Karen McCullough's Blog (6)

Do you listen to music while you write? Or while you read? Work? Play? Recently, I’ve seen authors include their Play Lists either in the fronts or backs of their books, presenting the music that inspired them while they wrote. I’d love to be able to do that, too, but I can’t listen to music while I do anything else that requires significant concentration. A lot of people say that music helps them get in the mood, or helps them focus or concentrate. For some, it helps to shut out other noises… Continue

There are times when you walk a really strange road as a writer, going down some dark paths and scary, twisty highways. As authors we do things to our characters we’d never dream of doing in real life. We make them suffer in a myriad of ways--from the agony of emotional wringers we hope never to experience ourselves to very physical torments. I kill people…in my books, anyway. I’ve had my characters kidnapped, beaten, burned, cut, threatened, tortured and just about any and every other horrible… Continue

So, okay, it's not exactly Tuesday. It was when I started this list, though! After I made this list and read it over it struck me that practically all of them are fantasy or science fiction. I guess that explains what I write. 1. All three of The Lord of the Rings movies – the best fantasy movies EVER 2. Star Wars, the very first, the original and still the best, with The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi close behind. I like to pretend Episodes 1-3 never… Continue

I love writing romantic suspense, romantic mysteries, romantic fantasies, and paranormal romance.

I’ve even written straight mysteries. Sort of. Even my mysteries still end up with a bit of romance in them.

So, what kind of writer am I? Am I a romance writer who wanders into the mystery, suspense, and fantasy genres? Or am I a mystery writer with a romantic streak?

But all my novels have some element of mystery. If the reader knew what would happen from the very start, th

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The five things I love about being an author:

1. The incredible feeling of satisfaction I get when I write the last sentence of the first draft of a novel. I’m not done with the story by any means, but for me, getting the first draft down is the hardest part.

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I've been around CrimeSpace for a while but haven't actually done much here due to having too many other things on my mind.

Since I'm already doing blog entries in one place, it seemed like a no-brainer to also post them here, so starting today that's what I'll be doing.

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