Straight talk from the sisters about blood, sweat and ink
Nancy Drew had a huge influence on my growth as a young woman, and something I’d totally overlooked until recently. A number of powerful and successful women have cited her as a role model, and in the 1950s, something we sorely needed. I can show you excerpts from Home Economics text books encouraging us to …
Continue reading “The Secret Ghosts of Nancy Drew”
Gothic literature is delicious and deadly and lately I’ve been thinking a lot about it. It’s a literary form most people either love or hate. I fall in the love-it camp and I’m always hunting for great examples. I enjoy the old masters and finding new writers who rework the old tropes in fresh ways. …
Continue reading “Tips for Releasing Your Inner Poe”
I have a dear friend and wonderful writer and critique partner who has changed all characters’ names in her WIP multiple times. All except for the real, historical people–thank goodness. Bless her heart. I am confused sometimes trying to remember if it’s George or Jim or somebody else this week. It has to be hard …
Continue reading “Twenty Ways (and More) to Name or Not Name Your Characters”
I read the first book of The Hunger Games series when it came out six years ago. Then I read the next one when it was released. Before the third and final book of the series arrived, I pre-ordered the box set. And put it on my shelf. For years. It’s not that I didn’t …
Continue reading “Reading for Writers 101: Is Your Story Ending ‘Right’?”
Mysteries were my first love. As a kid, I read every single Nancy Drew book in the library. Then I moved on to supernatural mysteries by Lois Duncan. I read and read and read – murder mysteries, romance mysteries, fantasy mysteries, sci-fi mysteries, action adventure mysteries – any story that was a puzzle for me …
Continue reading “What We’re Reading: July is for Mysteries”
Biographies have always fascinated me. I love to read and hear how others become successful, what motivates them, yadda yadda yadda. It’s the human interest part of me that wants to scoop this stuff up, not from People or OK Magazine, or, God forbid, the National Enquirer (not that there’s anything wrong with them), but …
Continue reading “Failure Is An Option”
As an educator for forty years, I heard many teachers complain that the kids weren’t the same any more. They had short attention spans, and if you weren’t “entertaining” them you’d lose them. Many blamed television and video games and of course there was the generally agreed upon lack of respect for authority. The kids …
Continue reading “A Lesson From Mary Poppins: Dosing Out Description”
Love it or hate it, the new Amazon Kindle Unlimited just made it easier for avid readers to sample a huge number of books while paying a fraction of the total cover price. The new program will give subscribers access to over 600,000 titles, many of them Indies, but also some big name authors. …
Continue reading “Could Your Book Make the 10% Mark?”
I was on a panel at this year’s Public Safety Writers Association Conference talking about issues and challenges in writing a series. As a member of the panel, I didn’t get to fully expound on any one question and, in fact, was not asked to respond to every question. There’s only so much time. As …
Continue reading “Series Writing: Not Just One Foot after the Other”
We all get tips from well-meaning people who truly believe the wisdom they’re imparting. The most common writer advice I hear is this: You don’t need a detailed outline. Don’t revise mid-draft; just write. It’s okay if your first draft sucks. This advice works for a lot of people, but if this isn’t your process …
Continue reading “Common Writer Advice Revised”