Category Archives: technique

Verbal Chinese Water Torture

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“Great Literature” is a generally agreed-upon concept–but according to *whom*, really? By its very nature, it is also a subjective concept. A great deal of literature most commonly defined as shining touchstones, to me are little more that dull or even irritating. Take the notorious opening lines from A Tale of Two Cities” by Charles Dickens: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was … Continue reading →

Pitfall and the Scoop

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Somehow I got tag-teamed. TT Thomas and Kathleen Wheeler both tagged me for this Blog Hop, My Writing Process. I suppose i could post this twice, but maybe just once will do. It’s not like the Blog Hop Nazis will chase me down and break my thumbs. So here goes….. 1)What am I working on? You mean besides this computer jigsaw puzzle? (Addicted to those). Oh, writing. My current project is Pitfall (A Jurassic Romantic Adventure Dramedy). Just as most stories begin, I had the what-if : What if two lesbians who are very different, found themselves tossed back 150 … Continue reading →

Careless Editors & Languishing in Romantical Writer-Myths

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What’s wrong with this sentence? “My only child was struck and killed by a car riding a bicycle home from the beach one afternoon in September.” (From Enon, by Paul Harding) So, there was this car riding a bicycle to the beach, see, and…. {Sigh}. And this book was published traditionally and by Random House, where I assume they have professional editors being paid the big bucks to catch things like that. I’m sure there are a million reasons why an editor could have missed that. Perhaps he had been up too late the night before, perhaps he sneezed and … Continue reading →

Hybrid Methodology

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(and 3 New Books for the Holidays) I have just completed three books, and am going to make my deadline to get them out for holiday sales. One is a standalone novel in the Crime/Vigilante vein: Another Justice. One is the 5th in the AKA Investigations Series, titled, Also Known as Sleepy Cat Peak, and the other is an anthology of Bold Erotic Stories called The Speed of Dark. The Vigilante one was difficult, in many ways, the erotic anthology, I had been writing in between other projects for some time now; and I was surprised and thrilled that the … Continue reading →

Critique of Bad Fiction

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Several years ago, I did a critique for a friend who wanted my editorial-writerly insight on some stories she wrote. After I read them, I was then uneasy, because I am not willing to lie, yet I didn’t want to hurt her feelings. When she asked about the results of my reading, I told her I was afraid she wouldn’t like my critique. She stated emphatically that she wanted the cold hard truth. And so, that’s what I gave her. Below, is the critique, and I post it because I feel it covers lots of territory that every new writer … Continue reading →

The Koontz Dangle

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One of the best stylistic things I ever learned about writing novels, was gleaned from being an avid reader of Dean Koontz. I not only read his work, I studied it. Several years ago, I was reading in bed, and was so sleepy that I felt I couldn’t continue, and yet I turned the page and kept trying to stay awake. This had happened before with his books, and often i would wake up later or the next morning with my reading lamp still on, and the book still on my chest. I read until sleep claimed me. Why? Because … Continue reading →