It is the month for it here in the U.S. with Thanksgiving just a couple weeks away. The last few days I've been watching my rosebush with these two hardy buds, still going strong in early November in...

Last week I ordered a food and allergies diary in a bid to see if there’s a pattern with my skin. That arrived on Friday, and I started it yesterday morning. This isn’t a calorie counting diary, just a general, broad diary to see if there’s a link between things I eat and my symptoms. Within minutes of starting it, the puppy had started chewing it.

Writers often ask, “How do I find book clubs?—but the better question might be, “How do book clubs find me—and my book?” My first invitation came from a friend of a friend—a small gathering …

Learn techniques for creating memorable, effective sidekicks who enhance your cozy mystery series and help with reader engagement.

What’s wrong with this sentence? “My only child was struck and killed by a car riding a bicycle home from the beach one afternoon in September.” (From Enon, by Paul Harding) So, there was this car riding a bicycle to the beach, see, and…. {Sigh}. And this book was published traditionally and by Random House, where I assume they have professional editors being paid the big bucks to catch things like that. I’m sure there are a million reasons why an editor could have missed that. Perhaps he had been up too late the night before, perhaps he sneezed and … Continue reading →

Modeling the stories (or chapters) of a favorite author forces you to think about how a story is structured and the characters developed, making writing of your own stories easier later on. Select …

How Often Do Your Characters Clench Their Fists? By definition, a fist is a tightly closed hand with the fingers doubled into the palm. So does clenching the fists make sense? No. The hand is the b…