I’m thrilled to welcome Boyd Morrison to Murder She Writes! He writes fabulous action-adventures that take place all over the world with impeccable research and larger-than-life characters you can root for. I particularly love his hero Tyler Locke. Because I really enjoyed THE LOCH NESS LEGACY, I’m gifting a digital copy to one lucky commenter — just say ‘hi” to Boyd! (And I think you’ll agree, after you read the following, that Boyd is the hero of his own romance novel!) ~ Allison Partners in Crime By Boyd Morrison Writing can be a lonely job, just you and the computer… Read More

I love my job. I can work in my pajamas. I can take a break in the middle of the day to go for a walk, or take the kids on a field trip, or go to a ball game. I love writing, and my job is 90% writing. It doesn’t get much better than that … Well, sometimes it does. Like the annual Regional SWAT Training put on by Sacramento FBI.

I love my job. I can work in my pajamas. I can take a break in the middle of the day to go for a walk, or take the kids on a field trip, or go to a ball game. I love writing, and my job is 90% writing. It doesn’t get much better than that … Well, sometimes it does. Like the annual Regional SWAT Training put on by Sacramento FBI.

Wow. Just wow. There are so many great shows on television today that I can’t possibly talk about them all, but I wanted to share my thoughts on some of the season finales and how they worked … and didn’t work. Warning: there are spoilers. Do not read if you don’t want spoilers. Got it? Or skip around … I identified each show in the heading, so skip those you don’t want spoiled.

My husband has a theory. If you put a picture of the cat on anything, you increase traffic. Want more people to “like” your page? Post a cat. If you want a million views on YouTube? Record your cat. The above cat is Nemo, enjoying last Tuesday morning’s wind and sun on our back porch. Technically, Nemo is my daughter’s cat, but he’s really mine, because even when she moves out of the house, he’s staying with me. I have a thing for orange and white cats. Nemo is very popular on my Facebook page. I post a picture of… Read More

I recently read KILLING FLOOR by Lee Child. This wasn’t the first book I’ve read by Lee Child, but it was his first book, published in 1997. It was one of those things: I started reading Lee in the middle of his Jack Reacher series and fell in love with this books. (I think the first book I read was TRIPWIRE, but don’t quote me on that!) I didn’t read them in order, but with Lee you don’t have to because his books aren’t told chronologically. I sometimes wonder if authors feel like I do–that over time, their books have gotten… Read More

The time change last weekend has screwed up not only my inner clock, but my kids. It’s never happened like this before. Usually, the time change is but an irritable bump in the weekend. But it’s already Thursday and my kids can’t get to sleep at night and they are monsters to wake up in the morning. Last week, all my kids got up on their own by seven (usually much earlier) and getting them ready for school was never a problem. Now? My husband and I have to wake them up multiple times, showers are rushed, lunches are small,… 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

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

We all make excuses for why we do or don’t do things we know we shouldn’t or should. My big excuse relates to exercise. I know that exercise will keep me healthy, that I’ll lose weight and feel good. Intellectually, I know that. But I have a million excuses about why I don’t exercise. The time factor is always a good excuse (writing three books a year and raising five kids takes a lot of time!) I walked 2 miles a day for a month and didn’t lose a pound–another excuse. But today I ran into my former trainer and… Read More