Category Archives: Fiction Writing

Cross-Pollinating 101 "How on earth do you decide which characters to involve?"

Posted on by August 14, 2017

I posted a promo that I’m working on book 4 in the Rain Falls series, and got this response from one of my readers: Cindy Compton YES!!! then maybe a cross-pollination book 2? Pretty peaz… 😜 Kelli Jae Baeli yes there will be another Cross-Pollination book. After i decide which characters. any suggestions? Cindy Compton Sorry I missed this…I thought about that with C-P1, how on earth do you decide which characters to involve in weaving several stories into one captivating tale and still do them all justice without the storyline suffering. But you’re a pro at this, so you always manage to pull … Continue reading →

Projects, Pitfalls, Promise surgery, weight-loss, organic food and current writing projects

Posted on by August 4, 2017

Shame on me. I haven’t posted a blog in a long time. SO much going on with us lately. Dealing with sudden health issues happening all at once, burned out, exhausted, feeling ill all the time, I was certainly not inspired to write. So I decided to take a 6-month sabbatical. It turned into 8 months when I found out in the middle of it I needed major surgery. So, I had to face my #2 biggest fear, (surgery) and I’ve been recovering from a full abdominal hysterectomy, and after almost 8 weeks, I’m still having some issues, which I … Continue reading →

Thoughts on The Thief of Time by John Boyles I was intrigued by the idea of immortality, and the jaunt through history

Posted on by August 5, 2017

I have missed sitting down with a physical book and reading. My recent decision to take a sabbatical and just allow myself to be creative and deadline-free, had me standing in front of my fiction bookshelf, seeking something new. Something enjoyable. As most of you know by now, I have become quite finicky about my fiction reading. I read so much of my own work in pumping out work in the last ten years, that I have had little time to read for pleasure, and when I do, it’s inevitably just before I go to sleep, and by then, my … Continue reading →

Whole Brain Literary Food Novelwriting is a WHOLE BRAIN activity. So is the publishing business.

Posted on by August 5, 2017

Recently, I posted a inquiry to my readers, about a publishing aspect of my work. All the responses were encouraging and thought-provoking, but one in particular touched upon some deeper themes. Here it is. TO MY READERS–A QUESTION: As authors, we want to please everyone, but that’s just not possible. For instance, on my newest novella, Saturation Point, I have 4 and 5 star reviews and personal messages and emails that tell me how much they enjoyed the introspective nature of this book, and the characters, but on one review, the reviewer was bored because there wasn’t dialogue on every … Continue reading →

Tropes, Motifs and Being Meta

Posted on by August 5, 2017

Tropes, in one definition, are “devices and conventions that a writer can reasonably rely on as being present in the audience members’ minds and expectations.” There are many types, but one, in the subcategory of devices, we see quite frequently in crime shows on TV or in mystery books. There is a crime, and an investigation, and the first suspect is never the true suspect. That also gets into the Red Herring territory. For myself, I have always tried not to rely on tropes, simply because I don’t ever want the reader to easily predict what will happen. But I … Continue reading →

Toward the Light

Posted on by August 26, 2015

I was reworking the cover for In Absentia (Rain Falls series #2), which I released fairly quickly after Rain Falls, and it sort of fell through the cracks like an orphan. Someone mentioned that I had a bunch of new reviews on it. I didn’t know. Last I looked, I only had 2 on that book… Anyway, I was pleased to see that they were all really good: 4 and 5 stars, which is always a joy, and profoundly validating. But more than that, the readers/reviewers were saying things that reflected what I had talked about with this series. I … Continue reading →

The Pitfall of Literary Segregation

Posted on by August 26, 2015

I believe it is a pitfall to think that fiction for lesbians is all that different from/than fiction for straight people. And I can say that as a person who reads largely mainstream fiction, and very little of what is termed “lesfic.” I grew up reading mainstream, and I continue to do so, and I am quite picky about what I read. It’s hard for an author to get and keep my attention, if there are any thin spots in his/her craft. I think I might be in the process of forming a new list of Favorite Authors. So far, … Continue reading →