I remember thinking about New England when I set out to write my 2018 thriller Mister Tender's Girl. I don't outline so I didn't yet know the plot of the book, but I'd decided the entirety of the story would take place over the two weeks leading up to Halloween....
I have eight books published, and they are all standalone thrillers. By standalone, I mean none of my books is part of a series (though The New Neighbor and The Dead Husband have very direct ties to one another.) In case you haven't noticed, series...
Do writers socialize? Hell yeah we do!Writing seems like such as solitary thing. There's the image of the novelist walking in the snowy woods to the single-room cabin, outfitted with only an ancient typewriter, a fireplace, an endless supply of coffee, and, of course,...
Every now and then I'll get asked about writing the opening lines to my novels. How long do you toil over each of those words, making sure they're perfect? How often did you go back and change that first sentence? And how did you decide on the first line of The New...
By "crossing over," I'm not talking about shuffling off this mortal coil. This crossing over refers to my upcoming thriller, The New Neighbor (and if you haven't yet pre-ordered, what are you waiting for? You can buy it here. OK, no more of that).The...
Authors HATE self-promotion. They despise posting book photos with links to pre-order, loathe telling you about good reviews, and cringe announcing the deal the publisher is running. Most authors are happy with their laptops, sitting in their little writing room,...
Welcome to 2022! I hope that any holidays you may have celebrated were joyous and virus-free and you're looking at this new year with hope and optimism. I'm trying my best, despite the swirling and roiling omicron shitstorm engulfing us.Still, I'm excited for 2022 for...
I’ve recorded about forty episodes of my conversation series Making It Up, and I find it fascinating how different each writer is. Rarely do any two of my interviewees share the exact same writing habits and routines, roads to publication, or approaches to style. Yet...
Screw outlining.That’s easy for me to say, because I suck at it. Sure, I had tried outlining very early on in my career, but never in earnest. So after I'd written a few books, I decided to give it a serious go—notecards and everything. I spent nearly six months...
After years of writing my musings I decided to do something a little different this month. Audiobook musings! Same great content, but now I get to ramble on with a microphone instead of a keyboard. I discuss my experiences with my new conversation series Making It Up,...
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