Writing & Publishing
Mystery Writer Woes
“Know how your story will end before you begin to write it…think over various solutions to your character’s problem, remembering that she has to solve the mystery herself.” Joan Lowery Nixon Sounds good, Joan, but I’m clueless about how the mystery novel I’m trying to plot will end, or even what it’s about. So I…
Read MoreFrom Book to Blog
Killer, not filler, posts are the ones I strive for. That’s why only one or two posts make it into my blog most months. It takes tons of time to find a fitting topic, write a draft, let it set, edit it, and write and edit some more. As I often do when seeking a…
Read MoreAfter Birthing a Book Blues
Forty five years ago, in spite of shaking in my shy shoes beneath the bright lights shining on my high school stage, I enjoyed donning different identities and acting out bit parts in theater productions. But on the first morning after the last curtain call, the post-production blues invariably set in. The magic vanished, daily…
Read MoreBook Author Butterflies, Part 1
On May 7, eleven other writers and I took turns standing behind a podium in front of some fifty folks seated around tables in a large room. We read from our poems, short stories, novels or narratives for five minutes max. The excerpt my writer’s group had helped me select sizzled with suspense. In the…
Read MoreBook Author Butterflies, Part 2
“I’m reading an excerpt from Chapter 9 of Angel Hero.” I hoped my voice wasn’t shaking. “Dark clouds extinguished the starlight and spewed out rain as my borrowed Ford with bald tires skidded along an unlit stretch of highway. “Everything’s going to be fine,” I whispered, and chanted “Om” again and again. “A flash of…
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