Every book starts with a question. Sometimes it’s big: what happens when the past catches up with you? How far would you go to protect the truth? But sometimes it’s... different. More like: What’s the best musical instrument case to hide a body in? These are the...
How many of you saw “necessary evil” in the subject line and thought this would be another A.I. rant? Wrong! I’m onto social media now. Years ago, my publicist audited my social-media presence, because that’s a thing. What I was doing right, what needed work, what was...
(Note: This following is best read in the internal voice of an angry old man yelling at kids skateboarding in his driveway.) Goddamnit. A.I. is taking over the world and I hate it. I hate A.I. because, by and large, it makes life easier, and things that are easy don’t...
Hoo, boy. To say I’ve been surprised with the success of Tell Me What You Did is an understatement. It spent about a week as the #1 paperback (of all fiction and non-fiction) on Barnes & Noble and is currently #5 on B&N and in its fifth week on...
First things first: my Halloween theme this year is pirates. Usually my October newsletter is all about my Halloween theme, but I’m running late this year and it’s not even in good-enough shape to take pictures of my decorating progress. If I get some good...
So I’m interviewing Kyle Prue at an event later this month, and he’s written a book called How To Piss off Men. It’s a collection of a bunch of one-liners you can use to upset your special guy. Made me start thinking, what pisses me off? Not too...
People are always surprised when they find out book titles are often not the title the author used. Looking back, my publisher changed the title of five of my nine books. And that’s okay! I’ve long since learned not to get attached to my working title, and often I’ll...
Think of all the ways to spread an idea and you'll probably get a consensus that one of the most difficult ways is to write a novel. To express through character, emotion, and story that big idea you have. So many people tell me they've always wanted to write a book....
I did a talk and book signing last weekend at a charity event, and the organizers had five of my eight novels available for sale. During the signing, readers would scan the available titles and inevitably pose this question to me: "Which of these books is your...
A book comes alive in editing. Unfortunately, editing sucks.Editing is the time where you have face hard truths about your book, and as tempting as it is to tell yourself, ah, it's fine, the reality is without putting in serious post-first-draft work, your book will...
