Category Archives: methodology

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 →

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 →

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 →

Literary Loitering

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In a certain writing magazine a certain author was featured, and in that story, we are told The notebooks filled. But he reached a point where he had to stop. “I just begin, and then find I write myself into a corner of human experience about which I’m totally ignorant,” he says. Writing paused for about six months while he plowed into research. He read 33 books, including the Koran twice. He came to the point where he felt he could teach a class on Islamic extremism. Informed and enlightened, he finished the novel. Which took five-and-a-half years to write. … Continue reading →

Alien Methodology

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A few days ago, I began working on a story idea of the alien invasion variety, because the premise made me laugh and I thought it would be fun. Besides, I have wanted to do a series of short stories to test the market and see what people were responding to these days. Well, the alien invasion story became more like an alien visitation. And then, I found that while it was entertaining in premise, there was no real conflict going on, and none of the characters had much to gain or lose. That’s the death knell for plotting. One … Continue reading →

Streaming & Quilting: Differing Methodologies in Novelwriting

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I often discuss methodology with other writers. While in general we might share certain features, we can have completely different methods for writing a book. Some writers have this uncanny, subconscious method that seems to flow from a Muse and out onto the page, with the writer as conduit. It seems amazing to me that they can start at the beginning (the beginning!?) and write straight through until the book is done. A linear stream of subconsciousness. No major tweaking of plot points or planting of red herrings {1}, rarely any insertion of missing foreshadowing or details that have to … Continue reading →

iGoogle for Ideas & Reference

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  One tool that I use everyday has proven invaluable to my writing. It also has value in other areas, but for the purpose of this post, I will address iGoogle for writers. If you are not aware of iGoogle, it would behoove you to change that. iGoogle allows you to personalize your information searches. You can gather, track and monitor all areas of interest, and all in one place, on one page. You add widgets or modules to a certain tab, which you can also create. I have a writing tab where I place all modules concerning writing. This … Continue reading →

Writer’s Block UNblocked.

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  Most writers eventually ask the question: “I’m really stuck with the plot/storyline of my novel. Do you know of something that will help me?” Here’s a list of things you can do to get unstuck. 1. Research. One thing that has always worked for me is new information. Do some reading about elements of your story. I’m not talking about style–I’m talking about research. For instance, read information about the city in which you’ve placed the story. Location can often become somewhat of a character in its own right. Read about any of the other elements in the story–like … Continue reading →