Confessions of a “Method” Writer (Pass the Tissues, Please)
I recently started reading Finders Keepers, the second book in Stephen King’s Mr. Mercedes trilogy. There seems to be a recurrent theme among readers of Stephen King, and even among readers of garden-variety serial killer or other dark crime thrillers. You’ll often see the question asked (or not asked, because people are too afraid to): What kind of person comes up with such twisted ideas? I suspect a close second is: What’s it like to write something like that? Do you have to sleep with the lights on? I’ve shared before that for me, the depth and quality of my emotional involvement with Read more…
My First Podcast Interview: Babbling, but Thankfully No Bad Canadian Jokes
Happy Friday! I was going to go blogless this week (sounds like missing a support garment) but then something came up that I had to share. Drum roll… Last summer, I did my very first podcast interview, and it’s just gone live. Seriously–me with talky words! I didn’t remember a thing I said during the whole thing until I read the transcript five minutes ago. But here’s what I do remember, for a little peek behind the curtain on the realities of getting a podcast to air. The internet was not our friend. Living in the East Hawaii boonies, I Read more…
Treading Water in Writer Land, and Getting Bogged Down in Facts
If it seems like my Blog Posts have been shorter than usual lately, that’s because they probably have been. Every week, I find myself blurting out, shocked, It’s Friday?! and scrambling to figure out what to write. It’s not that I’m behind exactly; I’m just treading water and counting on not getting a leg cramp. I was doing the math on my 2017 production schedule this week (bless Excel formulas when they work), and it wasn’t pretty, but it was doable. Barely. But that does mean I’ll probably be making some changes around the Blog and social media to focus Read more…
News from the Word Mines: Polishing One Pit and Digging Another
Just a quick status report this week on the new Dead Hollow series—I’m neck deep in the storyboards (basically a very loose outline, a paragraph or two per chapter) for Book Two, and the poop is about to hit the oscillator! (Can you tell I’m almost giddy today?) My editor and I have also finished the first round of the Book One (Prodigal) copy edits. She found a couple of things to tweak that helped the story, and I felt particularly gratified that she didn’t get hung up by the seeds I’d deviously planted for Book Two. I’ve mentioned before Read more…
Continuity, In Fiction and In Life
Happy Writer News: the Prodigal manuscript goes to the copy editor this weekend. Woo hoo! I finished my own last pass yesterday, and I’m just wrapping up beta reader feedback. I’ll be interested to see if my editor finds any continuity issues. Continuity is always a bugaboo for me. For example. during Prodigal’s rough draft, I once started the day by writing a chapter in a different house. Let me be clear: I was still in the same house. My characters changed houses from the scene I’d drafted the day before. 😜 I’ve also joked about devoting a single massive Read more…
^