I’m outgoing. An extrovert, you might say. I love talking with people, in person, on the phone, on-line–doesn’t matter. I need that human connection, especially now since as a full-time writer, I spend so much time in my head (which can be a very scary place!) I think book signings are a good thing, within reason. Like with all promotion, if it takes away from your writing time, you have to evaluate whether you’re getting a huge benefit from it. But if you can fit in a few signings, there are good reasons to do so. First, some definitions: LAUNCH… Read More

I’ve often said “Character is story” . . . don’t exactly remember who first said it, might have been Robert McKee. Robert Newton Peck said “Fiction Is Folks” and really, you don’t have to read his book of that title because that’s exactly what the book’s about. People. People make the story. People drive the story. People are the story. Things happen, but it’s how those characters act and react to the situation they’re in that makes us turn pages. The biggest and bestest plot might be enjoyable on the surface, but without characters it’s meaningless. My biggest pet peeve… Read More

My day starts at midnight when the littlest Brennan thinks he’s starving to death and wakes up screaming for a bottle. Of course, we need to do a diaper change because this little guy pees more than the first four kids put together. Now I go to bed. Wait, you ask, isn’t this the end of the day? No, I work on a 24 hour clock so 00:00 is the beginning of my day. I usually stay up until midnight anyway because of my monster child’s bizarre schedule, but I have been known to fall asleep at 9 p.m. on… Read More

More on book trailers later . . . (I’m writing an article for the RWR) . . . but in the meantime, enjoy my latest 30 second flash trailer for THE KILL.

I feel like I’m in Confession. I have to admit my deep, dark, scary secrets. I almost lied. I almost wrote about the second book I wrote, a pretty good attempt at a romantic suspense, because, well, it was SOOOO much better than the first book I wrote (though the second book is still not publishable.) But there are enough people out there who could catch me in the lie, so I decided to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Hot Latte. My heroine was a virgin. My hero was an alpha cop. (Please, please,… Read More

Periodically, discussions on writers loops come around to hooking an agent . . . or an editor . . . or a reader. The “high-concept” premise is thrown out as something to aspire to: explain your story in 25 words or less using ideas and images readily understood by the average buyer. But when it comes down to the actual book–and getting readers invested into the story–it’s the first couple pages that often make the difference. Sol Stein said in Stein on Writing: Some years ago I was involved in an informal study of the behavior of lunch-hour browsers in… Read More

I’ve always been an advocate for the underdog. Maybe that’s why I sympathize with my villains. My villains are evil. They are vicious and they hurt people for the sheer pleasure of inflicting pain on others. They are bad and they deserve to die for their crimes. But. I understand them. I see how they turned into a physical embodiment of evil. “Evil” is usually an adjective, to describe an action, but it can also be a noun. Evil kills. Evil maims. Evil does the dirty deed. People can become evil, and they are then responsible for their actions. Yet… Read More

If you haven’t been over to Tess Gerritsen’s blog this week, check out this must read post for all writers, published or unpublished. An excerpt: If you want to be a writer, get ready for editors telling you your manuscript isn’t good enough, critics telling you that your book is lousy, readers whining that they wasted twenty five bucks on your opus, the bloggers saying they’re appalled you got nominated for that award. There’s no way to avoid it. You’ll get rocks thrown at you, and you might as well prepare for it now by hitting your head against the… Read More

Over at Kristin Nelson‘s blog, she wrote about the state of the chick lit market Why would a suspense writer even care about the chick lit market? Because we’re sisters. Or brothers-in-arms. Or any other cliche you can think of. The truth is, chick lit today is where romantic suspense was 3-5 years ago. When chick lit first became really popular, maybe about three years ago, good writers who had a good manuscript were bought up in very nice deals across the board. Publishers were snatching up new authors right and left, and established writers with the right tone were… Read More

I’m a binge writer. I can write a lot of pages really fast, or nothing. With The Kill, for example, I wrote the first 140 pages in 2 weeks . . . then nothing for months. True, I had other things to do like revisions on The Hunt, but the beginning just rolled out, and then I was stuck in the coroner’s office, not knowing if my heroine should watch the autopsy or not. Seriously. You’d think I could just skip that part, right? That I could just write the scene that comes next and get back to it. Not!… Read More