… only great re-writers. The sooner you accept that your first drafts will be steaming piles of squishy word vomit, the sooner you will be able to write the story you want to write. First drafts are nasty. They are disgusting. They make you want to curl up in a…
Originally Posted 6/30/14 Listen, sometimes lightning strikes and you have a window of opportunity that’s never going to open again. Once time it was a phone call for a job. Whomever called back first got the position. Once it was a promotional opportunity, a reviewer’s guest blogger fell through and…
The second volume in this incredible YA trilogy. When stone hearts break they shatter. Sebastian Grey used to be a normal teenager. Now he’s a creature whose sole purpose is to be a guardian for secretive gypsy clans. When the Romany gypsies need his help, Sebastian is given a second…
Originally Published 9/4/14 It amazes me that there are any number of authors who think they’ve failed because their rough draft doesn’t look like a published book. My theory is that this is the product of a broken education system that insists on forcing children to write essays at the…
I’m a firm believer in wearing clothes you can trash. Everyone needs at least one set of super comfy clothes for lounging in all day while reading a book, and one set of clothes for trashing. We call them Grubbies. During the first week of summer break the first project…
Originally Posted 7/15/13 Not: You might be rejected. Not: You’ll have a few rejections. Not Even: Well, if you’re only mid-list worthy you’ll have at least twenty rejections. You want to get published? Fine. You need to accept that every single day of your career will have rejection. Everything you…
IT’S SUMMER BREAK!!!! You’d think that with four kids I’d be dreading summer break, but I’m not. During the school year I have anywhere between 8 and 12 alarms going off every day reminding me to do drop-off, pick-up, mandatory school volunteer work, homework, and chauffeuring to school events or…
Originally Posted 1/17/13 Forgive my abuse of beautiful Jane Austen quote, but it is the truth. Every bestseller out there that I’ve read (which does exclude a few with sparkling undead and men named Grey) have subplots. Think Dresden, LOTR, Price of the Stars, Lost Fleet, or any of the…
Raise your hand if you hate group projects. Raise your hand if you always take over a group project -or- do all the work because no one else will. Me? I’m both. I don’t play well with others because I do have a dominate personality, a strong idea of what…
“….one scientist believes that time travel is possible – and he has the design for a working ‘time telephone’, which he believes will receive messages from the future.” No, that’s not a quote from THE DAY BEFORE. However, that is exactly Dr. Emir’s plan in the Time & Shadows opening…