The eyes staring at me when I glanced up from the tomatoes I was weeding were part of a rather large animal and yellow, with horizontal slits. Beyond the eyes, the rest was orange with stripes. Scary. Maybe a tiger? No doubt about it, I was about to become dinner. Then I looked again, took …
Too many manuscripts
Someone recently asked how I organize differing versions of my current manuscript. Because manuscripts change. Stories change. And those changes mean manuscripts change and must be organized so a writer knows which is the best one. This is something I struggled with for a long time. Years. And more years. Until I figured it out. …
Merry Christmas
Merry Christmas everyone! And a Happy New Year to you all!
Happy Solstice
Happy solstice! Today is officially the first day of winter.
Make time to write
When you fly on an airplane with children, the flight attendants are always careful to say that in the event the oxygen masks should fall, you must put on your own mask before helping the children. It might sound selfish at first, but think about it for just a second and it’s easy to see …
How do you know when you have enough research to write a book?
Got an interesting question on Quora that reminded me of conversations regarding research that I've had with other writers. A couple of them write historical romances and love doing research. They do a whole lot more research than I do. And it should be mentioned that partly why I love science fiction is that I …
Continue reading How do you know when you have enough research to write a book?
Which pays better, short stories or novels?
I recently answered a question on Quora. I chuckled as I wrote the answer because I could imagine the would-be professional writer seriously looking into the business side of writing for a living because I was in that same place a long time ago. I almost cried when magazines went bankrupt and my nice, comfortable …
Continue reading Which pays better, short stories or novels?
Reasons to love winter
First, there's the snow. It's white. It's also blue -- and pink -- and purple -- and more, and it's beautiful. (Okay, it's lovely while it's clean and pristine. By spring, not so much.) Second is the quiet. I don't know why winter is quiet. Maybe because people stay inside more. Maybe snow is a …
Why novels have a set number of words.
Word counts became necessary so publishers could plan how to print their books ahead of time; so their print runs could be set up for a certain number of pages and that meant a certain number of words to fill up those pages. Now that online books are popular, word counts aren’t as important and …
Nice, normal people in books
Nice, normal, people are every bit as interesting as people with huge problems. Their lives are every bit as interesting as the lives of people who are unhappy, dysfunctional and ridden by guilt or angst. So that's what I've been writing lately. Romances of normal, happy people who aren't looking for love but find it …
