I must admit, every one of my works-in-progress has a theme that can be answered by the following question: What is the most optimistic conclusion to <insert name of political issue>? It’s been a stretch, let me tell you. But I think I’ve come up with some really compelling ideas. And of course, they all […]
My latest two books were a personal exploration for me. Loosely based on my real-life adventures, I decided to write happy endings to stories that weren’t over yet or ended poorly. It’s been therapeutic, and in real life, of course, our stories don’t really end. Even when we die, the people around us live on […]
I remember hearing, in high school, that kids who read fiction are better able to empathize with others. That was the first time my mind was blown away by the power of reading. The second time was during the recent US Presidential election. I hadn’t considered that Trump would become President, and that “the things […]
OK, I’m pretty good at stringing a story together. Good enough that I don’t think that hiring ghost writers is my next step to success. However, as I’ve been hacking away at this for the past few months I’ve come to realize that the cover for Remember This Moment was simply not sexy enough. Additionally, […]
I swear, I have chosen the best new career. I’ve never been so welcomed into a community, especially one that’s so much fun. Here are the top five things I love about being a romance writer (in no particular order) 1- My colleagues are all insanely helpful and genuinely NICE PEOPLE. I’ve never seen a […]
I recently asked members of 14 Facebook Groups for Authors the following question: The number one reason I unsubscribe from writer’s newsletters is negative email headlines like “Stop procrastinating” and “Finally, you can finish your novel” and “10 tips to focus better and finish in 2016” Why so many negative assumptions all the time? I […]
The more I write, the more I seem to think of. Last night, I was overcome with this idea for Confessions of a Teenage Mindreader. It’s a bit off-genre for me, and I’m not sure I have the entire thing worked out but my own teenage and tween children were wanting to read something I’d […]
Like confess that maybe the story they just told was probably not Grapes Of Wrath caliber. I’m sort of new to fiction but I’ve been writing nonfiction professionally for nearly 16 years. At first I wondered “How different can it be?” Even nonfiction articles and books need to have a logical beginning, middle and end. […]
Several years ago I had a conversation with some of my ex husband’s friends’ wives about an ebook I had purchased about writing romance. I knew these gals from a church function we used to attend, an annual picnic. One of them (lady #1) started writing romance right away, another one (lady #2) thought about […]
When I was a kid my grandfather used to tease my Grandma about reading smut. She had thousands of those bodice-ripping romance novels all over the house. I never got into them but I always wondered what they were like. Grandma got pretty annoyed… dare I say… flustered… when she was interrupted. Grandma’s smut was […]
