I frequently write a post in answer to YA Highway’s Road Trip Wednesday blog prompt. Recently, the question was asked, How far would you go to get published? They used a graphic that listed four possibilities: (1) Jump on the trend train, (2) Switch to a well-selling genre, (3) Minor revisions suggested to sign with [...]

As 2011 comes to a close, I find myself resembling the remark, “the hurrier I go, the behinder I get,” and I have to wonder why. Is it me, or is life spinning past us at a faster pace than we’ve ever known before? Or is there just more work to do? Back in the [...]

Ya know, I like magic as much as the next person. . . no, I think I have to take that back.  I don’t like magic when it’s just a big special effects show.  I like magic to be fully integrated with the plot and characters of the book.  I don’t need to know how [...]

The poet and essayist Alexander Pope used this reply when a friend asked why he never gave him any of his work to read before publication.  While I think in many cases, Pope’s reply is a rather harsh and definitely arrogant, I do think that some caution must be taken for the professional novelist, particularly [...]