Welcome – I’m participating in the Feature Friday Block Party Blog Hop hosted by Buy the Book Tours and this week’s co-host, author MJ Schiller! Please be so kind as to #FF me on Twitter W-My handle is @marisSouth Haven. As you can tell from my Twitter handle, I spend my summers in South Haven, […] [ ... ]
I’m not particularly good at picking book titles. I’ve had a few that started as working titles and actually ended up on the book. I later discovered that wasn’t always good. After having had more than a few editors tell me I needed to come up with a new title, I now think of most […] [ ... ]
When I started writing, I had several misconceptions. (1) I thought all I wanted to do was write and sell one book. Just one book, and I would be happy. Ha! The first book led to a second, and then a third, and… I just sold #29, and I’m hoping to sell one more. Just […] [ ... ]
Yesterday I signed and mailed a contract for EAT CROW AND DIE to Five Star Publishing a subsidiary of Gale/Cengage Learning. Of course, before I signed, I read through the contract and began thinking about all of the different contracts I have signed over the years. My first contract with Harlequin Books (signed in 1983) […] [ ... ]
This week I’ve been working on getting Storybook Hero ready to upload to KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing), Smashwords, Nook, and Kobo. Although the story part of the manuscript basically stays the same (there is a slight difference for those uploaded for the Nook), the front and afterword portions vary a little. Creating the Table of […] [ ... ]
This past week I’ve been working with Rebel Ink Designs (http://rebelinkdesigns.com/) regarding covers for two romances from my backlist. Creating covers has been a relatively new experience for me. My first romances were published by Harlequin and the only input I had regarding the cover was a “Cover Art” sheet where I described the main […] [ ... ]
I started writing in the ‘80s. My first books were basically “Write what you know” books: teaching, Santa Barbara, Michigan, a farm community, and a local township supervisor who made me angry. I did do a little research: I talked to the local (female) banker about how the men in the community were reacting to […] [ ... ]
Two weeks ago I spoke to a group of women about my career as a writer. In general I answered their questions about both my books and the industry itself. One woman seated near me asked most of the “How do you…?” questions, and at the end of the meeting, she confessed that she’s been […] [ ... ]
I’m working on a story I thought I finished seven years ago. After sending it out a few times and getting some responses, I decided I needed to rework the ending. Which I started doing seven years ago, then decided to work on a couple new stories instead. Those stories sold, which is good, but […] [ ... ]
Image: Yours and your characters Yesterday I participated in a fashion show for a local organization I belong to. Prior to the show, I put on makeup, including eye shadow, and polished my toenails. As I was doing so, I started thinking about image. In many ways, I think image is similar to voice. It’s […] [ ... ]
Did you set goals for 2014? We’re fast approaching the middle of the year. How are you doing? Soon, at least for those of us living in the northern hemisphere, it will be summer. School will be out. When my children were young, I always found my writing time decreased dramatically in the summer. I […] [ ... ]
I am constantly amazed by how many writers seem to be afraid to make any changes from what WORD offers as its default. They still treat the program as if they were working on a typewriter. Need an indent, press TAB. Want to set a section of type farther in (so it looks like a […] [ ... ]
The main thing I learned is I’m not ready to own a gun. Through the Writers’ Police Academy, an MWA conference that included a special session at a shooting range, and a conceal carry class I took several years ago, I’ve been taught how to handle a gun. So there I am last Saturday, at […] [ ... ]
Last week I attended a writers’ meeting where the speaker started out saying that beginning writers are generally told that writing is hard, and she was there (at this meeting) to say they were wrong, writing is fun. In my opinion, her talk didn’t really support that statement. She tended to ramble and drift off […] [ ... ]
Recently I was asked to critique mss written by two new writers. In both cases, the writers were/are struggling with how to indicate a character’s thoughts. They knew the thoughts weren’t supposed to be placed within quote marks, but they also knew they couldn’t put all of the character’s thoughts in italics. So how to […] [ ... ]
I didn’t write a blog last week because I was still on a cruise ship on Wednesday, sailing from Cozumel to Tampa. The cruise was wonderful. Five days of being treated like royalty…and being told there were wonderful bargains to be had, onboard and off. I did see a Goya etching I liked, but I […] [ ... ]
It’s Wednesday night and I’m just now writing my blog. In three days I leave on a 5-day cruise, I need to pack, I need to get revisions off to my editor, I need to clean house and prepare food since I’m having guests over to dinner tomorrow night, I need to contact my tax person […] [ ... ]
This week I’m working on revisions to my third “Crows” book (Eat Crow and Die), but I’m also still mulling over all I learned while attending Sleuthfest 2014. The sessions I sat in on primarily followed various publishing options and promotion. With over a million books being published each year, either by traditional publishers or […] [ ... ]
Last week I received my manuscript back from my editor with a list of requested revisions. Actually it’s not a written list/letter (what I used to receive when manuscripts were submitted and edited in hardcopy) but the electronic version of the ms with “comments” and “track changes” editing. Some of the requested changes are because […] [ ... ]
Last week I attended Sleuthfest 2014 in Orlando, Florida. For four days I was surrounded by writers and bombarded with ideas. Friday and Saturday there were four tracks offered each hour providing information and ideas ranging from basic writing tips to how to keep up with the changes in publishing. (As if that were possible.) […] [ ... ]