Peg Herring's Page

You gotta love the Fourth of July (at least if you're a USAer). My day begins early as I bake pies (two pumpkin, two peanut butter) for the church social. I deliver them around 10:00 and then my husband and I do the once-a-year walk. Our little town is only about six blocks long, and on the Fourth the main street is closed to cars and the sidewalks become jam-packed with people, many of them old friends who've returned for the festivities. We walk all the way down one side of the street and then… Continue

I'm a member of many writer-oriented groups, among them the Guppies, which is Sisters in Crime's subgroup for un-published writers. Quite a few of us stay on after we're published, and it's interesting to be reminded of what that pre-publication angst was comprised of. Of course, mid-list writers have to make sure the next book is good enough to get attention, because that section of writers has no guarantee of continued publication. And I read today that Anne Perry's editor is quite critical of… Continue

Since I started writing, a strange guilt plagues me whenever I read: I feel like I should be writing instead. A really good book overcomes this guilt, because then I consider it research, honing my craft by reading expert writers.

My own study of what I want to write and how I will do it makes me intolerant of what I consider mediocre work, so that I often don't finish a book if it hasn't grabbed me by fifty pages or so.

I've been trying to expand my knowledge of writers' names, since I often… Continue

I really, really hope CNN, FOX News, and all the rest have no idea. I'd like my friends to remember me the way they want to, not the way some overly-made-up (and fake in every other way too) "personality" summarizes, eulogizes, and characterizes me.

Death of a celebrity in our culture creates a feeding frenzy of pseudo-news about the person, and it makes me sick that everyone who ever spoke to him or her seems unable to resist the urge to talk about it. And the speculation from "experts" about… Continue

It's more and more Alice-like lately, with me running all the time and muttering to myself, "Oh my stars and whiskers, I'm late!" Or something like that.

So the question is, when am I supposed to do all those wonderful things people keep telling me I can't succeed without? A good business system requires learning the computer processes involved. A good marketing plan involves time spent meeting, communicating, schmoozing. A good writing process involves writing, writing, writing. A good citizen… Continue