Howdy friends,

Happy new year to you all. Nice to start the new year out free from the ugly skin cancers that invaded my body. Diffinatley not very much fun, but at least I am ok. Saw the doc a couple of weeks ago for post op and dang if he didn't cut out some more. At this rate I'll loose a couple of pounds by the end of the year if he keeps this up. Hehehe

Starting school again tonight. You'd think I would have had enough of it since I have been going the past 21 years!! OMG.…

Supermum Lawyer Writes Debut Novel shrieks the headline in the Gazzette. My picture grins out inanely, Damaged Goods, held close to my chest.

I sigh.

''Most mothers are delighted if they find time to juggle work and children but Helen Black somehow wrote her fabulous new book.'

I sigh and look around the train wreck I laughingly call home.

The twins were up til 4am projectile vomiting with a force and intensity Linda Blair would…

Posted by guest blogger, Kate Flora

I used to go crazy in February. In order to get the full benefit of my February blahs, I'd start gearing up in mid-January, staring out at all the endless gray days, unrelieved by holidays or feasting or the company of…

I'll admit it. I like endings with all the loose ends tied up and all the good people, if not happy, at least content. I have a hard time really hurting my characters, and when I read, I dislike it when the author dwells too long on torture or even mental anguish, especially of an innocent.

It's not a bad thing, but I have to watch the Pollyanna stuff. It's hard to create tension in a story when everyone is nice to everyone else, and even good guys have to be irritating at times to…

'Happy New Year.'

I don't answer. The presenter is speaking to her army of listeners.

I've been asked to go on the radio to discuss my new book and read a piece which my lovely publicist, Kesh, has edited to remove swearing and all references to padophilia, violence and drugs which has reduced us to two paragraphs.

I trip over a cable which is snaking across the studio. The presenter gives me a look that would freeze medusa. In my defence, I'm new to this game…

Yea! Finished another book today.

This one was very interesting. I tried to pay attention to the process as I was writing the book. That is, I tried to get a sense for what obstacles I felt while I was writing, what ideas I considered and discarded, etc. In short, I did a sort of 'metadata' about the book as I wrote the book.

I started on Nov. 26 and ended on January 15. I write a very clean first draft, and I don't anticipate major rewrites. Figure I'll need maybe…

"Hi. My name is Jordan. And I'm a … " I bite my lower lip and grimace, but push through the first step of my recovery program. "I'm a crime fiction author."

Oh sure, some might think this isn't a big thing to admit. Some may even envy my position, but I'm here to confess that as a crime fiction author, I'm not a well person. Bad men speak to me in my head—and I like it. I…

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.…

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.

Posted by Lorraine (L.L.) Bartlett

The subject of food seems to come up here a LOT here on Writers Plot. Astounding as it may be, I am not the world's best cook. I make edible food, but fancy stuff just isn't in my epicurean repertoire. That's why it's such a surprise that my upcoming Booktown books contain so many recipes. Okay, the publisher LOVES recipes. They put a big red (or gold, depending on which cover they actually use) accent on the cover of Murder Is Binding saying…

I just got word that I've sold a short story. Another notch in my belt, another addition to my resume. But the wheels grind slowly. As Macbeth says so well, "Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow,/Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,/To the last syllable of recorded time." Publishing is a lot like that.

I was once approached by a coworker who had just been told that he'd be laid off soon. He knew I was submitting and asked if I could help him. "I've got four kids," he told me. "I…

A private eye series Kevin Burton Smith doesn't know about? Really? Check it out at my blog:

http://pulpetti.blogspot.com

Blood of Dreams is the first book from the Canadian born / Sydney residing new author. It came with a publicity blurb that says - amongst other things:

"explores the boundaries of obsession, savagery and sacrifice.... in the tradition of Sarah Waters, Anne Rice and Patrick Suskind's Perfume".