Below you'll find a list of all posts that have been categorized as “On Writing”
Best-selling story will have a hero or heroine who is both strong . . . and damaged . . .
J.K.Rowling, John Grisham, Karen Kingsbury, Tom Clancy, Jane Austen, C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkein, Robert Ludlum: all best-selling authors, from different genres, markets, even eras. How? What sets their stories apart from others that make them a must-buy for readers?
I get inspiration everywhere—the news, Facebook posts, sermons, radio talk shows, conversations. It’s always about a question, something that makes me think . . . what if?
I got the story about Izzy (My Foolish Heart), the talk show host to the lovelorn from a Brad Paisely song,
Just wanted to take this week’s blog post to thank you for all your support of It Had to be You! My publisher has been sending me reviews that have popped up over the past few weeks, and with each review I read, my smile grows wider and wider.
We did everything wrong, and by all rights, my son should have died. When the pain started, low on his right side, we put heat on it and gave him Tylenol, I also gave him a dihydrocodeine dosage. Because we lived in Russia and the medical situation sketchy, we decided to wait and see if perhaps he had an upset stomach.
We were sitting in the cold grass on a hill above the field, the temperature hovering near forty degrees, the air brisk and still enough to hear the screams as they lifted from the pile of high school football players.
Horrible, gut-wrenching screams, and the crowd went silent, our hearts in our throats as the coaches ran out from the sidelines.
I’ve spent years standing on the sidelines, in bitter cold, rain, sleet, gloom of night . . . and that’s just football. Add in hours in the gym bleachers, and then miles and miles in the car driving to track meets. More hours in the rain and cold, then hot sun . . . cheering.
Why It Had to be You? Where did the story come from?
Every story starts with a seed of an idea, something that triggers a what-if. That moment happened for me roughly five years ago at my son’s semi-final state track meet.
As I stood at the edge of the track,
I never had any childhood reading or writing champions, but you know how it is as a writer—it’s in you and you can’t escape it. I loved to go to the library and pile up my backpack with books. They represented new friends, new adventures, and I spent most Saturdays plunked down in the middle of the library,
Asking what my favorite book I’ve written is like asking which child is my favorite. I love them all! Historical is definitely more difficult to write because of the research involved, but I love historicals because they bring me into a different world and I learn so much. But I’m a contemporary romance girl,
A lot of authors don’t start out with a goal of becoming published. I have a degree in Mass Communications, which has helped me so much as a writer. I am a marketer at heart, so for some reason I always look at the http://www.adinfusion.com/, the sale points,
