With book 2 simmering on its digital back-burner, I’m looking to my next project, and it’s shaping up to be yummy. Lots of emotional umph. A bit of mystery. A lot of romance. Even an exotic locale or two. The only thing I’m a wee bit torn about is my lead character. He’s a, well…a HE. Don’t misunderstand–he’s a [...]
Archive for the ‘women’s fiction’ Category
Waiter, there’s a man in my women’s fiction soup
Posted in women's fiction, Writing, tagged character development, Prince of Tides, writing challenges on March 14, 2011 | 47 Comments »
Where the rubber meets the road
Posted in women's fiction, Writing, tagged character development, exposition in dialog, Little Gale Gumbo, writing challenges, writing tips on September 10, 2010 | 9 Comments »
Trust is hard. Trust is scary. I should know–I’m nearing the end of edits for LITTLE GALE GUMBO and soon the book will be out in the world AS IS, without any more chances for me to polish, tweak, cut or add. Yikes. This means I have to trust that the reader will understand what [...]
Casting your novel
Posted in women's fiction, Writing, tagged casting your novel, character development, writing challenges, writing tips on September 7, 2010 | 14 Comments »
I suspect we all do it. It’s too tempting not to. When building our stories, we sometimes cast well-known actors and actresses, and maybe even our friends, family members, or people we see in line at the grocery store. For me, the real casting call usually comes early in a novel when I’m stuck on [...]
The first post is the hardest.
Posted in fiction writing, publishing, women's fiction, Writing, tagged Erika Marks, Little Gale Gumbo on April 26, 2010 | 2 Comments »
Or so I have to believe. Twenty years and possibly fourteen manuscripts after submitting my first novel at nineteen–that opened with a Pascal quote, no less, (I know, it makes me cringe even now) on a dot-matrix print-out (cringe number two) Penguin NAL has bought two of my books and will release the first, LITTLE [...]


