I've planned for this month all summer. By "planned" I mean I've been saying NO a lot. No doctor appointments, no speaking engagements. No days off.  All I'm doing is writing.  Before I go any further, let me catch you up on Rule of Thirds , the first in my new Lake Erie Mystery Series. First, it's no longer " Rule of Thirds ." The sales and marketing teams at One More Chapter (HarperCollins UK) have changed the title to Where The Guilty Hide . My first reaction to the new moniker was "OooOOooo..." Which is precisely what they were going for. Second, it's no longer the Lake Erie Mysteries. It's now the Detective Honeywell mysteries. Matthias (Honeywell) is overjoyed to get top billing and, in my fictional world, is flaunting it over Pete Adams, who has been miffed about not sharing the billing with Zoe Chambers all these years.  Good thing these two characters live in different parts of the state.  Anyway, I'm okay with this sec...

We had our first real snow of the season Friday morning. While regions to our south got hammered, our accumulation was minimal--an inch locally--just enough to be pretty. It is January, after all. This is Pennsylvania. We're supposed to get snow! I busied myself with writing and self-care this first week of 2022, so I didn't have time to fuss over a little white stuff outside anyway.  After a talk with my agent, we decided to set The Hit List aside. This was the second of two new series proposals we'd had out on submission last year. I'd already gone back to the first of the proposals anyway. That was the project I completed for NaNoWriMo. ("Completed" meaning very rough first draft.) I spent much of last week giving the first three chapters another polish and the entire manuscript a new title. I also updated the synopsis and sent the entire package back to my agent. She'll be sending Rule of Thirds out on its second round of submissions next week. Whil...