Every other Tuesday marks our new Murder HE Writes feature, starting on March 19th–we’re already booked with male thriller writers through May! I’m very excited about this new feature, because we all love our male counterparts. I could tell you who’s joining us … but I won’t 🙂 We’ll make it a surprise. So you get me (again) today, and I’m going to talk about books. Everyone here loves books, or you probably wouldn’t be reading our blog. Sure, many of us like television, and movies, and sewing, and cooking, and sports, and a host of other things, but the… Read More

Story is Character. That’s the famous quote from Robert McKee. Story is character. Character is story. Meaning, without character, you have no story. Your character drives the story, your character makes the reader invested in the story. Without a character the reader can relate to, at least on some level, or sympathize with, or care about, the reader will be dissatisfied. Yes, you can certainly write a fabulous bestseller without characters you care about (I can think of at least one thriller I read this year where I hated the characters and hated the ending, yet couldn’t put the book down),… Read More

Fellow romantic suspense author Shiloh Walker introduced me to Pinterest when it was still in its beta version and participants had to be issued and invitation. I don’t know whether to thank Shiloh or curse her! I go through social media “phases” where sometimes I’m more active on Twitter, sometimes on Facebook, but Pinterest is one of those places where I visit at least once a day and just enjoy the visual aesthetics. Maybe I like it because I’m a visual person. I don’t have a fraction of the followers on Pinterest as the other social media sites, but that… Read More

I write long. After twenty books, only five were less than 100,000 words (The Hunt, Tempting Evil, Kiss Me Kill Me, If I Should Die, Stalked) and those five books were between 95-98K. My longest book was Original Sin (125K) followed by Love Me To Death (122K) and Playing Dead (120K). When I average the word counts of all 20 books, I average 109K words/book. So when I think of stories, thinking “short” isn’t easy. I see stories as bigger than a single idea, filled with characters and actions and, well, stuff. However, I love reading short stories. I glommed… Read More

What is it about vigilantes, rogue cops, and superheroes that keep us captivated? This trend is nothing new, though over the last few years the vigilante-as-hero has been on the rise. I look back to Westerns as the rise of vigilante justice. When America was a new country and there wasn’t any real system in place to keep people safe. People were responsible for each other–families for their own, neighbors for their neighbors, towns for their towns. Someone comes onto your land to steal your cattle, shoot them. Someone rapes your wife, shoot him. Someone robs the bank? Hunt them… Read More

Five days until STALKED is finally out! It should be available wherever books are sold. I’m excited because every book feels like a gift. Like kids. Hard work, painful at times, but hugely rewarding. I’m currently writing a Lucy Kincaid novella, “Reckless,” which will be out in March. And I’m waiting for my editorial notes for the revisions of STOLEN, my 20th book. It’s also the first book that is mostly in the hero’s head. It’s Sean Rogan’s story, where his past affects his present and he has to make some very difficult choices. For me, writing the hero’s POV… Read More

It’s Toni’s day today, but she’s helping her brother Mike get settled. He’s been released from the hospital (yeah!) and she’s been working double time to make sure he has everything he needs to recover. I know she has a lot to share, so come back in two weeks for an update. AND continue sending Mike and Toni your prayers and positive thoughts. In the meantime … For those of you who have been following Murder She Writes for a few years, you know that I love television. I love television more than going to the movies. Sure, there are… Read More

Damn! I had this post written on MONDAY, three days before my blog day, and I totally forgot to post it. I’m sorry! I have a book due in three weeks and that’s making me tense – tense primarily because I’m not in the zone (writing without awareness of passing time) and I’m still in the “this sucks beyond everything imaginable” mode. I took 10 days off to work on the page proofs for STALKED and in the middle of that, took my daughter to college. Now, I’m back into writing STOLEN and hoping I can figure out why it’s… Read More

I had a great blog idea I thought up when I was at RWA … and I can’t remember what it was. I should have written it down. :/ And then, I KNEW today was my blog day, but then I forgot. I posted our two new bloggers this week (Deborah and B.J.) and I guess my mind convinced me that I’d already posted my blog. So I’m really sorry that I’m so late. By now, you’ve all heard about the RITA and GH winners, but if you haven’t you can read them here. I want to single out Darynda… Read More

First, I want to apologize to our loyal MSW readers for our Summer Slump. While we’ve been redesigning and reorganizing the blog, we have been neglecting it … that will change, just please have patience while we’re under construction! STALKED is done. I turned it into my editor on Tuesday and spent yesterday a complete vegetable, playing games with the kids and goofing off. Then I went to bed early — 10:30. That’s early for me, because I’m usually up until 2 in the morning. Today, it’s back to work! I’m editing a novella I wrote 6 years ago. Needless… Read More