November’s bright nights lead to chilly, sparkling mornings here in the Northeast, the time of year I really hunker down after summer’s many distractions. I’m revising my mystery, having received recommendations from a publisher on presenting my heroine in a different way. One of the key influences in my writing life was a fiction writer […]
A Great Opening
“It would be another thirty minutes before they found the bodies.” That’s the first line of the second book in my mystery series. I like that line. I’ve been revising and improving the manuscript this week, but I’m leaving that line alone. A lot of weight is placed on first lines, the opening one or […]
Mysteries on the Brink
Hooray! I finished the first draft of the second book in my two-part mystery series. (Okay, that sounds like a complicated bunch of numbers– first draft, second book, two-part. Sorry! I’m thinking it’s not great to confuse the reader with my opening line!) I completed the first of the two several months ago and sent […]
First Proofing! A Writing Update
I just sent the first draft of my latest novel through Word’s “editor,” a tool that theoretically corrects grammar and spelling. This is huge! It means the finish line is in sight on this 80,000-word mystery that has tested my creativity and logic as well as my ability to deviously keep multiple secrets from a […]
A Lot of Shoveling
My writing right now is reflecting the schizophrenic and sometimes soul-sucking month of March here in the Northeastern US. In March, a sense of optimism cautiously infiltrates our world. We “spring ahead” and get that extra, delightful hour of light before the close of day, and then the vernal equinox seals the deal as […]
Playing Town
Harriet The Spy. That’s who I’m thinking about this week. It’s because I credit Harriet, the petulant lead character in a 1964 book by Louise Fitzhugh, with fueling my desire to become a novelist. If you haven’t read it, you must. But the reason I felt like Harriet this week is because she, an 11-year-old, […]
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