Well, get her book done. Right now I am in the home stretch of finishing a book and there is chorus going round the house right now is “When my book is done–“. I don’t think I can compose the strident tone or the aggravated, please don’t bother me AGAIN notes that come with along with that statement, but they are not the only ones who are being put off as I log more hours than I care to count in front of my computer.

Hey, boys, I’ve been putting off all kinds of things that I want to get … Read more »

As I wrote last Saturday, I made a plea to my fans over on Facebook that the well had gone dry on what to talk about over here on my blog, and they in turn offered up a bucket load of questions. Here is what I have plucked out today from this treasure quest of “I want to knows.”

Today’s questions are courtesy of: Erica Lynn Thrasher and Janelle Wilbanks.

Erica asked:

Do you find that you have time for social life when a deadline is approaching?

A social life? What exactly is that? To be honest, I’ve taken … Read more »

…And I am going to answer them. You may, or may not know, but I asked my wonderful and enthusiastic Facebook friends if they had a question or questions for me, what would they be? Bless their hearts, they flooded me with a tide of questions for me to answer on my blog.

Quite frankly, I was sitting down to blog and getting a bit stumped. It could be that I am nearing my deadline, so I am just a bit focused, ahem, elsewhere. Happily, these questions have certainly refreshed the blog well, and I will probably use them … Read more »

Over the years I’ve gone to a number of RWA conferences. I’ve pitched. I’ve gone to workshops. I’ve sat in my room and wondered what I was doing there. I’ve signed books. I’ve collected books. I’ve met agents, editors, publicists, professionals that I now call friends. I love conference. I loathe conference. All for the same reasons. So here are the quick links to the blogs I’ve written over the years with advice about going to conference:

1) My GLEE Inspired Conference Tips. Even if you have never watched Glee, there is advice here to that should be taken … Read more »

Every once in a while, I come to a place in a book where I need an unexpected character. Someone I wasn’t planning on. Usually I have all my characters mapped into the outline, names picked and they wait in the wings until their curtain comes up.

Then a story will take a little bit of a twist and I find myself making a quick casting call.

In the case of Lord Langley is Back in Town, that character was Lord Andrew Stowe. Suddenly, I needed a young agent from the Foreign Office willing to help Langley. Basically, I … Read more »

As the early reviews began to come in for Lord Langley is Back in Town, I was quite pleased to find that all of them were very favorable. I wanted the story to be funny, but I also wanted the story to have an emotional depth, since it is a story of coming home and about discovering one’s identity, and the reviews I was reading got that. Hurrah!

But one review stood out, and not for its kind words about the book but what it said about Felicity, the heroine of Love Letters from a Duke, and a … Read more »

Here I told you all that I would get another blog written last week and here it is Friday of this week. Sheesh. Um. Wow. I’ve been writing? Does that work? I actually have been writing. Head down, working on the next book. And I’ve come to the realization that getting a book done is like cleaning the kitchen. It gets done one thing at a time.

Or, in the case of a book, one page at a time.

There are nights when I drag my tired carcass into the kitchen and wonder who made the mess cooking dinner (answer: … Read more »

Sometimes writing can be described with one word: momentum. The process of continuously moving forward. What I’ve come to realize the most about momentum and writing is that it isn’t just one big push at the beginning or one big leap at the end that gets a book done–it is the daily solid push forward, the continuous application of momentum that gets a book done.

Let me tell you, April was not about momentum. It held, not one, but two trips. One for business, one for fun. It had two spring breaks. One for parochial school, one for public school. … Read more »

I really, truly hate Chapter 7. In any book. Now don’t all run out and check Chapter 7 in my books, because whatever finally made it into that section of the final version was definitely not what was bedeviling me while I was writing.

Let me explain.

Every time I head toward Chapter 7, I start to get really anxious. I finally know my characters pretty well. Have a good handle on the story, plot and all, but I just sort of bump into this mental wall when it comes to that point in the story.

In every story I … Read more »

Since I didn’t get a chance to schedule the link up on my Events page (the interview was supposed to go up in June), I thought I would share with you an interview I did with Sally Watts of the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library system. She was so kind to ask me to participate in their Meet the Author series.

So dash over here and read all about me.

Have I mentioned how humble I am? Probably not lately. Probably never. Probably never will. Just warning you. Giggle.… Read more »