Where do you get your ideas for your books?

I think every author is asked this question. My answer: I get them from anywhere.…

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I wrote a column in my local newspaper about a former English teacher who passed away. The article generated emails from other former students with their own stories to share. But one reader, a woman in my graduating class (1969), wrote to tell me that she not only enjoyed the article, but liked my writing enough to buy my mystery novel, FOOLS RUSH IN.



Compliment accepted (as well as the check).



What this reader responded to is something all writers are told to strive for… Continue

I heard a quote the other day stating that fiction is more “real” than non-fiction because, in writing fiction, it's easier to tell the truth.



Think about it. If you're writing non-fiction, you have to stick to the facts. There's no way a writer can go inside the mind of the subject and detail how decisions are made. Only actions and consequences are recorded. One can surmise, conjecture, and deliberate, but will never really know the truth.



Fiction writers, like myself,… Continue

You've heard the phrase “If I only knew then what I know now.” This doesn't apply in the writing world. Everything I thought I knew about writing has changed in the last 20 years. Oh, not the basic rules of grammar and punctuation, that's still in place even if sometimes ignored. But how I write, and more importantly, how I publish has come out of the dark ages.



I knew I wanted to be a writer from age 13. I had good teachers, learned what I needed to know to put sentences together… Continue