I’m not talking about Frankenstein or Catcher in the Rye, I’m talking about MY old books — books I wrote years ago and am now re-reading. Cringe. I have three side projects going right now. Yeah, I know. But I’m waiting on line edits for COMPULSION and what else do I do? Clean? Ha! The first is taking my first six books and digitally publishing outside of the North American market. I paid to have them scanned (because I don’t have the original edited files anymore — wonder how THAT happened!) and am proofreading them primarily for scanning and formatting… Read More

Yes, I’ve been out of the loop the past couple of weeks … book deadline, college trip with my daughter, novella I’m writing with Laura, my daughter’s 18th birthday, and just yesterday I received 11 pages of notes from my editor on COMPULSION (Max Revere #2). The good news is that she loves the book and the story — and the other good news is that I have lots of revisions! Yes, I love revisions. I can take a good story and make it the best it can be because of editorial input. Most of the notes are about specifics… Read More

It’s Tuesday, which means we’re touring Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois. I plan on blogging about our trip next week! I would have loved to have done a journal as we went, but I’m not bringing my laptop with me. Max Revere and Lucy Kincaid are distinctly different characters. I love it, because I don’t want to get bored with either one, but sometimes going from Max to Lucy and back again can be a challenge. Right now, I’m writing a novella for Hit and Run, book two of the Moreno and Hart Mystery Series I’m co-writing with Laura Griffin…. Read More

I love reading a series. It’s the same reason I prefer television to movies. I like revisiting my favorite characters, finding out what they’re doing, how they’re growing, how they’re going to solve the Next Big Crime. So when I had the opportunity to write the Lucy Kincaid series I jumped at it. I knew from the minute Lucy survived her ordeal in FEAR NO EVIL that I wanted her to be a series character. It wasn’t until I wrote CUTTING EDGE six books later that I started to think that Sean Rogan might be the best man for her…. Read More

I’m back home after my mini-tour. I blogged about that last week, and all-in-all, I think it was time well spent. Except for the writing part. Usually I can write when I travel, but that’s when I fly to a conference and am at the same hotel for five days straight. I set aside writing time on a schedule so I know I’ll always put in my hours — the time changes depending on what I need to do at the conference, but I usually work either four hours in the morning or four hours in the afternoon. This helps… Read More

I have a confession. Whenever a new show is a huge hit out of the gate, I don’t watch it. I don’t know why, I think I get overwhelmed by the hype. I figure if it’s really that good, I’ll get it on DVD. You know the problem with drawing lines in the sand? With a breath of air, they disappear. You may not like me. You may not understand how or why I do what I do. But I’m here because you want answers to questions you haven’t even thought of yet. ~ Red I had a problem with… Read More

Like most writers, I hate my writing process. But, also like most writers, it’s my process and I can’t change it. Before I got serious about writing, I happily wrote “sloppy copy,” the first draft all the way through. Yes, there were lots of errors and I did a lot of revising and editing and cutting and adding. But since I love revising, this wasn’t a problem. The hard part was done — getting the story down from beginning to end. Everything can be fixed. But somewhere along the way, this changed.

In two weeks NOTORIOUS will be available. March 25 is the big day. I am very excited and nervous and scared. Most of you who read my blog know about my history. I have 21 mass market originals, numerous short stories and novellas, and 2 original indie novellas. But NOTORIOUS is my first hardcover. Everything has been different. Even the writing.

I love speaking to kids. They’re usually attentive, interested, and full of questions. So when the opportunity arose to speak during Writer’s Week at my old alma mater, Menlo School, I jumped. Menlo School is a college prep high school (with a middle school for grades 6-8) and honestly, one of the best schools I’ve seen. What I learned there in four years was certainly college prep–I read books that most people read in college, I was pushed to perform at an advanced level. All classes were, essentially, AP classes. They didn’t have any separate AP or honors classes, and… Read More

Technically, the Northridge Earthquake was January 17, 1994, but I’ve always equated it with Martin Luther King Day because the quake shook L.A. early that holiday morning — twenty years ago today. I was living in Chatsworth, on the border of Northridge, exactly one mile from the Northridge Mall that collapsed. I’m a fifth generation Californian from the San Francisco Bay Area. I’ve been through many earthquakes. Growing up, we had earthquake drills — get under your desk, hands over your head, until the shaking stops. When your teacher tells you, line up and go to the designated point outside… Read More