How can something that happens with every book always come as a surprise? Even in the throes of self-doubt I don’t recognize it.
Is it Six Thirty? Nine Fifteen?
This seems to me close to my personal rule, “If I read it aloud and pause, that’s where the comma goes.” This after years of being told that was not how to do things.
Reality is Not Reality TV
Just because I have the passionate commitment about writing to put a story on the page doesn’t mean I have a right to the passionate commitment of others, let alone their money and time. I have to earn it and work to keep it.
Who’s Serving Who?
In a well-crafted novel, every character and every scene has to serve the master players: plot, theme or setting. Best if they serve more than one.
Ellipse. . . How I Loved. . . Thee. . .
You would think I would have learned after book four, when I mentioned with admiration a celebrity who turned out to be a double murderer, that pop culture references are usually not essential to my kind of storytelling.