Dumb Drugs Last Monday I woke up with a pain in the side of my back, that stabbed sharply when I breathed heavily. It hurt to raise my arm. As I had woken with it, I figured I'd slept funny, stressed a muscle or tendon, and that the pain would go away after a while.
How do Authors Build Series? How does an author build the story world and the series-long story arcs that make a series one you want to hang on to until the end? What are the types of series? And why is every author writing them, these days? Why do authors stop writing series? By reader request, this week we'll
Does Size Make A Difference? This is a perennial argument discussion in romance circles and the debate may never end, but let's try to nail it down a bit better tomorrow. Do you like your books short? Or long? Or don't care? How do you find romance novels these days? Too long? Too short? Did you
This is a series I wrote and released on this day seven years ago. As it turns out, I was prophetic. Just about everything I spoke about in this series is more or less the state of the industry right now...or heading there. For that reason, I'm bringing it forward again, so it doesn't get
Sometimes, internal industry shenanigans spill out to where the public can see it. This is one of those times. Recently, an author registered and trademarked the word "cocky". Then she contacted every author who had the word "cocky" in their book titles or subtitles or on the cover anywhere and threatened them with legal action
During 2017, a discussion via my newsletter and email from various readers alerted me to the confusion over book lengths and what makes a book a book, or a novel a novel. Novels and books are not interchangeable terms, anymore, although they used to be. A “novel” is a preset wordcount range that defines a
I just realized that "SFR" (science fiction romance) could also stand for Self-empowered Female Readers. Very cool. Last week, the producers of the newest Star Wars movie, Rogue One, released the first official trailer. I saw it, loved it and can't wait for the movie to come out (December!). Within hours of the trailer release,
On Women and Love in Dystopian Novels Today my guest author is Beth Elisse, and she has written a thought-provoking look at dystopian stories, which have become such hot property in the last few years -- particularly in the Young Adult genre. ______ Novels foreseeing the fall – and subsequent repression – of human society
Have you noticed that some or <gulp> most of your reviews are being deleted by Amazon, lately? Yeah, it's a big club. Some history. First, a bit of history about Amazon reviews, so you can understand why Amazon are doing what they're doing. Amazon have always had a "review policy" that determined what was an
It probably seems like the completely wrong time to be talking about a convention that is happening sometime next year, but the fact is, the RT convention is only 4 months away. Are you going to RT? Are you thinking about going? If so, let me know. I’ve added a sticky post to the top
