We went to see The Proposal tonight, with Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds. I’m a sucker for romantic comedies, so I was excited to see it. The comedy part was great, but I felt like there was something missing in the romance. When the characters finally came together, it somehow didn’t seem believable. What was missing […]
Making the Bad Guy Good
I’ve been struggling with the antagonist in my new book. So has my protagonist, of course, but she seems to be winning. Up until today, I wasn’t doing so well. It’s hard to write a villain without resorting to stereotypes. You set out to create a believable character, and before you know it, you’ve got […]
The $350 Coke
Sorry…it’s been a while. Dumping an entire glass of Diet Coke over your laptop is NOT a good idea. My computer is finally back from the good folks at B&B Computers with a whole new hard drive. I’m baaaack. Finally.
Lucky
Everything happening tonight seems to be part of a nefarious conspiracy on the part of the entire universe to make me realize that I am lucky. I’m en route to the Romance Writers of America Conference in Washington. I’m spending the night at the Springhill Suites on Tower Road so I can catch my early […]
Don’t Fear the Editor
Agents and editors are looking for talented writers who can deal with pressure. A lot of pressure
The Hard Part
I finished my revisions. I finished them a day early. I should be excited, happy, proudright? I’ve gone through my editor’s checklist, and I’ve addressed every issue, and addressed them well. I reread the whole thing today, and I was actually impressed with what I’ve accomplished. I thought the book was the best it could […]
Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes
I can’t imagine writing without a computer. In fact, I’m not sure I’d be a writer if some genius hadn’t invented the word processor. Being able to cut and paste and move things around is essential to the way I work. For better or for worse, I live and die by Microsoft Word. But the […]
Real Characters
I don’t know where characters come from. It should be obvious. I make them up, right? But it’s not that simple. If I make them up, why do they spring to life fully formed? Why do I so often feel their actions are out of my control? And why do they seem so dang alive? It’s […]
Horse Crazy
When you write contemporary fiction, you have to get your facts right. If you mess up some minor detail, it can jolt a knowledgeable reader right out of the story and into an outraged sense that the author is a clueless idiot, so it’s important to live the experiences of your characters, to inhabit their […]
Killing Scenes
It’s far too easy for writers to fall in love with their own words. You can become so besotted with a scene that youre determined to wedge it into the story somewhere. But some scenes deserve to die. Some scenes do nothing but provide a forum for a bit of humor or a telling detail that […]
Inspire Yourself
My reading habits have changed dramatically since I started writing. I have a tendency to absorb the rhythm and tone of whatever I’m reading, and unconsciously mimic it in my writing–and since I write almost every day, I have to be careful what I read. Scrape and I recently visited Key West, and I downloaded some […]
Not Wonder Woman
If I every had any delusions about superpowers, they took wing when I started writing a novel.
Empathy for the Devil
Cognitive neuroscientists have lately identified “mirror neurons” that fire not only when we do something but when we watch other people doing the same thing. The same neurons fire when we smile as when we observe someone else smiling. So we literally experience what that person is experiencing inside our own brains. That’s from an […]
I like this ship! It’s exciting!
The new Star Trek movie taught me a lot about what makes a story work.
May the Left Brain Win!
what got me in trouble in the first place was the right side of my brain–the side that dances to a drummer no one else can hear.