Here it is, the night before the final book in my trilogy comes out. Very little about this is the way I imagined it would be. I never intended to become a hybrid author. I never intended to launch a book in the middle of a pandemic. And I still feel like a tiny voice […]
In real life, we resist change. But our characters get pushed to change by the plot. Some characters embrace change, and are more than ready to undertake a hero’s journey. Typically, though, protagonists don’t like change – especially difficult, painful change — any more than you do. But you have to ignore their protests and […]
Here’s a running list of posts on my blog tour. I will update this list as the rest of them get posted. March 4 — My Blog March 5 — Interview for Paul Semel ‘s Blog March 6 — Interview on Anna Kashina ‘s Blog March 7 — My Favorite Bit on Mary Robinette Kowal ‘s Blog March 7 […]
“Reading is just staring at a dead piece of wood for hours and hallucinating.” – reddit. Maybe. This is all over the place as a meme with no clear attribution. Here it is, the day before my second book launches, and I’m trying to take a moment to step back and think about what being […]
Part of worldbuilding – whether you are writing an epic Sci-Fi story or a quiet romance – comes down to designing people. Everyone is shaped by their surroundings, be they a small town in Montana or the confines of a space station. Clothing, customs, economic structures – all of these were designed by people for […]
I hope everyone survived NaNoWriMo. How’d you do? Even if you didn’t hit 50K, I hope you enjoyed the experience, especially if it was your first time. And you now have more words than you started the month with. The thing I love about NaNo is the need to meet a deadline, which forces you […]
I’m doing a query clinic next month, and today I’m trying to turn my time in the query trenches, and all the lessons I learned the hard way, and those I learned from critiquing other people’s queries, into a concise, helpful Power Point. Getting it right means a lot to me, because queries are make […]
“If there’s a book you really want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.” – Toni Morrison With Free Chocolate coming out TOMORROW, I’ve been thinking a lot about that quote. If it wasn’t my series, The Chocoverse would still be exactly the kind of thing I’d jump to […]
“If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.” ― Stephen King “It is what you read when you don’t have to that determines what you will be when you can’t help it.” — Oscar Wilde “I cannot remember the books I’ve read any […]
I recently had a writer ask me which one of his many ideas he should follow up on. There is no easy answer to that question, because it all depends on the writer’s motivation. Is he wanting to know which one is the most marketable? Well, I can’t exactly predict the market in two to […]
