I leave Thursday morning for the Writer’s Police Academy. I’m more than a little excited … I’ve been wanting to attend for the last few years, really since it began, but couldn’t make it fit into my schedule. This time they asked me to speak and I blocked off the week so I wouldn’t schedule anything. I’ll be missing my Anniversary, but it won’t be the first time … I’ll make it up to Dan when I get home. Two years ago I missed it because I was speaking to the New Zealand Romance Writers … and yeah, no way… Read More

Be the best you can be … the slogan sounds trite because we repeat it often enough, but when you really think about it, it’s deeper than most people think. Too often, we try to be the best. The best writer, the best mother, the best spouse, the best teacher, the best gamer. The pressure we put on ourselves to compete for the “best” slot is unbelievable. Or maybe that’s just me. I doubt it. I think we all put that pressure on ourselves at different time in our lives, or for different things in our life. Sometimes, I need… Read More

Today I’m blogging at Writerspace. I’m a bit contemplative this week. My 19 year old daughter is in Scotland for a month. She’s at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival through a program for Theater or English majors to see a series of plays (I think 18 plays in 2 weeks!) and then she’ll be spending a week in London on her own. Sort of on her own—she’s visiting her best friend, who is studying abroad for a semester. Kelly wanted to do this summer program to see if she, too, wanted to study abroad for an entire semester. But this is… Read More

Today is the day … Lucy Kincaid is back in BEST LAID PLANS, the 9th (can you believe it NINTH????) book in her series! Visit my webpage here for all the buy links for all your favorite vendors, from Amazon to BN to iBooks to indie stores! I’m very excited about this book … the last Lucy book was DEAD HEAT 14 months ago. So what’s been going on with Lucy?

Historical romance author Lavinia Kent and I wrote a series of weekly articles on the television series ARROW for USA Today’s “Happily Ever After” blog. (You can read them through the USA Today archive.) We started in the middle of season three, and plan to continue for season four. (As a side note, I’ll most likely also be writing about iZombie, my new favorite show!) The weak season 3 finale notwithstanding, I really love ARROW and it’s one of my favorite shows. This was really driven home to me this summer as I watched seasons 1 and 2 again with… Read More

I wanted to make sure you all knew about ways to get my books free books 🙂 Every month I run a contest through my website. Sign up for my newsletter using this form and you’ll be entered! This month I’m giving away a complete collection (to date!) of the Lucy Kincaid series — eight books! This is to celebrate the release of BEST LAID PLANS, the ninth Lucy Kincaid book. Even if you are already a newsletter subscriber, you can enter the contest every month. Enter here! And now through August 3rd, my publisher is giving away NOTORIOUS, the… Read More

Last month, Nora Roberts posted a blog entitled “Bite Me” where she took issue with two things and spoke her mind. I agree with every word she said. I posted the link on my Facebook page because I felt it was a valuable lesson in social media etiquette. The gist of the blog was about two things: 1) Readers who insult other readers 2) Who writers write for You can (and should) read the blog (it’s short) to get the backstory, but in summary, Nora’s assistant posted about Nora’s new trilogy on Nora’s Facebook page where, presumably, Nora’s readers go for… Read More

Ten years ago today was my last day working for the California State Legislature. Make no mistake, I used to love my job in the Legislature. I went in as a 22 year old idealist thinking I could affect change. Thirteen years later, I was cynical and bitchy. There are a lot of reasons for that, which I can’t get into without getting political. But even though I worked full-time in the Capitol, I still wrote. Because I loved writing. I’d been doing it my entire life, it seemed, but without a purpose or goal. It took me years before… Read More

I know the mass market paperback world very well. I’ve had 22 mass market originals released … not including novellas in anthologies. I write the book, I revise the book, it goes through an editor, a copy editor, and a proofreader or two, is printed the month before the release date, warehoused, and distributed. I’ve been fortunate that my publishers have, for the most part, been able to prevent too many sales prior to the on-sale date, which helps with opening week sales numbers, which helps with list placement. I understand the process and, even with the rapid and rabid… Read More

I have so many things to blog about … but no time to blog! Daughter finished up Winter Ball softball, now in soccer … son finished up football, now in basketball … I lost my extra drivers to college … and then of course WRITING! BOUCHERCON 2014 I attended by first Bouchercon! I had a panel and an impromptu panel (lead by Charlaine Harris and Sara Paretsky!) and I got to meet Sue Grafton (briefly — but it was worth it!) Isn’t she beautiful and gracious? And totally, completely “real” and unpretentious. I could write much more about the conference,… Read More