It’s election season. And you know what that means. Lot’s of people talking smack about candidates, and trying to persuade me to vote, give money, participate, belong, think about the future, just doooooooo something. And it’s true. I should do one or all of those things. After all, isn’t the entry fee to any society […]
Today Bethany Maines uses her blog space to interview first time novelist J.M. Phillippe about her debut novel Perfect Likeness. J.M. Phillippe has lived in the deserts of California, the suburbs of Seattle, and the mad rush of New York City. She worked as a freelance journalist before earning a masters’ in social work. She […]
I don’t always go on vacation, but when I do I prefer to call it research. Part of the fun in writing the Carrie Mae Mysteries featuring a group of super-spy girls is that my characters travel around the world to exotic locales. Which means that if I want to have authenticity in my writing […]
He looked at the chart but he look in vain Heavy cloud but no rain – Sting, Heavy Cloud No Rain, Ten Summoners Tales Originally, this was a post about publishing. I’ve been singing this song for the better part of a month feeling that it related to my efforts in self-publishing. Having the ability […]
Promotion, for a writer, is the seventh ring of hell. By nature we are quiet types who like to sit at home in our PJ’s, eating things like cereal and wine out of boxes and inventing people to talk to. (Yes, I’m aware that’s also the description of crazy people, but I don’t think we […]
Originally published on The Stiletto Gang 07.22.15 Dear Brain, While I appreciate your many efforts and strong creative solutions, I would very much appreciate it if you could focus on the problems at hand. Thanks so much. Sincerely, Self I have a writing calendar that tells me what I’m supposed to be working on. […]
When I was younger, I wrote strictly to entertain myself and I preferred action-oriented fantasies with an amazing heroine. I loved to read those books, so that’s what I set out to write. And if I pictured myself writing a novel it was going to be the next Lord of the Rings, but with a […]
Remember in school when the teacher would say those dreaded five words? “This is a group project.” Your mind races into overdrive as you scan the class room, searching for the few students who will hit trifecta of smart enough, pulls their own weight, and doesn’t have BO. Select outside of those parameters are a […]
It’s that time again. The editing time. The time when I get back all the stupidy stupidy line edits and have to go through and approve them. That’s the worst part. I have to approve them. OK, I don’t absolutely HAVE to, but the truth is about 8 out of every 10 line edits are […]
Orcas Island, the setting for my latest novel, An Unseen Current, is the largest of the San Juan Islands. Now, with names like those I know you’re picturing some other south of the equator island, where the palm fronds sway and whales frolic off-shore. You’d be right about the whales, but thanks to a […]