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A Cautionary Tale"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. . ."You probably remember this opening line from A Tale of Two Cities. That was...
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The Weather ReportWatermelon pie Donis here. I live in southern Arizona, so the weather report for the end of June is always the same. It's hot. The forecast for...
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Bye Bye Safety Deposit Boxes?by Sybil Johnson I read a newspaper article not long ago about how Chase bank is phasing out safety deposit boxes (or safe deposit boxes, if you...
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Love a Good MacGuffin!!!by Thomas Kies In his last blog, Mario Acevedo mentioned a story device called a MacGuffin.What exactly is a MacGuffin? The term originated with...
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My Crystal Ball Needs AdjustmentI have good news to share as Denver Noir won a Colorado Book Award. The anthology had a great roster of writers who each contributed an amazing...
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In celebration of writers' retreats, writing or notThis will be a short post because I am spending four days at a "writers' retreat" with two of my close writer friends, Vicki Delany and...
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Starting Something Completely Different......and wondering what the hell did I do that for?Donis here. I've started writing a book that is entirely different from anything I've had...
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CCWC 2023 Recapby Sybil JohnsonI spent last weekend at the California Crime Writers Conference in Culver City, California. It’s a 2-day conference held every...
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GatekeepersOn Saturday I attended a book event that I, along with nine other authors, were invited to. I generally don’t like to spend time at an all-day...
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NuggetsInspiration. Muse. Ideas. Call it what you will. But story nuggets, regardless of where you get yours, keep us going.I started out as a reporter at...
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Vicki Delany takes over FacebookYesterday was a special day. My great friend, travel buddy, and writer extraordinaire threw a Facebook party to celebrate the release of her 50th...
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Learning How To Writeby Sybil Johnson I’ve been making roman shades lately, replacing ones that are way too old and falling apart. I could have had a blinds company...
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Relatable Characters? Not This TimeI did a workshop at our local community college last week about drawing upon real life to write fiction. It’s a great subject because isn’t that...
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Emotional FiltersWhile we humans like to think of ourselves as highly evolved, coolly rational beings, we are in fact, emotional creatures. Every decision we make...
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On being an OtherGoodness, what a lot of wonderful stuff happened since I accidentally missed my last post! So much to comment on. I love all the talk about...
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How Writing a Novel is Like Finding a Woolly Mammoth in Your Back Yard, or The Writer as Archeologist.I adore Sybil's entry, below, on the joys and fascinations of the research an author does.A few years ago I read about a soybean farmer in Michigan...
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Curious Meby Sybil JohnsonWriters are a curious bunch We see something we find interesting or we don’t understand, we look it up. I’m constantly finding...
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Putting Novelists on a Leash?There’s an excellent op-ed piece in Saturday’s Washington Post entitled “Limiting What Novelists Write About Won’t Help Readers”. The column talks...
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Poor SoulsBy Charlotte Hinger I was moved by Donis's last post. She raised the question about the merits of a work of art when the artist is not a good...
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Art and OutrageI (Donis) have been seeing some discussion on television about this year's Met Gala being a tribute to the late German fashion designer Karl...
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Los Angeles Times Festival of Booksby Sybil JohnsonI spent part of the weekend of April 22nd at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books (LATFoB). It’s a huge book festival that is...
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Banking WoesBy Charlotte Hinger Guess what! The historical novel I'm writing right now is timely. It's about that period in America's rural history when small...
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Cataloguing Things I SeeThis weekend, my wife and I are enjoying time spent in Southport, NC. It’s a lovely, quaint little village right on the edge of the Cape Fear...
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More thoughts on marketingI'm always astonished when my day to post arrives and I'm delighted to read the posts by others. Charlotte's post on marketing was informative and...
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Start SoonA couple of weeks ago, I listened to a seminar sponsored by Sourcebooks, a powerhouse publisher whose sales are soaring. The house is frankly data...
