Category: On Writing
Sweet Instead of Spicy: Writing Sweet Romance in a Fifty Shades Kind of World
Pounding hearts and sweaty body parts. Looks of lust and feverish kisses. Sexy words and entwined limbs. Foreplay leading to racy scenes, blush-inducing positions, and unbridled passion. These are the things romance novels are made of. Or are they? As a sweet romance writer living in a writing world where Fifty Shades of Grey […]
Writing, Redemption, and Pop Music
My “difficult second novel,” as yet unpublished, bears the rather ambitious title The History of the World in Pop Music. It’s not actually a history of the world in pop music, it’s the story of a girl growing up in an Irish Catholic family in Liverpool in the 1970s who discovers that the stepfather she […]
In Support of New-Adult Fiction
In the world of writing, we all know that we should not write to trends, and we all know the reasons why that doesn’t work. Nevertheless, we all hope that when our work-in-progress someday emerges into the world, it will fit right in with the current mega-bestsellers. That happened to me with new-adult fiction. 2012 […]
Losing Room #2
From the time Martha’s Vineyard Writer’s Residency showed up in my Google search for writing residencies, I knew we were meant to go the distance. I applied in the summer of 2009, and a few weeks later, I got an acceptance note from the director at the residency: Justen Ahren. I used to be a […]
Real Writers Write in Coffee Shops
Natalie Goldberg states in her book, Writing Down the Bones, that it is essential for a writer to have a relationship with a coffee shop. The picture of the writer sitting in a coffee shop penning the next bestseller is ubiquitous. In fact, sitting here in a coffee shop, I can see at least two […]
To the Stars Through Difficulties
I’ve loved fiction about women for as long as I can remember. I come by that love naturally. My mother had subscriptions to McCall’s and Redbook; my grandmother divided The Woman’s Home Companion into thirty segments to ensure there would be something to read every night during her otherwise somewhat dismal life as an early […]
On Swearing In Writing
I have a potty-mouth. It’s not a bad thing. For a long time, though, I was ashamed of what came out of my bazoo. Why couldn’t I be demure—ladylike, like the fairy-tale damsel? It’s not as if I didn’t try to make nice. We bobby-socked baby-boomers were groomed to. Still, I just couldn’t ‘do’ pink […]
Why We Write about Home
Long before I knew southern fiction was an actual genre, I loved stories set in the south. From a young age, something about the cadence of life, the storytelling, the language—maybe even the proximity to water—pulled me in and made me sad to leave. One tradition that stuck out to me in this genre (it’s […]
The Curse of the Writer’s Muse
A little secret about my writing. I have a muse. I won’t tell you who he is though you can imagine. He is the opposite of me, my alter ego you could say. Extraordinary to my ordinary, or so my writer’s mind imagines. For what is a muse but someone to alight fantasies within you. […]
A Writer’s Tale
29 years. 36 books. Hardcover, trade, mass market and audio. eBook. Manga. Large print. Published around the globe. Bestseller lists, international bestseller lists. And a soap opera—in Japan. When I look at all those accomplishments, the one that jumps out as truly my accomplishment is how long I’ve been writing and selling books. Happily, I […]
Recent Comments