I’m putting together my workshops to pitch to RWA National, and one of them is on pacing. Well, I think it’s going to be on pacing. Roxanne St. Claire and I were talking about doing a workshop together in San Francisco (the next RWA conference) and were flirting with the idea of romantic suspense. She writes very emotional, sexy, romancy-romantic suspense and I write darker, more suspency romantic suspense. We write completely different in tone and style, yet we both write romantic suspense. So we were playing with that, doing a workshop and the breadth and depth of the RS… Read More

A couple weeks ago I asked a question of the guest author on the “Ask the Author All” loop. First: EVERYONE who has a good online workshop should donate a week of their time to the fabulous AAA-ALL or AAA-PRO loops. They are valuable to so many writers, particularly those who might not have the extra money for a plethora of online classes. I’m not going to give the responses verbatim because that would be against the rules. And, even though I was critical of the answer I received, most of the author’s advice was fantastic. My question was essentially:… Read More

Last weekend I spoke to the local Sisters In Crime chapter and sat between two unpublished writers. The first has been revising endlessly the same book. Over and over and over. Especially the first few chapters. The second has written seventeen complete manuscript and has yet to send one out to an agent or editor. Seventeen! This week I’m going to talk about killing your manuscript, so it’s addressed more to the first writer. Next week I’ll talk about fear of failure and fear of success. Right now, I’m revising KILLING FEAR, my February 08 release. This is Will Hooper’s… Read More

I have several workshops I’ve developed, but hands down my favorite is NO PLOTTERS ALLOWED. Okay, I love the title. It says it all, doesn’t it? The workshop is for everyone. It’s subtitled: Solutions to writer’s block for those who can’t, won’t or don’t plot. But that doesn’t mean that plotters can’t benefit from some of the ideas. Last week I talked about the War of Art and how I’m incorporating some of Pressfield’s ideas into my workshop. This week I thought, based on Toni’s comment on Nat’s Tuesday blog, I’d talk about PLOTTING. Everyone plots. It’s just, do you… Read More

I’ll be down in Jennifer Apodaca’s neck of the woods this weekend speaking to the Orange County Romance Writers of America about Breaking Rules. One of my favorite subjects! I can see hints of my rule breaking future in my past. While I was pretty much a good kid, a straight-A student, I usually found the easiest way to do anything. For example, I really didn’t like to do homework, especially at home. Because I was smart, I usually finished my homework in class while the teacher was talking. Surreptitiously. Or five minutes before class I’d whip out the 20… Read More

Over at Backspace, a writers community I belong to, a member started a conversation about chapter endings and beginnings. I’ve followed it closely because in reading the thread I realized a lot about my own endings and beginnings. You might think that’s backwards–endings and beginnings–but in fact that’s exactly right. Why? Because the first sentence, paragraph or two–your hook, what you open your book with–is more important than any other beginning so I consider that separate. It should be crafted with the purpose of enticing the reader to keep reading. Sol Stein, a famous literary attorney, said that he and… Read More

Some writers can write scenes out of order, then put all these odd scenes into some semblance of sanity and have a completed book. Some people write the ending first. Or they see a scene in the middle of the book and write that, then go back to the beginning. Me? I write linearly. I go from Point A to Point B to Point C, etc. Or I should say, Chapter One, Two, Three, Four . . . Two examples to share. First, in SPEAK NO EVIL I thought I saw the ending. I was getting near deadline and I… Read More

Thanks to my friend Edie for the information that it takes 30 days to develop a habit. That’s great information to have . . . and I think it’s very true. Samuel Johnson said: The chains of habit are generally too small to be felt until they are too strong to be broken. Truer words were never spoken. Consider bad habits. How hard it is for people to quit smoking. To stop drug use. To stop biting their nails. But this goes true for good habits as well. Take brushing your teeth. When you form that habit early, the one… Read More

Stephen King thinks flashbacks are weak writing. (Oh, and speaking of King, he’s the recipient of the 2007 Grand Master award from Mystery Writers of America. Read more on my blog here.) When I read that, in his book ON WRITING, I was hurt. Why? Because I had just written THE HUNT and I’d included lots and lots of flashbacks. I didn’t want to think that I was a weak writer relying on worn plot devices to tell my story. Then I thought about the story, my story, and realized that using flashbacks made the book better, the story stronger… Read More

To prologue or not to prologue, that is the question . . . How many of you have entered contests and been told by one or more judges that you “can’t” or “shouldn’t” have a prologue? (raising hand) Do you like prologues? Dislike them? Are neutral? How many of you skip prologues altogether? When I first heard that some people skip prologues, I was shocked. That’s like *gasp* reading the end of the book first. Or skipping chapter seventeen just because you don’t like the number seventeen. Prologues have a purpose. Or they should. I never took the debate about… Read More