Author's Info Blog

Thanksgiving is a few days away. I’ll spend it with my husband, calling our kids who live too far away to visit, remembering our mothers who have left this world. Neither Terry’s nor my mother lived to enjoy this day, but we did. And we remember and give thanks for the good times when my mother was healthy and his mother still had a steel-trap memory. We forget the bad times when my mother was dying from lung cancer and his mother slipping into dementia. For years, the two mommies, Terry and I celebrated a string of wonderful days. Mother’s Day, within a week of my mother’s birthday. His mother’s birthday in September. Our wedding anniversary on May 11. We joined together in a group celebration with presents for each special day. My mother was a reader, so any mystery, thriller or suspense story found its way onto her bookshelf....

“If you really want to know yourself, start writing a book” _Theodore Roosevelt_ When I joined Toastmasters International, I became aware of my passion for writing. I delivered ten great inspirational speeches. But like most people I had the fear of public speaking and my aim for being a member was to overcome that fear. I realised that the only way I can conquer it was standing up in front of an audience and deliver my ice breaker, a speech about myself. I needed to get up and begin talking before an audience. It was uncomfortable at first, but the more I wrote and spoke the more it became easier to get used to. My reason for joining was that everything I wanted to do in my life involved speaking in some form. Then it came to my attention that most of us want to do great things with our...

1. I promise to always be true to the character’s personality even when you as a reader don’t always agree or understand. 2. I promise to not drag out a series longer than what the story truly demands just to milk you of your hard earned dollars. 3. I promise to release series in a timely manner so as not to keep my readers needlessly waiting. 4. I promise to always use my own creativity and imagination to come up with interesting and unique plots. 5. I promise to give you the right to your own opinion and to honor your right to not connect with my style of writing. 6. I promise to always try to make myself available to you as a reader and or a fan. 7. I promise to always be humbled by the fact that you believe in me as an author and my dream...

There are titans vying for control and Indie authors are like the David's of our time. The titans don't go by the names of HarperCollins or Penguin Random House. Those folks are still in shock that we dared to, with the help of Amazon and Smashwords, come forth like a dark horse and break every fence that exists with the e-book phenomena, but they may have the last laugh. Anything that builds too fast can have weak legs and the sheer weight may bring it tumbling down. Thousands of writers have been walking in the desert for years with no home for their novels. Finally, they had a mechanism to share their hard work that had been shunned by the old guard. Even insightful authors who wrote for big houses saw the opportunity. They took their backlists and tried again in the new frontier. Their fans followed. No more waiting...

It’s nothing short of infuriating!   It does no less than put your soul in a bench vice!   It makes you want to throw up your hands, spew a string of profanities that would make Gordon Ramsey blush and abandon this maddening thing called writing!!   It’s an energy stealing, soul sucking, universe imploding ailment called writer’s block and it is the equivalent of writer’s erectile dysfunction. You sit down to your work, be it on a computer, typewriter or a pencil and paper.   Your desire to write bursting at the seams of your soul to explode forth and cover the screen or page with all the wondrous ideas your brains’ firing synapses can muster.   All of creation is waiting with bated breath to read the golden nuggets spilling forth from your fingertips! In my case, I put my headphones on, crank up the music, poise my...