WELL, IT’S TRUE.  I fell out of bed, and I’ve been beating myself up over it.  The dark contemporary I had in the process of finalizing kicked me out, none too gently, the door viciously slammed in my face and then locked.  I tried begging my way back in.  I tried burrowing through the cracks.  I even [...]

What gives?  Yesterday, over on Publisher’s Lunch, http://www.publisherslunch.com/, I read this startling news, then, opening up the NYTimes today, I read it again.  This woman, Margaret B. Jones (actually Margaret “Peggy” Seltzer), claimed that some entire work of fiction was her true life memoir.  Now, this is the second time (…Or is it the third?) that this [...]

I have to say, right off, this is a RANT.  About USPS.  About mail carriers and mail clerks and new rules and all the changes that have happened to what used to be a tidy, pleasant service one never had to think twice about using. I’ve postponed posting this rant, giving myself time to “cool [...]

At the last meeting of a local writer’s group, a question came up concerning a young woman’s manuscript — a hysterical… (Er, sorry about that totally non-Freudian slip.)  …historical romance that’s been going the rounds off and on for several months now because there’s a publisher “interested”…supposedly.  Several people  (Not me.  I stayed out of it, just listening, until [...]

Well, having spent a great deal of time and effort writing what I and my beta readers consider a really riveting novel, I’m now researching agents…since it has been quite a few years since I had the honor of pursuing representation.  Let me tell you, things have changed.  A lot.  So, first order of the [...]

I hang around two forums, now — modest ones, since I’m not much for crowds who like keggers and gossip for their mainstay.  One of the things which just doesn’t interest me much is the coffee klatch, that is talk about anything unrelated to the main reason for the board.  Neither do I like places where: [...]

It’s been a long haul, but, after months of not being capable of sitting here, I’m baaaack.  Now to try to crack some manuscripts and a few smiles…or heads.   And Christmas is coming, to boot! Argh.

Jottings to warm up for a day’s work at the keyboard.  Nothing preservable, but it purges feelings stirred by a conversation I had this morning at breakfast.  She lives in a village of the damned.  The people there lost their souls long ago, freely giving them away in  exchange for safety. They speak what they are told [...]

Figuring out which one, two, three…four, five, six…er — quit counting, EJ — novels to share here, and then working out blurbs and searching out text excerpts from them which will not give out any real meat of the story, but, instead, just give out enough stimulation to invite a reader to investigate — that’s what I’ve been muddling with [...]

I write things that disturb.  Keeping the glee and the humor intact, of course.  But something creeps in, getting under the skin…under the toenails.  Like a sliver.  Like one of those mystery pains that shoot through to the bone when you least anticipate it. Yes, what I write can often disturb…though not always.  Sometimes I [...]