Category Archives: novelwriting

A Series of Things:
What I'm doing, not doing, and hoping to do

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Series writing has been a thorn in my side. I know the consensus is that books do better as a part of a series, but when you’re an Indie Author and Publisher with no employees, choices must be made. I don’t feel I can keep up anymore with my series, nor do I want to. I also don’t like feeling obligated to write something. I’d rather write what inspires me at any given moment. With this in mind, my intentions are to do one more book in each of my series: #3 in New Harbor Witches #4 in Rain Falls … Continue reading →

It’s a Brave New World–For Women:
I call it FemFic

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I want a new category on Amazon that more accurately reflects the changes afoot in our ideation of a woman’s place in the world. In order to do this, I feel I have to branch out in my writing and create stories in genres that are typically male-dominated. Women need in a voice in those, too. Thus, I will be adding this new tag to all my books. I call it #FemFic. I hope all of you in the Twitterverse will use it, too–help get it going. IF it can gain traction, i will petition Amazon to include it in … Continue reading →

Cross-Pollinating 101

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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

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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 →

Nom Nom Nom de Plume

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How delicious. To be someone else. To reinvent oneself. I’m not talking about who you are at your core, but about characteristics that might not be serving you anymore. I’ve done it several times over, and not only with names. As long ago as my early twenties, I began referring to myself and introducing myself to others by another name. Eventually, it led me to legally change it. Psychologically, that was one of the best decisions I ever made for my health. I maintain that the name-change wasn’t running AWAY from something, but running TO. Seeking identity. I wanted to … Continue reading →

Thoughts on The Thief of Time by John Boyles

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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

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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 →

New Museletter is out!

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The new Museletter is out! I’ve done something different with it, and it also includes an excerpt from Melissa Walker-Baeli’s Work in Progress. Check it out, and let me know what you think! (those on my mailing list have been sent an email) If you’d like to be added to the mailing list, please let me know, through the contact box on this site. Otherwise, you can get the Museletter when I post it on my Facebook page. If you prefer, just send me a PM, with your email address and your location. And if you’d like to include your … Continue reading →

Pooly Fall is now #1 bestseller!

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Woo hoo!  Pooly Fall is now a #1 bestseller in its category on Amazon! Thanks to all my readers for making it so. In this new offering, the author blends her most popular characters into one storyline, making this a segue into the next book in each series. “What happens when you mix a small town sheriff’s department with writers, private eyes, paleontologists, and witches? Maybe this. The AKA Investigations team have a new tour bus, and on their maiden voyage, pleasure turns to business when two deputies fall victim to a heinous crime. Meanwhile, the forces of darkness and … Continue reading →

Pooly Fall After Words

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Just ordered the print proof for Pooly Fall (Cross-Pollination #1). The digital copy is already at #3 on Amazon–a bestseller! It’s available NOW. Go to https://www.amazon.com/Pooly-Fall-Cross-Pollin…/…/B01GZWBJBA Below, is the After Words for Pooly Fall. After Words Most of my followers/readers know that I have been in recovery from Adrenal Exhaustion since returning from New Zealand in January, 2015. This has had a detrimental effect on my productivity, and on the day-to-day composition quality of my work. Writing well has become much more difficult. But I keep trudging away, trying not to think about how my usual write-a-book-every-two-to-four-months is not currently … Continue reading →

Tropes, Motifs and Being Meta

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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 →

Fiction as World View

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I have had some criticism from a few readers who were disappointed when I introduced new characters and locations and plots in my series fiction, and allowed the main characters to have a slightly smaller role to make room; apparently these readers wanted the same story again, the same characters, the same sex scenes, the same dynamics, the same formulaic challenges, the same everything. Essentially, they wanted to read about characters who lived in a vacuum, and never had any interaction with others, nor any natural progression. This mindset is not only elitist, fearful, and unrealistic, but within fiction, stale, … Continue reading →

Ravens: New Momentum:
New Harbor Witches series

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Am working on New Harbor Witches: Ravens. Perhaps my favorite part of writing a novel, is when the story starts to gel and pick up momentum and then suddenly all the hidden connections reveal themselves, or else I dig them out and find that seemingly random, disparate things are suddenly related. I can always tell when I come across those, as I blurt out, “Oh, that’s perfect!” This is usually followed by a happy dance that inevitably spills my coffee on the front of my shirt. Yesterday, I did about 6 hours of #NovelLogistics, creativity and brainstorming with my awesome … Continue reading →