Why Writers Are Like Old People, Especially During a First Draft
A while back, a friend shared a popular meme on Facebook that went something like this. You know you’re old when you’re constantly asking the following three questions: Where are my glasses? Why does my back hurt? Why am I so tired? I was reflecting on this recently, perhaps when <ahem> helping my husband find his glasses, and I had a realization. Writers are like old people. Let’s take the questions in reverse order. Why am I so tired? I wake up tired every day. I had contented myself with blaming our pack of dogs (or the cat–it’s always the cat) Read more…
Progress Report, and the Dangers of a Dingbat Dog
Hello, happy readers! Or should I say, antsy readers? (Not to be confused with anty readers; if one tenth of the stupid little ants in our house owned mini ereaders and downloaded my books, Sydney would rocket to the top of the ‘Zon charts.) Well, good news—today I hit the 70,000 word mark on the rough draft of the fifth Sydney Brennan book. I’m anticipating 100,000 words, so while I’m not in the home stretch yet, with one of those satellite level views, I can at least see the end in sight (even if my book is roundish like our Read more…
The 100th Blog Post, with Stories I Love: The Last Policeman
The Blog turns One Hundred today—woo hoo! Well, at least this is one hundredth entry posted, so I thought I’d share something special. Today’s Stories I Love features the book that got me (for good or ill—depends on who you ask) to finally jump into the world of indie publishing. Nope, it’s not nonfiction. It’s a mystery. And a sci fi. A mysti-fi? Imagine that an asteroid is going to hit the Earth. We don’t know exactly where, but we do know when—six months from now—and we know it will be catastrophic. What do you do with your remaining days, and Read more…
Magpie Moments: Not the Cheeseburger Pie!
Today I thought it was time for another Magpie Moment. These are bits I snatched from real life and incorporated, magpie-like, into my fiction. We haven’t talked about food for a while, so we’re due, right? Or maybe I’m just hungry, like my fictional private investigator Sydney Brennan in this scene (and, honestly, most of the time). I took a wary bite. The last dish my sister prepared for me was probably a bowl of cereal, so I was pleasantly surprised. “I’m usually not a fan of chilled quiche, but this …” “I know,” Lisa said, smiling. “It doesn’t just Read more…
Stories I Thoroughly Enjoy: Zero Effect
Raise your hand if you remember the 1990s. (Unless you’re wearing a T-shirt you bought at a Nirvana concert; then you can keep it down.) Bill Pullman is one of those actors that I don’t initially remember being in things (my sleeping brain thanks me for blocking out The Serpent and the Rainbow, and all other Wes Craven movies), but he was in a lot of movies in the 1990s. They ranged across multiple genres, from the romantic comedy While You Were Sleeping to David Lynch’s Lost Highway (yes, I consider Lynch to be his own genre) to the blockbuster Independence Read more…
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