Vacation Reading: a Mystery Novel, a Memoir, another Mystery Novel, and Vampires

I finally got to travel last week, and I loaded my kindle with plenty of reading material. Four in one week is not my personal best, that is reserved for the vacation where I read a book a day, ran out of books, and had to find a bookstore in a panic before the flight home. Obviously before kindles. I read a mystery novel (times 2), a memoir, and a sliver of vampire fiction by Octavia Butler, who never disappoints in the “taking a trope and turning it inside out, on its head, and sideways” department.

Read more

Free Stuff

As writers (at least as writers in the U.S.), we are expected to give away a portion of our product. We give away signed books, ebooks, short stories, novellas, etc.

And I don’t even want to put in writing what someone asked me to give away today. Let’s just say the request that landed in my inbox made me think long and hard about the value of a FREE THING.

Read more

Writing in Multiple Genres: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

You think of me as a mystery writer, right?  But I also write romances. And I’d never read a romance before I accidently wrote one. 

Sounds silly right? When I started writing my first NYPD Detective Chiara Corelli mystery, I thought Corelli’s love interest, Brett Cummings, was a man. But when I was writing the scene where they meet, the Brett who showed up on the page, was a woman. I was shocked. I tried changing her back to the man I intended but once she was on stage, I couldn’t go back.

Read more

What Saved Me From a Spot on Hoarders

I come from a family of hoarders. Okay, not the kind that gets you on TV, the kind who leaves dirty dishes, take-out containers, and trash lying about. My parents’ house was always clean, Just crowded. Very crowded. With a double dose of hoarder in my DNA, what saved me from the hoarding hall of fame? Read on…

Read more