I’ve been semi-hiding from my publisher, but she found me: “I want book three this year…” Yeah, yeah, so do I, but the fingers just aren’t flying yet. I’ve been creatively hibernating, playing candy crush, and otherwise having conversations with myself. I have a great concept for the next book in the New Royal Mysteries, but I don’t want to spill the details yet. I’ve given the basic summary to the publisher and the art director. We may experiment by creating the cover early

When the question of self-publishing comes up in my undergraduate fiction writing classes, I usually say that it's only a viable path if the writer is also a designer, editor, publicist, distributor, etc. That is, a self-published author needs to be able to do at least five jobs brilliantly, instead of just the one—writing. Given my lack of expertise/instinct in those other areas of book production, I'm super fortunate to be with a publishing company that puts a crew of creat

Every year I over-react to the negative bitching about NaNoWriMo, and I'm not always very artful about it, so I thought I'd get out ahead of it this time, if only to make it clear what I think. The people who complain about the marathon challenge that consumes the Novembers of so many hopeful fiction writers (including my students) are EVIL and they have turds where they should have hearts. Keep in mind, I've never done NaNoWriMo successfully. Hell, I've never even stuck it o

When I sit down to work on a novel, I try to engage my other senses in ways that open up my thinking but aren't intrusive. So, I usually have a candle or scent diffuser going, and I almost always music playing. The music needs to be wordless or in a language I don't understand, and the dynamic these days is dark and moody. As a teenager in a punk/artsy college culture, I could never imagine a future where I would not just tolerate but prefer long-form, new age-type compositio