I was looking at my calendar yesterday and adding a guest blogger for Mystery Writing is Murder to it when I realized I have seven guest bloggers coming up in the next five [...]

I was shopping at the Costco warehouse—on a Saturday.  I must have lost my mind because there were gobs of people in there. I quickly grabbed the things I’d come for, then navigated [...]

I’m a huge list maker. This has a lot to do with my need to outsource my horrible memory. It also helps me sleep better at night, knowing that I’ve thought of all [...]

My daughter and I were at the Halloween store last weekend, trying to find her a costume.  For some reason, it’s never easy finding one for her—she has this perfect mental image of [...]

Here are writing links that I’ve posted to Twitter for the past week. If you’re looking for a particular topic, just plug in your keyword into the search box at the top left-hand [...]

Last week, I posted some resources for finding agents. It’s really tough to find representation.  I think, honestly, there are lots of reasons for this. One is that agents need to believe they [...]

During my August book tour, I visited lots of different bookstores and talked to many different managers. Several of them mentioned, with some concern, the e-book revolution.  One manager went so far as [...]

Every time I write a book, I’m surprised by the problems I run into—even though the problems are always the same. And actually, looking at my list of issues, I’m not sure there’s [...]

My daughter is nine years old. Like lots of nine year olds, she loves to poll everyone on their favorites. And you’d better have an answer. I haven’t thought very much about my [...]

On Saturday, the kids and I went on a bike ride. We’re mismatched bikers. My teenage son is the super biker, easily losing us without even realizing it. My daughter is still on [...]

Working on a first draft can be really challenging. There’s the plot to wrangle into shape, the conflict to ramp up, the characters to breathe life into. And there are a whole lot [...]

Here are writing links that I’ve posted to Twitter for the past week. If you’re looking for a particular topic, just plug in your keyword into the search box at the top left-hand [...]

Lately, I’ve not really been in the mood to read anything emotionally disturbing or heavy. Lately being the last couple of years. :) I grew up reading heavy literature in school. I read [...]

Looking for an agent can be a really overwhelming process. When I was first looking for an agent, that there wasn’t enough information out there online. Now it seems like there’s almost too [...]

Usually, when I think about plots, I’m thinking about conflict. But I keep running into the term “inciting incidents.” It’s usually a scriptwriting term but I’ve been hearing it more and more in [...]

I don’t know about you, but it seems to me that I spend a good deal of my time on auto-pilot. Any rote kind of activity in my life—laundry, vacuuming, cleaning the kitchen [...]

I’d posted last week on my need for a little downtime to fire up my creativity. I think a lot of us are in the same boat, juggling family and job responsibilities while [...]

Hope y’all have a great Monday.  I’m in a couple of different places today, so hope you can pop by and say hi at one of them, if you have a second. First [...]

Here are writing links that I’ve posted to Twitter for the past week. If you’re looking for a particular topic, just plug in your keyword into the search box at the top left-hand [...]

For a little while I was in the dark (which seems to happen a lot). But then I noticed a particular pattern to conversations I was having with my daughter’s friends’ parents. “Elizabeth! [...]

I was at my primary care doctor’s office on Wednesday for a check-up and blood-work. (Fun-fun!) Anticipating the long wait I usually have at the doctor, I came armed with not just a [...]

The last few weeks have been really crazy for me. I’ve been working on a November deadline, working on revisions for a separate project, volunteering for Scouts, and trying to make sure the [...]

Monday afternoon seemed specially engineered to make me crazy. It started early in the afternoon. And we’ll substitute “snap” for all the bad words that I thought during those six hours. I was [...]

Over a week ago, I wrote a post about figuring out what your specialty is as a writer—realizing what you’re especially good at writing and then writing it. But I think it’s also [...]

When I’m working on a book, I spend a lot of time in the story’s world. I hang out with my imaginary friends. I think about what they’d do in different situations. I [...]

Here are writing links that I’ve posted to Twitter for the past week. If you’re looking for a particular topic, just plug in your keyword into the search box at the top left-hand [...]

Are you creative in lots of different ways? Or is your creativity specific to writing? Some of the most dreaded words I hear are “Let’s ask Elizabeth, since she’s the creative one.” Ack! [...]

Yesterday a good friend of mine flew into the Charlotte airport with a short layover. I figured it would be a great time to catch up with her in person while we had [...]

It’s always really interesting talking with readers about writing. Their questions are always really different from writers’ questions. In the past I’ve never noticed much similarity in the questions I get, but recently, [...]

The online community of writers is such an important resource for all of us. Writers share a ton of industry information, are supportive when we hit writing or industry snags, and offer tips [...]