Panels are usually pretty easy, even for those of us who aren’t crazy about public speaking. Usually you’re seated (and frequently behind a table.) You’ll need to remember to bring a book and [...]

I’ve had two interviews in the space of a week, and I’m headed to a conference next month to speak on a panel—so I thought that a post on interviews might be timely. [...]

I’ve recently gotten a couple of emails from writers asking for tips on starting out with blogging, and gaining blog followers. I’m definitely not an expert, but I’ll share what I do know [...]

I love making lists. I make lists of things to do, things to get at the store, and things I want to accomplish for the year. And, as I mentioned in this post [...]

I’ve never thought of myself as a good book reviewer. I’m definitely not a good critiquer—my technique is really just an overwhelming desire to rewrite a problem area in someone’s manuscript. I can [...]

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 [...]

I’ve forgotten a lot about learning new skills as a child. Riding a bike? Roller skating? Swimming? I learned how to do those things, but my memory is shaky on it. It comes [...]

In my role as Mommy, I drive a carpool with another neighborhood mom to the elementary school and the middle school. I drive mornings, and she drives afternoons. The carpools are early, with [...]

Yesterday, I was interviewed by Joanna Penn of The Creative Penn for an upcoming post on a new video blog she’s launching soon. I’m on Skype, but pretty new to it. After tinkering [...]

Today I’m welcoming fellow Midnight Ink author, Lois Winston, to my blog. Lois’ book, Assault With a Deadly Glue Gun, has recently released to strong reviews. She talks a little here about multitasking…something [...]

So it’s the day after the big snow and my son wants to join all his friends at a house in another neighborhood. They’re playing video games and watching movies and having a [...]

Hope everybody had a great holiday and New Year celebration. I missed the blogosphere while I was gone! I also hope y’all got home safely, if you were traveling. There has been bizarre [...]

Merry Christmas to all who celebrate and a Happy 2011 to all! Taking the lead from many of the blogs I follow in my Google Reader, I’m taking a week off from blogging [...]

Here are writing links that I’ve posted to Twitter for the past week.  The list will be a little shorter this week because I’m going on tweetcation (most bloggers seem to be taking [...]

The practicing is really the thing that made me grow the fastest as a writer.  Everything else I was doing (reading books, craft books, blogs, industry news) was definitely helpful, but the one [...]

Once I decided that I wanted to write for a larger audience than just myself, I made a goal to improve my writing skills. The nice thing is that now there are so [...]

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 [...]