Category: Blog Posts

I have to admit I’m old-fashioned, to some degree. For the past however many years I’ve been writing, I’ve declared I would only seek traditional publishing routes for my work. I believed that self-publishing was only useful for those who couldn’t get published any other way. But I have to admit, that’s beginning to change….

I’m writing the first draft of my latest novel, second in a trilogy. It’s been a while since I wrote the initial draft of the first book. I’d forgotten the annoying little quirks of this stage, things like overusing specific words, dropping a plot thread and having to go back and reinsert it in chapters…

In writing workshops, teachers and advisers (and agents/publishers) all say that regardless of genre, a book’s word count is limited. In science fiction, for example, the standard acceptable word count ranges between 90K and 120K. Given this restriction, it’s important for the writer to confine herself to those words that move the story along toward…

Southeastern Virginia got hit with a bad snowstorm last week, one we locals are calling “Snowpocalypse 2018.” While I personally did not go outside with a ruler or anything, friends posted photos on Facebook where their yards were more than 12” deep in places. Those of you in more northern states may laugh and call…

Since I posted last week, my schedule has focused mostly on writing, so much so that my fingers were flying on the keyboard and I busted my target word count almost every day. During a break, I perused old e-mail and came across a message from the middle of December from iFly, saying “Don’t forget…

So it’s been several weeks since I’ve touched my novel to any significant degree. Weeks. Maybe more than a month. I’m beside myself. I’ve tweaked and revised several short stories, spent time researching markets where I might submit them, attended several classes, re-sent book 1 of my novel series to the publisher I’ve wanted all…

A couple of months ago, I joined a FaceBook writers group with thousands of members. I hoped to find helpful input, guidance and handy tips from others in the biz. What I got instead was drama. Every post I saw, no matter how innocuous or innocent the question, drew dozens of trolls whose main purpose…

This past weekend, Bobby and I visited the Chrysler Museum in Norfolk to see a glass exhibit, and while there we discovered Giovanni Battista Langetti’s “Prometheus,” which had been in the museum’s storage vault for some time awaiting restoration. Now that it’s back to full splendor, the painting hangs alone in the upstairs foyer, a…

Bobby and I watched (finally) the 2014 movie Lucy last weekend. I saw the teaser online and thought, “What the heck?” The snippet blew me away so much I texted Bobby at once and said, “We have to watch this movie.” Ever the obliging husband, he brought it home from the library the next day…

Monday nights are my Busy Nights. Balance the books, do the laundry, update the website, etc. So last Monday when I got The Dreaded Phone Call about an elderly person in my life and had to deal with life and death decisions, it threw me off my game, thus my late post last week. I’m…