Category Archives: novelwriting
Cross-Pollinating 101 "How on earth do you decide which characters to involve?"
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
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 (with a side of science and metaphor)
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 I was intrigued by the idea of immortality, and the jaunt through history
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.
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 →
Museletters
Click to view past and present Museletters. Museletter_24Jun2016 Museletter_11Aug16 Save Save … Continue reading →
New Museletter is out!
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!
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 released in digital
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
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 I'm a firm believer in Recycling--except not when it's a character or a plot.
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 →
Toward the Light
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 →
Adventures in Indie Publishing, Incident #227:
Amazon informed me that they pulled my book, Rain Falls, off sale, because they were getting too many complaints from readers about a chunk of missing text in the digital version. I realized immediately what was happening, and I rolled my eyes so hard, I could see my brain. My apparently way-too-clever brain. I made adjustments in the file to accommodate this, and added this note to readers in the front: SPECIAL NOTE TO READERS Recently, Amazon pulled this book down, because too many readers were complaining about missing text. Apparently, those readers did not understand that the missing … Continue reading →
A Bowl of Cherries Vs. Sucking Beetroot
Greetings, Precious Readers. As most of you know, I’ve had a rather eventful few years. Yes, i found the love of my life, and we are now happily engaged to be married. But getting to this point was a path strewn with rocks and blocks and sharp pointy things, and quicksand and befanged beasts, attacking from all sides. Okay, that might have been a tad melodramatic. But it’s been really challenging. It’s harder than it seems to leave everything behind and start from scratch in another country when you don’t even like to leave the house, and you’re also an … Continue reading →