Brainstorming Week

Since Sunday my brainstorming partners have been in residence at our cottage on Chautauqua Lake working on a variety of books. I always love this annual retreat because so many knots are untied and ideas are embroidered. Tonight, though, I shake my head at how little I’ve accomplished so far, other than discarding what seemed…

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What’s In A Name?

“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” Romeo and Juliet (II, ii, 1-2) So what’s in a name and why does it matter to a novelist? Remember that third grade substitute teacher who pronounced yours incorrectly? Or how about the playground bully who always called you Bucky…

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Turning My Backlist Books into eBooks

The months after finishing a novel are spent catching up on a million things that were left undone. For me this has meant, among others things, making decisions about turning my backlist books into ebooks. Here’s a quick lesson about publishing. When an author accepts the offer of a traditional publisher, she or he gives that…

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Trigger Points for Novelists

If you read last week’s blog, you know about one of my personal trigger points. I don’t always like being edited. I have an excellent editor, who listens and supports me. Still, I don’t like the editing process. I’m sure I’m not unusual, but at the same time, as I pointed out, many of my colleagues don’t…

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Let It Stand: Editing a Novel

Writers differ on what they like least about the process of turning an idea into a novel on bookstore shelves. A fair number of my colleagues hate writing a synopsis because they don’t know ahead of time what’s going to happen. They want to be surprised and they don’t want to do the plotting up front. In case you…

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Novels and Wildflowers

I’ve lived in Florida now for two and a half years. Although I started life here, too, so Florida immediately felt like home again. What do you look for when you choose a new home? Price, of course, but beyond that? In the past we’ve chosen by job and school district, but this time with…

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Controversial Topics: What Affects Your Reading Choices?

  When in doubt for what to write about, write about controversial topics. I’ve heard the above advice so often that I can’t attribute it to anyone.  The point, of course, is to get more people to read your novels or blog posts. The result can be lots of contentious discussion with an emphasis on the “lots of.” I…

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Editors Make All the Difference

Two recent experiences have made me hyper-aware of the importance of good editors. I’ll confess I have a love-hate relationship with editors scouring my manuscripts looking for mistakes and questioning problems that  are sometimes only in that person’s obsessively compulsive imagination. But wait. You don’t know how this works do you? So here are the steps my…

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These Are a Few of My Favorite Things

Confession time. Are you ready? What favorite things do you have in boxes in your attic, basement or hall closet that you just can’t let go of? How many times have you moved them? I’ll confess to being something of a hoarder. I tend to vest objects with such sentiment that it’s hard to toss…

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Radical Changes: Finding Time To Do What You Love

“Oh, I want to write a book, too, if I can ever find the time.” There’s probably not a writer anywhere who hasn’t heard this when we tell a stranger what we do. Everybody wants to write a novel. Everybody is absolutely certain he or she will, just as soon as the time miraculously appears. But truthfully, is…

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