One question I get asked frequently as a mystery author is whether I spend a great deal of time doing research before writing my novels. The answer is yes. I’ve done a heckuva lot of research for my books. Just not the kind you might think. I’m a longtime New York City journalist (New York Post, New York Daily News, […]
My reading habit was mostly self-inflicted, though heavily influenced by my father’s collection of boyhood books, notably the works of Edgar Rice Boroughs, Zane Grey, Tom Swift and lots of other popular action writers of the early 20th century now lost in obscurity. But the mystery addiction is all my mother’s fault. She didn’t know the term, but she was
Never end a sentence with a preposition? That is the sort of pedantry up with which I shall not put. (Winston Churchill) Sometimes it’s okay to savagely split an infinitive. (Me) And if it sometimes seems right to start a sentence with ‘and’ or ‘but,’ do it. Subject, predicate, object is almost always the right order. Until it gets boring.
I always want to be writing anything other than the thing I’m supposed to be writing. This is the impulse that drives my productivity. It’s why I have so many irons in the fire, because there’s nothing like a fresh iron to take your mind off the ones already in the forge. The problem with working on the thing I’m
Every published author will tell you that a great copy editor is a gift from God, and have horror stories about those more in Satan’s camp. I’ve had both. Now that I’m busy with the editorial process, the importance of great copy editing has become even more apparent. There’s a big range of capabilities different copy editors bring to their
Adelina here. I am sorry. I look at this blog and realize I have not been keeping up. You would think, being dead, that I would have plenty of time to blog, but it is not so very simple. Just because you are dead doesn’t mean the beets don’t need to be planted, the butter doesn’t need to be churned,
It was my plan to post a new blog yesterday but Jeff was hogging the computer. He was mumbling about line edits and cursing periodically, but mostly he seemed happy with his progress. Which is, I think, a good thing. Being dead, I am not such a good judge. Anyway, last week I introduced you to our synchronized swim coaches,
Where did I leave off? You will excuse me, but my memory is not so good any more now that I am dead. Anyway, if I am remembering, my cousin Iulia gathered us all in the kitchen to tell us of what she would daydream. We were very much surprised when she told us of her hope to become a
Jeff assigned me the responsibility to blog for him while he’s busy dealing with chapter business. He assured me that people would be interested in my experience as a contestant on Romania’s Got Talent, and perhaps he is correct, but so far it seems that he is not. Don’t tell him I said this, but Jeff is not correct about
When I tell people that I’ve never written a query that didn’t result in a request for pages, they can’t believe it. When I tell them I only ever sent out three (or six if you count the random assignments I was given to pitch to at conferences) queries, they are shocked. But here’s the thing: I researched before I
