The Trials of Renegade X – The Blurb!
Newsletter subscribers got a sneak peek at this last week, and now, as promised, I am proud to present the description for The Trials of Renegade X:  Can a half villain ever be a full hero? Damien Locke didn’t choose for his supervillain mom to disown him—just because he sort of defied her and ruined […]
Read MoreApproaching the Finish Line
Am almost done with WIP.  Disclaimer, it is not Trials, which I know is what everyone is waiting for right now.  (Understandable!)  But it’s still a book that’s very important to me.  It’s much darker than my other work–sort of a dark fantasy YA version of Dexter–and I am, like, 8 scenes away from being done […]
Read MoreSelf-publishing and Harper Madigan
So, I don’t think I ever mentioned why I chose to self-publish Harper Madigan: Junior High Private Eye.  For those of you who don’t know, it’s a noir detective story.  It’s also MG, so self-publishing it isn’t the most obvious path to get it into the hands of readers.  A lot of people have misconceptions about […]
Read MoreThe Trials of Renegade X Release Date!
Mark your calendars for September, 2013! Â That’s right, The Trials of Renegade X will be released next September! Â This might seem like a long way off, especially when you guys have been so patient–a lot of you have been waiting for this since 2010. Â But September is when everything can be done by–both on my […]
Read MoreThe Most Important Career – an Email to a Friend
I wrote this in an email to an author friend, on the subject of writing as a career, as opposed to other, more lucrative and “parent-and-society-approved” professions. Â I’m posting it here in the hopes that it resonates with other writers as well: Frankly, I think writing fiction is the most important, most noblest career anyone […]
Read MoreLife Changer – Writing sans Internet
Once upon a time, in 2004, in a faraway land called Bellingham, WA, where the sky, the earth, and the sea are all the same shade of gray, I got it into my head that I wanted a portable writing device. Â I had a desktop at the time and I wanted to be able to […]
Read MoreWondering Where I’m at with the Renegade X Sequel?
So, I can admit that the beginning of the year was a lot busier than I expected (A LOT busier). Â I pubbed my middle grade noir mystery, Harper Madigan: Junior High Private Eye. Â I expanded from doing commissions on DeviantArt to an actual Etsy business. Â I was taking grad school classes. Â I spent my spring […]
Read MoreCan You Resubmit a Significantly Revised Manuscript?
Taking a break from work and school related deadlines to answer another publishing question! Â Mel asks: If I sent my manuscript to an agent about a year ago (who requested a full) , but since then have significantly revised it, would you suggest resubmitting it? Definitely! Â Just make sure to be up front about it […]
Read MoreWhat Makes a Good Query Letter?
If you’re submitting your novels to agents or editors, or even thinking about submitting, you’ve probably had to deal with query letters. And, if you’re anything like I was when I was sending out query letters, the thought of having to write one probably makes you want to tear your hair out and curl up […]
Read MorePlot, Dialogue, and Description – Oh My!
I said I had another post on writing coming up, and here it is! So, last time, Julia asked: Do you think you could do a post on sentence-by-sentence spice-adding, in terms of dialogue and such? The problem I often have with writing is that my plot either moves too quickly and I can’t think […]
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