Fortune Telling or Developing Imagination? By Karla Brandenburg One of my fellow authors here at Booklover’s Bench, Tina Whittle, is a mystery writer, sometimes editor, and semi-professional tarot reader living and working in the Low Country of southeast Georgia. In addition to her regular blog posts, she hosts a site called Tarot by Tina. The […]
Musing on Muses by Tina Whittle Like most mystery writers, I grew up marinating my brain in unsuitable material— Edgar Allan Poe, The Nightstalker, the lurid photographs in my mother’s nursing textbooks. I whetted my appetite for the edgy and unsavory in every medium that the library and late night movies would allow, but I […]
Alien Invasion By Maggie Toussaint aka Rigel Carson In my brand new book, G-2, which is book 2 of The Guardian of Earth Series, the main topic is alien invasion. These particular aliens say they come in peace and want to do business with us Earthlings. Countries all over the planet roll out the red carpet to […]
When Research is Too Much Fun Terry Odell Last time, I talked about throwing out the “Write What You Know” rule, and mentioned writing what you can learn. Sometimes, we authors get to have Too Much Fun doing just that. I recently attended a conference devoted to helping writers get it ‘right’ with all things […]
Book Releases—What’s the Right Interval? Nancy J. Cohen There’s a reason why publishers like book releases from authors to be months, if not years, apart. They need time to pass the manuscript from the developmental editor to the copy editor, from the page proof typesetter to the person who creates review copies. They need to […]
Writing a Series By Karla Brandenburg Many readers these days look for authors who can give them continuity in what they’re reading, a series. There are two approaches, continuing saga and recurring characters. In the continuing saga, like serial television, you generally want to start at the beginning and read in order. For recurring characters, […]
Great White Shark by Tina Whittle In Blood, Ash and Bone, the third novel in my Tai Randolph/Trey Seaver series, I created a fictitious law enforcement agency, a task force collaboration between the Atlanta Police Department and the FBI. By the time the book was released, my pretend organization was real (it was called AMMO […]
Paper-Digital-Audio By Maggie Toussaint Inspired by the popular hand game Rock-Paper-Scissors, Paper-Digital-Audio is a microcosm of book formats in today’s marketplace. Individual preference plays a huge role in what book formats easily trump one another. I hope you’ll read Paper-Digital-Audio and comment on your choice of format. These days we have options for how we […]
Learning While Writing Terry Odell Congratulations to Connie Williamson, who won a cool Windswept Danger magnet and a download of the book. When I started writing, the first rule was “Write What You Know.” But aside from knowing any book I wrote that conformed to that rule would be boring as all get out, part […]
From Nurse to Writer By Nancy J Cohen People ask me if I’d ever considered writing a mystery series about a nurse. This is because I worked in nursing for ten years before I got married, had children, and retired. As a registered nurse and holding a master’s degree, you’d think I would have steered […]
