Back in March, I was happily munching a salad when something didn't feel right. The hard piece of something that I spit out was one of my crowns. No big deal, I thought. Call the dentist, go in, and get it glued back in place. Then I looked closer and realized the crown had taken a large portion of what was left of the tooth with it. Okay, so it WAS a big deal. There wasn't enough of the tooth left to repair, so I had to see an oral surgeon to have the root extracted. (Don't cringe. I'm not going into great deal.) Unfortunately, while I got in right away for the assessment, I couldn't have the procedure done until this past Monday. Yes, that's a long time. It wasn't that bad. The doctor was FAST. I was in and out in no time. I refused the narcotic pain meds, opting to use over-the-counter products instead. Note: I highly recommend the Tylenol/Advil combo I've been told to use on several occasions. However... While I wasn't in any real pain, I was a t...

Have you ever put off a task because you expected it to be grueling? That's basically how I approach developmental edits. I have pages and pages of notes from my editor, and I need to find a way to rip apart my book and put it back together to patch the holes she found.  Guess what? It's never as bad as I think it's going to be. The hardest part is dragging my writer's brain out of the book I'm drafting to sink it into the book that needs to be edited.  And that's where I am. I received my editorial letter early in the month. It's only a page and a half, which is virtually unheard of for me, and a good part of that is raving about the characters and twists. At the time it hit my inbox, we were recovering from a vicious windstorm and had no power. Then there was preparation for the Pennwriters Conference.  And my editor told me "no rush." Never ever tell me "no rush" because that' permission to procrastinate.  I ran out of excuses this...

 The new laptop arrived. I remember the old days when I would spend hours...days...a week...getting the new computer set up. Every program had to be installed. Every password had to be remembered, looked up, or changed (because who can remember ALL their passwords???) And that was after the original start up and hours of updates. Thanks to fiber optic internet, updates took maybe twenty minutes. Then I had to sign in to one account, using a PIN. Voila! My email and photos and virtually everything else effortlessly showed up on the new machine. Even my screensaver was transferred.  I did have to install my preferred browser since Edge isn't it. Plus Dropbox. Plus Zoom. I'm sure there will be more, but for now, it's pretty well ready to roll.  Meanwhile, the old laptop is still limping along, so I haven't sent it to the electronics graveyard just yet.

Last weekend's Pennwriters Conference went off without a hitch. Mostly. Having been a conference coordinator once a long, long time ago, I know there are lots of hitches and glitches behind the scenes. The trick is how you handle them. This year's coordinators handled them beautifully. I'd guess 99.9% of the attendees were unaware and were too busy having fun to notice. Smiling faces abounded. I had a glitch of my own to contend with. After teaching two workshops on Friday, I had one more to go on Saturday afternoon, and it was the one that totally depended on a PowerPoint slide show.  Friday night in my hotel room, I reached into my computer bag to pull out my laptop and was startled to feel how hot it was. Not scorching hot, but warmer than usual. Let me add that my beloved laptop is five years old, which seems to be their life expectancy. The battery no longer holds a charge, so I need to keep in plugged in when using it.  Anyway, I decided to err on the side of caution ...

The Pennwriters Conference begins this Friday, and I’m teaching three workshops, so right now, my focus is on making lists, packing, and preparing my classes and handouts. I may not be writing, but I’m thinking about writing a lot .   I do have more news to share. While I’ve had my doubts in recent months, it appears there will be two more Detective Honeywell Mysteries coming out this year! I have release dates and titles! But still no cover art.   The third in the series will be The Devil Comes Calling and will be released in eBook format on November 7, 2025. The fourth will be out in eBook on December 19 and is titled No Stone Left Unturned . Preorder links are starting to pop up sans the still-missing covers, but I’m not promoting them until there’s something interesting to look at. Call me superstitious. It simply never feels real until I have that cover art.   I also got my developmental edits for No Stone Left Unturned , and they don’t look too daunting. I’...

I'm home from this year's Malice Domestic where a secret I've been bursting to tell everyone was revealed.  I'm going to be next year's Malice Domestic Guest of Honor! I have known since early March, but wasn't at liberty to say anything until it was officially announced at the end of this year's Agatha Awards Banquet. This is an amazing honor. When I look back over my collection of programs from past years and see the other authors who have held this title, I'm humbled. And gobsmacked.  Adding to my excitement was learning that my good pal and fellow Agatha nominee (although she's actually brought the teapot home a few times), Ellen Byron, will be Toastmaster! It promises to be a fun weekend!  I have a lot more news coming in the next days and weeks, but this is enough for one post. 

How many times have I sworn I was going to post here more regularly? I've lost count. And yet, here we are, more than two months since I last wrote something for you.  After 16+ books, I still find myself going down the same internal dialogue rabbit hole as I hear newbie, unpublished writers doing. I don't have anything interesting to say. What could I possibly write that anyone would want to read? My life is BORING. For over ten years, I've had a new release coming out at least once a year, so there's been something to share. Cover releases, pre-order links, behind the scenes of a coming-soon novel. I recently realized, this is the longest I've gone without a new book since I started this journey. And I'm not happy about it.  In my defense, my publisher has TWO of my manuscripts and is sitting on them. Meanwhile, I'm writing every day, so it's not like I've retired.  In case you're wondering about my previous post, yes, I finished the synopsis a...

For close to 20 years, anytime I've been asked to provide advice to aspiring writers, one of my bits of wisdom has been "Finish the book." So many newbie authors get wrapped up in perfecting the first chapter. Or the first three chapters. They tweak and rewrite and fiddle and fix ... and never get beyond those opening pages. Then they get a newer, better idea and start a new project, where they work to perfect those opening pages yet again.  Wash, rinse, repeat.  Which is why I strongly advise powering on and finishing the book. Honestly, those perfected first chapters will very likely end up needing drastic revisions once you get the entire story down. So, don't worry about perfection. Write the shitty first draft. Don't edit until you have a completed manuscript to work from. This has been my advice.  And now I'm defying it. I'm working on a proposal for a new book that's been inside my brain for the better part of a year. In the last few months, I...

We are solidly in the DEAD of winter. Every year, I reach a point where I proclaim (or mutter or yell, depending), "I'm sick of winter." Surprisingly, it hasn't happened yet this year. All I need to do is look at the news about what the rest of the country is going through--California is burning, snow blankets New Orleans, the southern Atlantic coast is freezing--and then I look out my frosted windows at a mere few inches of snow, which is pretty mild by Pennsylvania standards. Yes, it hit -11 yesterday morning, but I didn't have to go anywhere. Neither did my semi-retired husband. Our furnace kept the house comfy.  I have nothing worth complaining about.  Granted, that rarely stops me.  Today, I do need to set foot outside. I have kitchen scraps that need to go to the compost heap. I have a bag of trash that needs to go out to the can. I haven't made the stroll to the mailbox yet this week. But it's supposed to go "up" to 27 degrees, which will ...

There’s a lot up in the air for the coming year. I have two books (#3 and #4 in the Detective Honeywell series) coming out, but I have no titles, no covers, no release dates. I blogged last week on Writers Who Kill about how the only thing we authors have control over is writing the next book. While I will be writing #5 in the series this year, it’s not due to my editor until December, which leaves me with some wiggle room. As I teased in yesterday’s post, I have a plan. I’ve been outlining and starting to draft a standalone novel. I’m calling it a domestic suspense wrapped up in a police procedural. My intention is to have opening chapters and a synopsis ready to hand over to my agent in March, so she can start shopping it around. Then, in April, I can jump back into Matthias and Emma’s world for the rest of the year. I don’t have a lot on my “events” schedule yet. In February, I’m doing a reading with my friend Bill Gormley in Pittsburgh, but I don’t have any real details yet. In A...