Writing, like life, evolves from the journeys we’ve taken. Adventures, life lessons, relationships, love. Regardless of genre, these are experiences all writers encounter, either within ourselves, with other writers or even with our [...]

I don’t know if y’all subscribe to Writer’s Digest, but this past month’s issue (the February one, pictured left) is especially good, I thought. There was a nice article in the issue called [...]

I think most writers are almost overwhelmed by ideas. The problem is usually too many ideas or getting ideas for new books when they’re not finished with the old one. That’s they way [...]

Here are writing links that I’ve posted to Twitter for the past week. I’m delighted that now we have an efficient method of locating resources on writing topics when you need them—via the [...]

I did our taxes this week, which is cause for tremendous celebration for me. Doing taxes is a real grind, especially sifting through all the bits of paper and receipts that I keep [...]

As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, I’m working on a new mystery series for Penguin/NAL…a series set in the South that involves a quilting guild. I’ve probably never mentioned my quilting [...]

Sometimes I’d like to be my protagonist. Time moves at a much slower pace for them than it does for the rest of us. Margot Kinberg had a thought-provoking post on her Confessions [...]

I’ve always said, and believed it to be true, that I’ve never been more creative than when I was 9 years old. My whole 4th grade year just crackled with creativity. I wrote [...]

I had an ‘oops-moment’ the other day when someone emailed me and asked me to explain what a cozy mystery was. This is what happens when you get so close to your subject [...]

One of the best bits of advice I picked up last week was this gem from the Gatekeepers Post: author publicity makes better sense than book publicity. It’s something I think I’ve tried [...]

Here are writing links that I’ve posted to Twitter for the past week. I’m delighted that now we have an efficient method of locating resources on writing topics when you need them—via the [...]

“If you don’t have the time to read, you don’t have the time or the tools to write.” Stephen King, On Writing As I mentioned a few days ago, I’m reading Stephen King’s [...]

Each month, I wait for my book club’s pick with some trepidation. Book clubs are frequently fond of books that make me wince a good many times during the course of the novel. [...]

It seems like I’ve unintentionally set up this past week as Protagonist Week. :) Can you tell I’ve been working on a new protagonist for the new series? I’m also reading, at the [...]

I’d heard a lot about the movie The Social Network, and decided to rent it last weekend to see what the fuss was about. The movie was well done, I thought. One thing [...]

I’ve never really thought about it until now, but my friends are very, very specific whenever we set times to meet. I’ll arrange to pick up a friend for lunch or to volunteer [...]

Hannibal from the A-Team always loved it when a plan came together. Unfortunately, the Writer’s Knowledge Base (WKB) didn’t emerge from some well thought out plan. While I’m not a believer in destiny [...]

Here are writing links that I’ve posted to Twitter for the past week. I’m delighted that now we have an efficient method of locating resources on writing topics when you need them—via the [...]

A popular question on panels is “Are you anything at all like your protagonist?” It’s an interesting question, I think, because each writer feels differently about incorporating themselves into a story. Reasons I’ve [...]

I grew up writing reports for school in longhand. When I really wanted to make a report fancy, I used a typewriter. Computers in high school and college were rare. The odd Apple [...]

Although I live in a good-sized metro area (Charlotte, North Carolina), my suburb of Matthews is fairly small. It’s small enough that, when I go out running errands, I have a couple of [...]

I think I drive my kids a little crazy sometimes. Frequently I’ll be driving somewhere in town and wonder how my GPS would tell me how to reach our destination. I know how [...]

A question I frequently get, and which I heard a lot this weekend at the Cape Fear Crime Festival, is “Does social media sell books?” Many writers worry about spending time away from [...]

Like everything in publishing, book promotion is changing. Because I spend so much time online, and am surrounded by blogging, Facebooking, and tweeting writing friends, I don’t even think about social media being [...]

Here are writing links that I’ve posted to Twitter for the past week. My addition this week is an efficient method of locating resources on writing topics when you need them—via the Writer’s [...]

Today, I’m attending the Cape Fear Crime Festival in Wilmington, NC. This will be my second visit to this conference. I really enjoyed it the last time I attended—there was a nice camaraderie [...]

I was talking to another parent the other day and thinking about how even small goals and priorities change with time. When my daughter was a brand-new baby, my number one goal was [...]

I’ve gotten enough emails and DMs on Twitter that I thought I should probably run a short post answering some questions about submitting posts for the search engine, etc. First of all, thanks [...]

Living in suburban Charlotte, NC, I don’t meet a wildly different array of people in my usual, everyday life. Everyone is, of course, different from each other (different talents, different personalities, etc.). But [...]

There’s always an active discussion somewhere—writing forums, comments on blogs, conversations on Yahoo groups—about the different types of promo for writers and what works best. I think the reason why the discussion is [...]