Saturday, April 18, 2015

My Life As A Writer



Just wanted to let you know that as I write nonstop today, I ate leftover meatloaf for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I wonder if Nora Roberts eats meatloaf when she's writing...



Friday, April 17, 2015

Voodoo! (Don't be scared) Sneak Peek



You might be aware that I'm writing a book with Stephanie Bond. Oh! Let me write that again...I'm writing a book with Stephanie Bond. I love to say that because I'm a huge fan of hers and so excited to be working with her. She's a fantastic writer and a really nice person (in case you were wondering). Anyway, it's great to be in a mystery, again. Whodunit? I know. In fact, I always know before I start a book. But I'm not going to tell you!

Sneak Peek:

Sheena grabbed Nathaniel by the front of his shirt with both of her hands and pulled him close. “Listen, buttinski, I’ve had a really bad week. I’m this close to cracking up. Do you hear me? I need to disappear this body and clean up my place so I can get on with my life. I have no intention of going to jail, going out of business, losing the movie contract, losing my house, and, and, and, and! Do you get it? Are we on the same page?”
“You’re getting burned corpse flesh on my shirt.”

Sheena dropped her hands and gave him her prettiest smile. “Be a pal, sugar and help a girl out.” 

Wednesday, April 15, 2015

How I Write




Here and there, I'm going to post about my writing process, the writing process, other writers' writing process....You get the picture. A question I'm always asked (and I always ask other writers) is how do I write and how long does it take me to write a book. After writing so many books, I can honestly say that I have no set process and each book takes a different amount of time to write. I call it CHAOS. But here are some quick things that I've found to be true:

1. The more I sit with a story in my head before I write the book, the easier it is to write the story.
2. Writing a story that I'm dying to tell is a lot easier and more fun than writing a story that I'm lukewarm on but figure I'll get into while I write.
3. The more I outline a book before I write, the easier it is to write.
4. My characters do what they want, often surprise me and go off the outline regularly.
5. It always takes longer to write a book than I figure it will.
6. Writing a book is a lot harder than reading a book.

So, this past week, as I'm two weeks past my deadline and lost in my book--not remembering which character said what and where I put my clues and red herrings--I decided to learn how to use Scrivener. Scrivener is a writing program that helps organize everything. Organization is the key to success! I watched 8 videos on how to use Scrivener. I almost broke all of my dishes and threw my computer through the window, but I held back (because I didn't want to clean it up) and managed to learn how to use it! Yay! I can't begin to tell you how much of a miracle it is for me to learn how to use Scrivener. But I've organized the mystery book I'm working on, and it looks great! The next book will be written entirely in Scrivener. I'll let you know how that goes. Do you attack projects the same way you always have, or is your work strategy evolving?



Monday, April 13, 2015

Birth!



Happy birthday to me! Thank you, everyone who wished me a happy birthday. All the good wishes made my birthday very happy. I spent the day with my youngest son and had a great time. Where did we go?



Friday, April 3, 2015

Bring On The Poison Meatballs!



So, it's Passover, again, and that means sweet and sour meatballs for my family. I don't know why--It's probably in the bible, somewhere. I can hear Moses now: "Enough of this manna! I want meatballs!" Anyway, I call them the poison meatballs. Seriously, I can't tell you what's in them because it's a violation of everything healthy. It's...BAD. But so good! So, even though Passover will not be at my house this year, I'm bringing the meatballs to the occasion. Five pounds of them. I need to give credit where credit's due: The meatballs were my great aunt Tilly's recipe. Tilly was such a sweet woman and a good cook. She also made killer coleslaw. And she was an artist. We used to have an "Original Tilly" painting somewhere, but it got lost. Anyway, my mother took over the meatballs, and so everyone in my family now thinks of them as my mother's balls. I mean, meatballs. Since, she's not with us, it's up to me. Will I succeed? Will I fail? I don't know...but we should probably have 911 on speed dial.


5lbs of meatballs: