I am often asked where I get the ideas for my stories. The answer is “Anywhere.” I don’t just sit on the sofa and wait for inspiration to strike, however; I look for it wherever I go during the day, or in my environment when I am home. Things hit me at the craziest times.…
I committed to a writing career on my 40th birthday–May 27, 1999. I figured that, given the average lifespan of 80 or so years, I was about halfway done with my life, and if I was going to be a professional writer I had better be about it. Do the math. That was 19 years…
The point of NaNoWriMo is that you sit down and write without any editing for an entire month in order to generate 50,000 words. For my genre, contemporary romance (sub genre sweet romance–everybody keeps their clothes on), this is almost an entire book. I use this method a lot when I am writing just to…
I am not very good at decorating. I can do okay with hanging a few pictures, matching bedspreads and wall paint, even picking out wallpaper on occasion, but when it came down to it, we hired decorators–formerly Main Street Interiors, now Black Dog Design House–and they were awesome. I’m afraid they’d be a little disappointed…
It looms menacingly over me, its shadow blocking out the light of satisfaction and contentment. No matter how much time and effort I feed it, it voraciously demands more, consuming my thoughts even when I am committed to other occupations. It teases. It threatens. It cajoles. It is my synopsis. I have finished Maisie’s…
I always worry that my novels are too short. Soul Lost is my longest at 81,000 words, but Megan is much shorter, only 47,000. A book that has not yet seen the light of day, The People of the Green Hills, is more epic in my mind, but on paper it is only 67,000 words.…
I love to edit. I love it so much that you would be right to ask why I am not an English teacher. That is another question for another time. But deep editing a manuscript is like putting together the pieces of a puzzle to make the whole, beautiful picture. Any misplaced comma or misspelled…
