Yes, I forgot I needed to post a blog today. Well, I didn’t completely forget. I remembered last night but I was too tired to write it. I’m up early every day, so I thought, no problem. Right? Wrong. My daughter has cheerleading practice at 7 am on Thursdays and I found myself rushing around to get her ready, then everyone was up and I had no computer to use. Tomorrow SEE NO EVIL is due to my editor. I have about 40-50 more pages to write. I’m not totally stressed because I spent this morning cleaning up a bunch… Read More

A friend of mine very close to publication asked a question on one of my writers loops about her opening chapter. A friend who had read it thought the first chapter was too slow. She said that she set up the heroine’s “ordinary world” ala Vogler (and everyone here knows how much I love Vogler!) but wanted to ask people what they felt about slower openings. I don’t have an answer to how slow or fast the opening should be. It depends on the story. BUT we all know that the first five pages are the most important in pulling… Read More

Okay, I’m stealing my villain post to brag about my new covers. They are fabulous. I love them. I love them more than my first trilogy. They are rich and bold and dark. What do you think? Can you see why I love them? Do they make you want to pick the book off the shelf? If a reader picks your book up, they have a fifty percent chance of buying it. (Next week I’m going to talk about back cover blurbs . . . unless I get sidetracked.) They’re much better with the foil and embossing. When my agent… Read More

I am absolutely tickled to announce that Roxanne St. Claire will be our guest blogger on Thursday, August 24th, while I’m on the bus tour. (you can read details about the tour on my own blog, here.) First of all, she has a really cool website so check it out. Second, she’s gorgeous, but we won’t hold that against her. (After all, we haven’t plotted Jennifer’s demise even after seeing what a knock-out she is in a red dress.) But more than her physical and on-line appearance, Roxanne writes hot, sexy and fun romantic suspense. My mom is a huge… Read More

I was going to blog about who would play the villains should any of my books be made into a movie, but unfortunately, I don’t have time to put it together. I’m on a roll with revisions for SPEAK NO EVIL and I don’t have time to put the post together that I want to do, with all the cool pictures and stuff 🙂 So my blog is about what’s on my mind today . . . mush. Seriously, revisions. And mush, because I’m so deep into this story I feel kind of like oatmeal. I did a first set… Read More

What writer doesn’t want their book made into a movie? And I’m not talking a made-for-television mini-series or two-hour special, but a full-blown, big screen, multi-million dollar blockbuster. I like to dream. No, I don’t have a movie deal but I can’t help but think about who I’d like to see play my characters. I’ll admit, I’m not a movie nut. Most of the movies I watch are either pretty ancient or blockbusters. I love black-and-white, but I don’t think Cary Grant will be able to play Quinn Peterson in THE HUNT or Ingrid Bergman playing Olivia St. Martin in… Read More

I had a bunch of ideas to blog about. I could recap RWA, but that’s now old news. I was considering writing an open letter to International Thriller Writers about the importance of NOT scheduling their conference for the same week as RWA, but I decided to make that a private letter so only one person gets mad at me instead of hundreds. And I already lost that battle . . . So, as I do when I’m drinking my morning coffee (before the brain cells start communicating with each other), I surfed around a bunch of blogs I’d missed… Read More

There’s a discussion over at Robert Gregory Browne’s blog about book trailers. This is a subject near and dear to my heart because I did flash trailers for each book in my trilogy. I picked flash because it loads fast, I can intro my website with it . . . but viewers can also click the “skip trailer” button. They’re short and sweet, not longer than 30 seconds, and they give the meat of the story. But the video trailers are really cool, too. They have people and high quality images and generally quality production. But do book trailers really… Read More

I don’t rant much, at least in public. Even in private I tend to temper my comments because you never know what’s going to escape into the world. But. Even I have a pet peeve or two. There’s nothing about on-line etiquette I dislike more than people who pop in and out of email lists with a phrase that says something like, “I’m coming out of deep lurk with back-to-back deadlines to let you know I’ve sold yada yada” or “my book (insert title here) is on sale today.” Drive-by promotion? Poor etiquette? I don’t know, and I’m not judging… Read More

There are a few things I regret from my weekend at Thrillerfest . . . 1) I didn’t get to spend more time with Jake, Deb and Natalie, though at least Nat and I got a chance to talk some in the lobby our last night there. 2) I didn’t bring a camera. Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid . . . 3) That I didn’t buy Sandra Brown’s CHILL FACTOR when there were a gazillion copies available, waiting for my mom to call back to tell me whether she already had it (she doesn’t) and therefore missing an opportunity to not… Read More