Book Review: Eliana-Who-Sees-Us by Amani Jesu
For Eliana, life’s big adventures are about to begin. She’s 18 and about to move to Chicago with her boyfriend. It’s Thanksgiving. He doesn’t show up for dinner. Then things go downhill. Instead of moving in with her boyfriend, Eliana moves in with a friend. A good friend. The kind of friend who has your…Read More
Interview with Michael Hingson – Part 1
A while back, Michael Hingson interviewed me for his Unstoppable Mindset podcast. Michael is the author of Thunder Dog, a book that earned my first perfect 10 on this blog. It was a great conversation and I’ll post a link once it goes live. He records them several months before they air. He’s a busy…Read More
Interview with Dr. Jacalyn Kerbeck and Diann Boehm
Dr. Jacalyn had me on her show, The Corner Bookstore, recently. The show airs on USA Global TV and Radio. It was a lot of fun chatting with her and author Diann Boehm. We talk about writing for a particular age group, SPARK, and the world in general. But as I’ve reviewed the show, all…Read More
10 Questions with Carol Novello
In the future, “Carol Novello” will likely make the transition from mere proper noun to verb. Want something difficult done that requires both head and heart? You’ll have to Carol Novello it. I was privileged to meet Carol when we were both guests on Bonnie D. Graham‘s show a while back. I bought Carol’s book,…Read More
10 Questions with Alex Perry
I was privileged enough to be connected with Alex Perry’s writing/critique group through Houston Writer’s Guild a few years ago. Although we’ve never met in person, I’m a huge fan of her work and her honesty. She was the first person willing to give me honest feedback – “It’s boring. It’s like watching someone watch…Read More
Moving Pieces
Moving pieces It’s a busy time for me. I’m doing revisions to Fire, blogging, working, and “building my platform.” That’s a phrase that didn’t exist twenty years ago unless you were talking about something to stand on. Now, publishers and agents are interested in it almost before they care about your work. If you’ve got…Read More
Promise the story you are going to end
I recently finished Orson Scott Card’s Mithermage series – good stuff. At the back of Book 2, The Gate Thief, he writes an afterward (always read the epilogues and afterwards) explaining why the book was six months late. It wasn’t that he was busy binging Battlestar Gallactica, it was that he got the structure of…Read More
Book 2: Fire – first draft complete!
During the 12 Days of Page Turners online event, the host, Aimee Ravichandran (@aimeeravichandran) of Abundantly Social, asked me how long it took to write SPARK. I told her that I thought it took about a year to finish the first draft. There were eight drafts before it was done. So, having just finished my…Read More
Smurf Slayer
After reading my manuscript Steph (my developmental editor) had a few things to say. The one that hit me hardest was this: “I actually like your bad guy (Ragnar Sarnak in the published version) more than I do Will (the protagonist).” Ouch. When I started the novel, I wanted Billy/Will to be a lead with…Read More
A nice review
SPARK was reviewed by onlinebookclub.org. Here’s what they had to say: https://forums.onlinebookclub.org/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=200256 Reading through the comments below the review, it seemed that some readers of the review came away thinking that it was a “sad” book. Yes, some sad things happen, but is that what those of you who read it thought?