometimes I have a sense that a dream has fed my writing, or that my writing and dreams are intertwined. I knew on Saturday evening what scene I wanted to work on on Sunday. My previous writing had been leading up to it. This is what I dreamed the next morning,
I’m trying to record a story that came to me. It’s real and I need to record it accurately. I go to type it into a sort of machine but every few seconds the machine erases everything. So I start hand writing on narrow papers stuck to the machine. Later I write it all over white boards in a classroom. Students are there so I say, “Let me photograph it before I erase it.” The real love interest in the story is a woman who comes through a white board.
When I did my writing that day as planned, it seemed my dream drove the first scenes, not as plot elements but in feeling,, adding an intensity.
April 15 2026: Launch Getting Closer!
My spring break is next week. I’m four fifths of the way through Berkeley Arcane. I’d say I’m in a nexus moment. I stand poised with so many threads in near collision, answers soon to be revealed. A number of main players have been drawn to a pub where Harper in the Glen is playing. What will happen there? How does this scene reveal secrets that have been building? I have some inklings. I’ve set things in motion that are about to culminate…
Watch for Berkeley Arcane to pre-order soon!
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