Swallowing My Own Medicine

February 9, 2011

This week I talked about how to break through a block. And (wait for it. . .) Today I got blocked. Hello irony! How could I be blocked? I have an outline for this book crammed full of good ideas. And today, that was part of the problem. Indecision Is A Block I was not [...]

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MyFive: Ways to Break a Creative Block

February 7, 2011

I don’t experience writer’s block often (and some writers claim to never have it) but I think there are times when every creative person needs a jolt of inspiration. Here are five very simple approaches I take if my brain seems mired or needs some fuel (some apply to the initial idea stage, some to [...]

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Where Would You Learn About a New Series?

February 3, 2011

This is stemming from a discussion I started on my Facebook reader page. The Sam Capra novels are getting ready to launch this summer in the United States. If you’re interested in learning more about the books, where would you like to go on the web to know more? Would you: 1) prefer Sam have [...]

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The Organized Writer: My Novel’s Notebook

January 26, 2011

I love notebooks. I do. My favorites for pure out just writing drafts are Clairefontaines, which I’ve blogged about before. But since they’re spiral, they’re not as flexible as a three-ring binder. But three-rings are kind of bulky. i found the perfect solution for flexibility with Levenger’s Circa notebooks. Several of my writer friends had [...]

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MyFive: 5 Great Soundtracks for Writing

January 20, 2011

A new regular feature of this blog is going to be MyFive — a list of five things that I like or love or find helpful to me in my life or my work, and why. I’m going to start with something that colors my work day, and that’s music. I listen to music while [...]

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The Organized Writer: A Creative Planner

January 18, 2011

I want to keep my working brain mostly stuffed with ideas for books. So I get all the everyday stuff out of my brain and into a planner. I use a Filofax as my portable brain. I’ve tried the electronic-style planners and for some reason paper just works better for me. I don’t have to [...]

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The Revenge of The Organized Writer

January 13, 2011

Revenge? Oops, I meant to write Return. RETURN. When I started the blog a while back, one of the most popular features was a series of posts with the alluring name of The Organized Writer. And if you saw my desk some days, you would laugh at my hubris in pretending that I am a [...]

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The Terrors of the Author Photo

January 11, 2011

This past week I had a new author photo done. Author photos used to be easy. You could have a pipe. You could cuddle a cat. You might wear a hat. (I sound like I’m channeling the good Doctor Seuss.) I have never found them easy. My first author photo I didn’t go for hip. [...]

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Are You Actually Going to Look At My To Do List?

January 6, 2011

What do you do all day? It’s hard to imagine what a writer does. Does he type all day? Does she scribble notes and daydream and then write in a blistering fury? (Right now I’m doing neither, much to my annoyance.) So here’s a look at my to do list. I don’t make a daily [...]

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For 2011, Starting a Reader’s Journal

January 5, 2011

One of the side effects of being a writer is that it changes your reading habits. For me, this change was twofold: writing meant I had less time to read (oh the pain), and writing changed how I read. I can still get lost in a great story, but part of my mind notices the [...]

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Two-Headed Beast: Copyedits and Galleys

January 4, 2011

I’ve spent much of the past two weeks fighting with the two-headed beast of writing: going through copyedits and going through galleys. For those who aren’t familiar with this process, it is the time when you get, oh joy, to reread your own writing. This can be the Scylla and Charybdis of the writing process: [...]

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