Pepper Smith's Blog - CrimeSpace

Story up at Mysterical-E

The Fall 2009 issue of Mysterical-E is now up, and among the stories on offer is "Picture Imperfect", by yours truly. It weighs in at 20,000 words (about), so make sure you've got a moment if you head over to read it. Continue

Added by Pepper Smith on September 30, 2009 at 12:32pm — 2 Comments

New Contracts

I'm excited to announce that the three books in my Patty O'Donnell series have been acquired by Mundania Press. As currently scheduled, the first, Blood Money, is due out in April 2010, to be followed by Rio Star in October 2010, and Reef Runner in April 2011. Sample chapters will probably be available at my website before long, but in the meantime you can get to know Patty through the free story posted on my website. Just go to pep… Continue

Added by Pepper Smith on February 12, 2009 at 3:37am — 6 Comments

Website Update, and Muse Online Writers Conference

Finally got my website updated. The update includes a pdf download of the short story "The Uncle Hunt", previously published in "Hate: An Anthology of Mystery and Murder." The Muse Online Writers Conference for 2008 is coming in October. Registration is open, but it closes on September 1, 2008. The conference organizers are keeping the deadline strict this year, so if you don't register by… Continue

Added by Pepper Smith on August 20, 2008 at 11:18am — No Comments

Stereotypes and Writing

I’ve been pondering this one for a while, and decided to finally get my brain in gear and write it. A number of years ago, before my first novel made it to print, a reader complained about the fact that my characters of a particular nationality weren’t the way characters of that nationality were portrayed in movies. I explained to her, politely, that the characters in the movies were stereotypes, and that I don’t use them. Stereotypes are a sort of shorthand that is used to invent characters w… Continue

Added by Pepper Smith on July 11, 2008 at 4:09am — No Comments

What makes a writer a writer?

Crossposted from my other blog... I tend not to say an awful lot while I'm online. Mostly, I 'listen' to the conversations going on on message boards and lists, learning and picking up interesting tips and tidbits as I go along. I'm still too new at this, and a bit too unknown as a published author to have much of importance to add. I have to admit that there are times when some of my fellow authors do and say things that leave me scratching my head. There are writers who seem to feel all auth… Continue

Added by Pepper Smith on March 12, 2008 at 7:00am — 8 Comments

Hark! What's that falling on the roof?

I do believe it's raining, courtesy of what used to be tropical storm Erin. At the moment the temperature is comfortable. It's amazing how difficult it is to write when you feel like someone's slowly sauteing your brain in hot oil. Things are supposed to get back into the lower 90s by the end of the week, but maybe they won't get back up around 100. With all this rain, that extra humidity would make things utterly miserable.

The writing continues on the new novel. It's not the fastest I… Continue

Added by Pepper Smith on August 20, 2007 at 11:46am — No Comments

Website update, and pet responsibility

Got to playing with the website builder and revamped my site. In doing so, I got to wondering, who sort of information do readers want to find on an author's website? Feel free to check it out, and let me know what else you might have wanted to see. The link's on the left in my profile. Updating again is no biggie.

On the other matter, we've just adopted a new cat, our third, and our second stray. The first one we adopted a year ago. She'd been hanging out in our yard for a while, and I… Continue

Added by Pepper Smith on August 1, 2007 at 5:42am — No Comments

Fun with links

Who knew adding a blog to your site could be such fun?

If anyone's tried to reach my website via the link in my profile, it works now. I guess I didn't read the instructions well enough when I tried adding that Word Press blog to my site. It took over the main site address. I uninstalled it and will try reinstalling it later, once my brain's in gear.

Writing continues. My heroine is waiting impatiently for me to come back and make the man with the knife go away, so I guess I'd… Continue

Added by Pepper Smith on July 3, 2007 at 3:37am — No Comments

What the--?

There are things that they don't tell you about when you get your own website.

There are some things, though, that should be explained carefully to those who put up their own web pages to tell the world about themselves. Such as, hotlinking to someone else's graphics without their permission is considered stealing.

Imagine my surprise when, in going over the web stats for my site, I discovered a link to a website that I'd never heard of before. A quick hop over to that site sho… Continue

Added by Pepper Smith on June 23, 2007 at 4:45am — No Comments

Summer fog season

Every time I check this page, I see this poor blog sitting alone and unattended, and I think, "I gotta think of something to post..." Yeah, right. I'm not usually this neglectful when it comes to posting. I just forget what time of year it is.

And that is--summer mold season. Otherwise known as the season of brain fog. I'm terribly allergic. It's a great time for reading, and sometimes for writing, because neither of those things necessarily involves direct contact with other people. Co… Continue

Added by Pepper Smith on June 16, 2007 at 4:35am — No Comments

It's still rainy, so it must be April

Spoke too soon about the lack of rain. We've still got a deficit, I'm sure, but it's definitely rained, and from the look of the clouds, it will again today.

As this is blog #2 for me (Pepper, what were you thinking?!), I probably won't be doing it all that frequently, but I'll be putting stuff here as it occurs to me.

I'm enjoying the writing conversations on the forums. It's nice to actually talk with other professionals who are in the same genre--my publisher primarily publi… Continue

Added by Pepper Smith on April 27, 2007 at 2:50am — No Comments

Insert clever title here

Ah, getting started on a cool and potentially rainy April morning. There is that old saying about April showers, but after the freeze earlier this month and the serious lack of April showers otherwise, I don't know what sort of flowers May's going to bring.

Well, a tiny bit about me. I'm 45, married, and have a teenage son. I've been writing pretty much all my life, not counting the break I took after my son was born. My first mystery story was written with a school friend when I was 9.… Continue

Added by Pepper Smith on April 25, 2007 at 1:32am — No Comments

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