Mystery and thriller writers vary in age, sex, religion, political persuasion, hair color, as well as lack of hair, and in so many areas, I’d better stop here, but you get the point. So many differences, that it is amazing we are, more often than not, quiet-living, loving people, eager to help fellow writers, who are our competitors in a field that narrows almost daily.

While most of us sit down alone and face the cold, blank page on our computer, our characters also share a trait.…

Writers’ block. What is it? And, do I have it?

I am probably within 50 pages of finishing my sequel to "Chasin’ the Wind," – Free Range Institution – and haven’t written in weeks! I have re-read the manuscript twice, making changes in it and I know where it’s going and how it ends; I know who the good-guy that turns out to be a bad-guy is. I like it and think it’s good.

I sit and stare at the screen that holds two pages of the chapter I can’t seem to finish, even though…

It’s a New Year, but I’d like to mention the last days of 2007.

Celine, Alex, and I left Key West and flew to a freezing New Jersey for my daughter Chela’s New Year’s Eve wedding. It was colder than a witch’s tit – especially for someone from Key West, where I put an electric blanket on the bed when the temperatures fall below 75!

But we braved the weather and enjoyed a week with my pregnant daughter Seanan (pronounced Shannon, but spelled in Gaelic) and her husband Paul…