My new adult thriller, AND THEN HE, went up for sale on Amazon on Thursday. PRESS ME To Buy AND THEN HE It's exciting to watch my sales rise as more people buy my book. It'll be even better when they rate AND THEN HE and leave a comment. (OR worse, but let's be optimistic, shall we?) I'm also hosting AND THEN HE Book Launch Happy Hour, and by the way, YOU, yep YOU, are invited and so are all your friends. PRESS ME FOR PARTY INFO , I'm ready to move on to the next project--I'm always thinking about the next project and the project after that, and so on, and so forth. My creative process resembles something like this: And 1. INSPIRATION An idea, a dream, a vision, or an image pops into my head. I might be talking to a friend, I might be at one of my kids events, I might be sleeping (that happens often), or I might be working on one or two other projects, when suddenly my eyes glaze ov...
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What does World Cup Soccer and Writing have to do with each other? On the surface, not much, but I wondered aloud what I should blog about and in my sports family, SOCCER rules. Hmm, that's interesting. Writing and Soccer? They ARE alike. We dodge passive voice like Renaldo dodges opponents. We shoot on goal. Agents block our queries like US Goalie Tim Howard blocks shots, but if we write and submit like Messi. We fire from our right foot. Recover the blocked shot with our left and fire again. And again. And again. Occasionally, with hard work and drive and a tenacious streak that won't quit, our relentless shots get through and score. We can write every day for hours at a time. We can read books from our genres and categories. We can network and tweet and Facebook. We can workshop our manuscripts. We can edit out every cliché and passive voice. We can remove the stiff dialogue. We can round our characters til the cows come home, b...
Every Writer follows an unspoken set of rules, at least if they are serious about writing. By serious, I mean they write EVERY day or nearly. Very rarely does a Writer take a day off. Even when they aren't writing, Writers play with their muse. Huh, what's a MUSE? A Person's Creative inspiration A Writer's brain is a crowded place. See what I mean when I talk about the voices in my head--I'm not joking. Logic dictates that when a Writer finishes her story, her characters pack up and leave. Well, that's a novel idea and WRONG. Your Lovies move to Penthouse and throw huge soirees with dozens of rowdy guests! At the end of the evening, these uninvited visitors pass out on your Persian rug and leave their empty cups and half eaten sandwiches all over the place. You kick them out, threatening them with life and limb, until you realize they lead pretty interesting lives. You weave a few threa...
Howdy folks! I've spend the last few years writing long works of fiction. With my schedule, most of my writing time is spent working on these projects. I live, breathe, and dream about Tiffany Watson and Jeb Rolles and Starr Bishop and Christian Evergood, but sometimes, I need a break from my reality. I also wanted to expand my writing horizon and start submitting short stories. I worked on a piece in September, stuck it in the file, and essentially forgot about it until SCBWI friend G.G. Silverman unveiled her new website back in November. Check her out: http://www.ggsilverman.com/blog/ And as I surfed her website, I happened upon her WOW First Place Story, The House of Butterflies. I reacted accordingly. "Wow, that's great for G.G., but what's WOW?" It's another one of those Writer Acronyms again, isn't it?!?! WOW : Women on Writing After reading her amazing story, I thought to myself, "Hmm, maybe I should enter that story I worked o...
In the mood for a little sugar and spice and everything not so nice? Well, I’ve got some favorites for you. This list is by no means exclusive or complete. Most NA authors are prolific and self publish, but NA grows with every heartbeat. Cora Carmack Losing It Colleen Hoover Finding Cinderella **Love, love and it’s free on KINDLE (or it was) Slammed, Hopeless Bella Forrest A Shade of Vampire Series Abbi Glimes ...
Spring Fever struck our household hard this week. Bicycles, t-shirts, and 3 feet of snow left. Not everyone's idea of spring, but in the Northeast, we take what we can get. As I clear away the Irish lace and the hibernating dust bunnies and my NA WIP draws to a close, I can’t decide what I want to work on next. What does WIP mean anyway? Writers throw around acronyms like everyone knows what we’re talking about. Sorry, it’s our ‘thing.’ (but FYI, writers tend to have lots of ‘things.’ ) WIP stands for Work In Progress. And to review, NA : New Adult YA: Young Adult MG : Middle Grade PB: Picture Book SCBWI : Society of Children Book Writers & Illustrators As I keep adding to my list, I realize I should add an Acronym Code Page. Hmm, another day. Spring is about clearing out the cobwebs. I house clean for a day, maybe two. Then the urge disappears until next year. But Writing, well, I could write all day, every...