The beginning of the new year is always the time when I start assessing my writing goals for the year. It’s the perfect time to do it, since resolutions are on everyone’s brain [...]

I’ve always thought that books made the best gifts. I think I can remember every book I’ve ever gotten as a gift. And I’ve got a lousy memory. But it always struck me [...]

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 [...]

Margot Kinberg had a nice post yesterday on character traits that are off-putting to readers.  She made a good point—as a reader, I’ll give up on a book that has characters that I [...]

My daughter got it into her head last week that she wanted an easel and a beret for Christmas. She sat on Santa’s lap and told him on Saturday. Actually, she told anyone [...]

Thanks Elizabeth for hosting me. I met Elizabeth at a Blog Book Tour Yahoo Group last year. That’s when I first learned about the term cosy mystery from her blog. I read romance [...]

Just a quick post today on keeping motivated. During NaNo, I noticed on Twitter, Facebook, and writing blogs that there were writers who mentioned that they’d gotten frustrated with NaNo and stopped participating. [...]

I’m hooking together two totally different things in my post today, but felt that they were connected because both topics bore me to death. :) Password Protection I was watching the news Monday [...]

There are things that I love about Blogger. Mostly that it’s free. :) And now I’ve invested too much time into this blog to change over to anything else. So Blogger and 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 [...]

As writers, we spend a lot of time getting to know our characters and developing them. We learn how they’d react in different situations. We know people who remind us of our characters. [...]

I’ve had a couple of writers email me lately, looking for help with crafting a query letter. I’m always hesitant about offering help, myself, in that area. My agent queries never did get [...]

Twice in the last week, I’ve read posts by parents who want to write more, but have real obstacles in their way. These lovable obstacles are their children. :) As my children have [...]

Through the years, we’ve had a strange sort of holiday tradition where I put up a Christmas wreath on the door and Christmas candles in the windows and call the outdoor part of [...]

Somehow, upcoming releases seem a lot more real when you have a cover to go with them! I love this one. :) Thanks to the art department at Penguin’s Berkley Prime Crime. They [...]

I can usually tell when I’m about to have a day when my writing is going to be awful. I’ll have this moment where I think the blank page looks so much better [...]

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 [...]

One thing that I really don’t think I  am, is curious. I like observing people.  I like imagining reasons that they do the things they do or say the things they say—but I’m [...]

I like to stay organized, but sometimes everything happens at once…and it’s easy to feel overwhelmed. It’s my day to post at Inkspot and I hope you’ll pop by as I try to [...]

I emailed in my Memphis Barbeque III manuscript to my editor on Tuesday afternoon. :) I had a great time writing the book—particularly the end when I got to tie together some subplots [...]

Hi y’all. Today is my day on the Southern writers blog, A Good Blog is Hard to Find. Hope you’ll pop over for my post on all the ways that reading our favorite [...]

While I was looking for blog posts to tweet last week, I came across a site where a blogger was particularly dejected over a rejection. The blogger had met an agent at a [...]

I don’t know what it is about me lately, but I’ve been a difficult reader to please. I think it’s the fact that I’ve been unusually busy since late-July. But it seems to [...]

Here are writing links that I’ve posted to Twitter for the past week. There are fewer this week because I went on tweetcation for the Thanksgiving holiday. :) If you’re looking for a [...]

The writing life is a tough one for many reasons…and it doesn’t help that friends and family don’t completely get what we’re doing. But still, most of us get some support from the [...]

On this day after Thanksgiving, I thought I’d take a minute to celebrate some of the facets of writing that I’m really thankful for.  Lots of times my writing challenges get center stage [...]

Best wishes for a Happy Thanksgiving to my American friends. I’m going to be celebrating the day here at home with my family and parents. I’ve lots to be thankful for today—and I’m [...]

We’re having some painting done inside our house.  Years of children with sticky hands have taken their toll on our walls.  :) While the painters were here, the owner said to me, “Would [...]

I was volunteering in my daughter’s classroom on Friday for a Thanksgiving party for 4th grade.  While I was in there (supposedly setting out snack supplies so the kids could make their own [...]

My 8th grade son has really enjoyed his Language Arts class (what the schools are calling English these days) the last couple of years. His teacher actually moved up from 7th grade to [...]