Once, in a job interview, I was asked how or when I knew that I could make a living as a writer. It wasn’t a question I’d thought about in advance. I could’ve answered in a multitude of ways, talked about my passion for books and making up stories and creating worlds that drew people in, made...
This past weekend was the New England Crime Bake. It’s a writer’s conference that’s local to the Boston area. It’s also a special conference for me, because it was the one I found when I first Googled “mystery writer conferences” more than 20 years ago when I decided that I was going to write...
Happy NaNoWriMo! It’s a writer’s favorite time of the year. November is National Novel Writing Month, the (somewhat insane) month where writers across the world decide to write a 50K word novel in 30 days. Yes, it sounds insane. But it’s also effective. Setting a goal like that is powerful....
I love starting a new story. Once I start turning a new idea around in my head, the first couple of chapters just flow. I can’t get them down fast enough. It’s the middle I hate. And sometimes the end. So yeah, for me, the beginning of a book is as good as it gets. I know that’s not true for...
Those of you who follow me on Facebook or Instagram have probably met my rescue pups, Molly and Penny. I post a lot about them there, mostly because they're cute, but also because they are always teaching me something. Specifically Penny, my Australian cattle dog/poodle mix, who literally crashed...
I recently had a conversation with a friend about his love for true crime stories and one that had inspired a new project. It reminded me that I had always loved true crime and had been neglecting that particular infatuation. But since there is only a limited amount of hours in the day to consume...
A few weeks ago, I wrote a blog post about how to make time for your writing even with a day job. And last week I wrote about how you don’t need endless amounts of time to be a professional writer (read: you can totally rock your writing career if the day job is still a thing). Today, I want to...
If you’re a writer and you haven’t read Steven Pressfield’s books about writing, stop reading this right now, open a new tab, and order them. I mean it. (But come on back after you do!) All kidding aside, Pressfield is a genius—a prolific fiction and nonfiction writer who has been doing the work...
