Writers are People, Too

Finding just the right piece of prose to read at my book signing was more of a challenge than I thought it would be.  I needed to pick something full of tension and suspense, but without giving away a key part of the plot. It had to be something that would pique my readers’ interest, and make them want to know more, thus resulting in potential book sales. Once I settled on the section I wanted…

In 2014, my first novel, a domestic suspense titled WHEN LOVE WON’T DIE, was published in paperback and e-book formats. As a debut author traditionally published by a very small press. and not well known, I needed to create my own events and do my own promotion. Being on a very limited budget, I knew I had my work cut out for me. The first thing I did was contact a branch of my local library…

Name/pen name: Rose Green Location: Currently onan ice floe in North Dakota (kidding, that’s the other 14 months of the year—it’s summer now!) Genres: Middle grade fiction, with some yet-to-be-published YA and picture books. Do you have a particular writing ritual when you sit down to work? If so, describe it. I can write with a lot of noise around me, but I can’t write to music, not even if…

As an avid reader of suspense, thrillers, mysteries/cozy mysteries, and horror, I’ve come to know the things that grab me when I open a new book. SUSPENSE I especially enjoy domestic suspense and the inner workings of people and their relationships. THRILLERS Fast-paced, page turners that give me an adrenaline rush are my favorite quick reads. MYSTERIES Clues and red herrings that are fun…

ARC stands for Advanced Reader Copy. It’s the stage when the book is in its nearly final, polished form. Right now, I’m working on my book galleys. Once all the edits have been addressed, an ARC will become available to early readers who agree to read the book for free and post a review before or upon the book’s release. Currently, I’m an ARC reader for an author who writes delightfully…

This week I received the galleys for my psychological thriller, THEY’RE WATCHING, from my publisher. With approximately six months until my book comes out in January of 2027, we are now in the process of getting the manuscript out of a Word document and into a book format. So what exactly are galleys? Galleys are the preliminary version of the book in its pre-publication phase. They are also…

Name/pen name: Sherrie Lynn Clarke/S. L. Clarke Location: Cache Valley, Utah Genres: I’m what I call genre-fluid. Out of all of my books/ideas for books, none of them are the same genre. I currently have a domestic suspense novel out and am working on a memoir and a cozy mystery (when the memoir gets too heavy). Do you have a particular writing ritual when you sit down to work? If so, describe…

In this week’s blog post I’m trying something a little different. My domestic suspense/thriller, When Love Won’t Die debuted in 2014 with Splice Publishing. It’s the story of a woman desperate to keep her past a secret and how obsession fuels the nightmare she is about to endure. My protagonist is Eleanor Bennett, a suspense author living an idyllic life writing novels and living in the country…

No matter what I’m writing, feedback in invaluable. I request feedback at different stages of working on my novel manuscripts. Critique partners I have been so lucky to have belonged to an online critique group for well over fifteen years. We started after finding one another on a writing website where folks could sign up and be placed in a group. We named ourselves The Blue Quills. Over the…

When I first embarked on writing my debut domestic suspense novel, I toyed with ideas for books in other genres, but nothing grabbed me enough to actually start creating a draft. I have always read a wide variety of genres including suspense, thriller, horror, cozy mystery, romance, generational drama, light fantasy and some sci-fi so my *idea* journal had snippets of material for many of…

Name/pen name: Debra Hunt (goes by Debbie with friends/family) Location: Colorado Springs, CO Genres: Women’s Fiction with suspense elements, book club fiction Do you have a particular writing ritual when you sit down to work? If so, describe it. I have a strong procrastination ritual, and I need to exercise extreme discipline or I’ll sabotage myself with the most inane “must-do” task on my…

I have been a fan of mysteries, suspense, thrillers, and even some horror for longer than I can remember. There’s nothing like a book where the author takes me on a thrill ride, and I can’t help but keep turning the pages. I became a fan of the suspense genre after reading my first Mary Higgins Clark book, Where Are The Children? The way she interwove the characters through the plot, hurling…

I was figuring out my schedule for this past week, as I do at the beginning of every new week, and I was actually surprised at home much of my day is spent focused on some aspect of writing. Even though I’m a creative at heart, I am also someone who cannot thrive without pre-planning and being organized. When tasks are scheduled into my week, they are almost certain to get done. So here’s what…

Have you ever been rolling along churning out words and then, out of nowhere, when you sit down to your next writing session, you find yourself procrastinating and using almost anything else to avoid putting words down on the page? Whether you’ve had a book (or several) published, or you’re writing your first, when I find myself avoiding the writing, it’s usually because of one of these…

Here’s the second part of my interview with J C Spark. What does author success look like for you? For me, success as an author means not only writing good books, but also publishing them and having them find readers – more than just a handful. It also means being able to make a living from it. An essential part of that is that I personally like my own books. I want readers to talk about them…

Name/pen name: JC Spark Location: Ranum, Northern Denmark (born in Germany) Genres: (Near Future) Sci-Fi, Speculative Fiction, Sci-Fi Thriller (Mystery, RomCom, Historical Adventure, LitRPG planned and partially drafted) and had already decided to self-publish even before the first book. Do you have a particular writing ritual when you sit down to work? If so, describe it. I don’t have a…

***image from FreePik.com*** I’ve had so many writers tell me that they struggle with dialogue. When I first began writing novels, I did, too. I would get feedback from my critique group saying, “A lot of the characters sound the same,” or, “A lot of the characters sound like you.” In the late 1990s, I began teaching drama and working with kids and teens. The more I interacted with them, the…