And today I’m making a guest appearance at Marybeth Geer-Smith’s blog, Desperately Searching for My Inner Mary Poppins. It’s a Gnome-Approved interview. :) Hope y’all will pop over and visit me there. Book [...]

It’s Thursday, so that means I’m cooking up trouble at the Mystery Lovers’ Kitchen. On the menu today is Frogmore Stew. No, I’m not kidding—it’s a Deep South specialty. If you want to [...]

As a homemaker/household engineer/WHATever, sometimes it can be challenging to channel a sinister mood. Communion with the dark side is important if you’re creating murder. But it can be especially hard to channel [...]

Unfortunately for him, my son came into my room a few minutes ago, flopped on my bed and said he was bored. He quickly revised that statement when he saw the gleam in [...]

The best ways to get your book on a bookstore’s shelves are personal visits to the store, phone calls, and emails. In 2005, there were 172,000 books published in the United States (I [...]

I like to stay organized, but occasionally I get off-course. That’s what happened this past week. I have a September 1 deadline coming up. Everything looks good, but I decided to write in [...]

Hi, Friends. Welcome back. Yesterday we looked at the lighter side of agent pitching in person. Today is all business. We continue with Shirley Kennett, the 2009 ThrillerFest Chair of the International Thriller [...]

I’ll take a cue from Alan’s very informative post of yesterday…Hello. I’m Galen Kindley, and yes, it takes grit to stick my picture up there. Ugh. Rather than bore you with my non-history, [...]

I love writers’ conferences. So much to learn, so much positive energy, so many good books to discover. But the best thing about writer’s conferences? Hands down, it’s the collection of writers (and [...]

Sometimes we have to shake things up a little bit in our lives. I’m doing a lot of that this week. A lot. And, as a person who doesn’t accept change well, it’s [...]

When this post publishes, my husband and I will be on our way to pick up our daughter at Brownie camp. She was only gone for two nights, but since she’s 7, we [...]

To me, the best time to clean out the car is at the gas station. So on Saturday, I busily pulled handfuls of camp newsletters, empty sandwich baggies, empty sunscreen bottles, a cardboard [...]

I read really quickly. But usually I don’t automatically gravitate toward books on the shelf that are thick when I’m browsing at the bookstore. Thick books usually equal lots of characters, complicated plot [...]

Yesterday evening I went to the grocery store to pick up some milk. The grocery store is huge. It’s a super-sized Bi-lo and it took me a long time to even get to [...]

I think I must be a masochist. Here I have a perfectly good manuscript (that, I might add, is due to Berkley September 1.) It’s completely finished.  I’ve completed two revision sweeps for [...]

I’m still in the point of my life where I’m reading a lot of Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen. Sometimes I even feel like I’m continuing the storytelling tradition by retelling the [...]

It’s a snap to market yourself online. There are taglines, links, promo photos, blogs, etc. that make it incredibly simple. Then there’s real-time marketing. For me, it’s the real-time promoting that poses a [...]

What we have here is a failure to communicate. :Cool Hand Luke. I don’t like to really sugarcoat my shortcomings. When I’ve flunked at something, I’d rather acknowledge it and try something completely [...]

There are good things and bad things about long-term relationships. On August 7, my husband and I will have been married 16 years. There are very few surprises. For someone who likes predictability, [...]

I’d never have met my husband if it hadn’t been for that freshman math requirement at my liberal arts college. I’d never have even gone in the math building.  He was a junior [...]

  When you’re cleaning up your house, do you ever skip over the same things over and over again?  If something is out of place but it stays in the wrong place for [...]

Ain’t misbehavin’? Not in South Carolina. If you haven’t heard about South Carolina governor Mark Sanford and his secret, six day trip to Argentina to meet with his mysterious lover….well, it’s probably because [...]

Hi everyone! I’m guest-blogging today (well…is it technically a ‘guest blog’ when you’re on the rotation?) at the InkSpot blog for Midnight Ink writers. And you know you want to find out what [...]

I’m making some new resolutions. Why not? Why make January 1 the only date where we impose formidable goals for ourselves? Besides, I’m tired of the January resolutions (that maybe didn’t work out [...]

I know you’re waiting with bated breath with a burning question—how have I banished clichés from my writing? This post is not; in any way, shape, or form; intended to be a bone [...]

Writing an argument occasionally becomes necessary. I’ve got suspects who argue with police and suspects who argue with each other. The funny thing about writing arguments is that they’re not at all like [...]

I think I’ve mentioned before how much easier it is for me to describe people and settings when I have pictures in front of me. I’m a pretty visual person. I like pulling [...]

It’s a day of celebration for Americans…..and I think I’ll use this chance to celebrate the folks who help me out each day. My husband. Also known as my artistic patron. Our son [...]

I wasn’t cool in….well, ever. I was on the newspaper and literary magazine staff. I hung out with people in high school that are now architects, IT people, CPAs….but definitely not whatever the [...]

Okay, y’all, this is an oldie but goodie from author Libba Bray about how similar your typical love story is to writing your WIP. The whole post is clever, but here’s some excerpts: [...]