Well, it’s been a busy week. And a good week. I created more pages on my website, and I started reviewing (and editing, of course, because I can’t read without fixing) the sequel to Everything That Matters. All That Matters is about 3/4 complete (245 pages or so) and I haven’t looked at it in …
Category: wisdom
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Apr 30
Y is for Yippee! and You
Second to last day of the A to Z Challenge, and I am almost all lettered out. And totally chuffed. I decided to sign up for A to Z to challenge myself—no, to prove to myself, that I was better. Healed. Well enough to pick up the stiff, dry and cracked reins of my authorial dreams, get …
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Apr 24
U is for Unicorns
Wow. I can’t believe I’m already at letter U in the A to Z Challenge. And I am so grateful to have made it thus far, especially given the last year (or two) (which I will not recap here, focused as I am on what I can make of the present, and future, rather than …
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Apr 24
T is for Trends and Target Market
A to Z Challenge letter T… Vampires. Cowboys. Shape shifters. Shape-shifting cowboys and vampires. Sweet. Sexy. Erotic. Down-home and jet-setting; traditional, e-pub, and Indie. The latest trend in Romance novels is…everything, and anything. Traditional publishing rules—whereby editors and Houses decide what readers want and then publish accordingly—no longer apply, not in a tech-savvy world where …
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Apr 20
R is for Rating Rejection
End of week three of the A to Z Challenge and we’re on letter R, for Rating Rejection. Because I’m traveling, and access to wi-fi spotty, I decided to reissue an old post, which adds to yesterday’s discussion on reentering the query gauntlet…There is such a thing as rejection excellence. Or an excellent rejection. What makes …
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Apr 19
Q is for Queries and Queens
Q-day in the A to Z Challenge and today, the theme is Queries and Queens. Yesterday I mentioned the complexities of human behavior and emotions, how motivation is different for different people, how different people cope with similar situations, how novelists strive to write engaging—saleable—books. Today I share how one woman helped me cope when …
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Apr 18
P is for Pickle Jar
My first day in Crim 105, otherwise known as Psychological Explanations of Crime, the professor asked us to describe our “profile” of a criminal, in particular, a murderer. The descriptions varied from tattooed gangster, to child molester, assaultive stepfather, car-jackin’ junkie, and accident-causing drunk driver. Our professor smiled and nodded with each—predictable—presumption, and then she …
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Apr 15
M is for Mondays
A to Z Challenge letter: M. Mondays… I recall grade eight, the year I entered high school, as the year Monday mornings emerged from an endless blur of days to something sharp, uncomfortable, the first cut in a series of five cuts patched on weekends, the delicate wounds reopened the following Monday. High school is never …
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Apr 12
J is for James Lee Burke
Today’s A to Z Challenge letter is J, and today’s topic, James Lee Burke. By far, one of my most revered authors is James Lee Burke. His talent is unmatched. His novels poetic. His characters memorable. I don’t recall how I stumbled upon his work, I am only glad I did. If you’ve not read …
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Apr 09
G is for Gratitude
A to Z Challenge day 7. Letter G. I received a phone call today. The caller asked if everything was okay; I was behind two letters. And in that call, the essence of this post: Gratitude. The A to Z Challenge allows for one day off–Sundays–so I am not a day behind, and today’s letter …
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