Jun 15, 2021 | On Writing
Start with characters. “Action is character.” ― F. Scott Fitzgerald Start with action. “Get your character in trouble in the first sentence and out of trouble in the last sentence.” ― Barthe DeClements Put your characters in motion. “All fiction is about people,...
May 25, 2021 | On K-9s, On Writing
Dogs and writing. Writing and dogs. Hard to say which comes first in my life, since we have three rescue dogs and the mystery series I write features former MP Mercy Carr and her retired bomb-sniffing Malinois Elvis. I’ve also written a memoir...
Apr 20, 2021 | On Writing
Write badly. “Get it all down. Let it pour out of you and onto the page. Write an incredibly shitty, self-indulgent, whiny, mewling first draft.” — Anne Lamott Write quickly. “I believe the first draft of a book — even a long one — should take no more than three...
Mar 16, 2021 | On Writing
My father died last week. The Colonel was the one family and friends invariably went to for advice, and he was always more than happy to hand out his own brand of wisdom, battle-tested in combat and inspired by his personal holy trinity of Jesus, Patton, and Napoleon...
Jan 19, 2021 | On Writing
Keeping a series fresh and fun is a challenge—and it does not get any easier. As I sit down to write Book Four in my Mercy Carr series, I find myself rethinking everything I’ve learned about writing a series so far—often the hard way—and reminding myself of key...
