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...
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...
This month my seventh novel will officially launch. Maybe "will be born" is a better phrase, considering how many of my titles have either had boy or girl in them. In this case, my publisher will be giving birth to a dead husband, and I'm not sure what kind of...
My end-of-year newsletter is usually a reflection of gratitude for the year. Then along came 2020 and spit globs of infectious goo in all of our faces, making this year's annual rite a bit challenging. Still, there were things in 2020 that didn't suck. In no...
I've killed. Countless times. I've shot, stabbed, tortured, burned, bludgeoned, and amputated. Hell, I've even crucified people. In my six published novels, many of my characters meet a bad end. In fact, one of the main reasons I don't write a series is I always want...
A couple weeks ago I turned 50 (on Bastille Day, for all you Francophiles out there). When I turned forty I had a big party and was planning to do the same for fifty but, you know, pandemic. I'm excited to be fifty. Excited to see what the decade brings, assuming we...
It's hot and I don't know what to write. I'm just sitting here with a blank screen, blurry eyes and fuzzy brain, and I suspect this shit is just gonna spill out without a lot of filter. It's hot and I'm tired, and it feels like I never fully wake up on certain days,...
Hello, folks. How are you? You getting through these very strange days with ease or with struggle? Likely both, I imagine. Have you been connecting more, reaching out to those you haven't talked to in awhile, just to ask them the simple question you okay? Me too. Over...
I pay attention when another author's book captivates my attention. I'll analyze the detail, pace, prose, and voice, and try to figure out what exactly it was that grabbed me. (Sometimes the opposite is true: I'll read a terrible book and obsess over how it became...
My publisher bought my book The Dead Girl in 2A in 2018, though when I sold it that wasn’t its title. My working title was The Orphan List, but my editor wanted a different name (this is very common) and she came up with the finalized version. The “girl” in the title...
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