For Writers

A behind the scenes look at writing romance and getting published.

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 […]

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 […]

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.

Cutting

Close your eyes, take a deep breath, and hit the delete key.

The Call

I’m floating on a ridiculous pink cloud of euphoria, with forest animals dancing some ridiculous Walt Disney dance in adorable unison to a serenading all-animal oompah band in a sunshiney meadow.