My office…my life…me

My office is featured over at Lisa Renee Jones’ blog today. I have to say you can tell a lot about me by looking at my wall and that isn’t really a coincidence. When I was young I read a book where a girl made a collage over her bed that was formed in a spiral. Each...

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For Book Titles That Sell, Make it High Concept

There was a time when I would have argued titles don’t sell books. I would have been wrong. Now there is good reason behind my previous thinking. More often than not I don’t remember the actual title to the last book I read. I remember characters or plot or author,...

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Writing a book? This better be personal!

A friend of mine, Intrigue author Ann Voss Peterson, has a mantra concerning books and the main characters’ goals and motivations. It needs to be personal and it needs to be important, very important at least to the character—to the world is even better. (but that...

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How do you know you are reading a romance?

This may seem like a strange question, but it is one I encounter a lot. Maybe not in the actual question form, but from people who think they know the answer and oh so obviously don't. In fact, even writers who say they write romance don't always know what makes a...

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Dump, dump, dump, dump…

You probably don't know it, but a dump is a great thing if you are an author. It means you got one of those special little cardboard display things just for you in some store (hopefully many stores). Well, guess what? Harlequin did one for the two Nocturne anthologies...

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Lori at Ninc!

Hi, all! I'm checking in from the Novelist Inc. conference in St. Louis. The actual conference starts today, but yesterday was dedicated to Forensics. It was chock full of some great information. I think my favorite was listening to the FBI agent and Franklin County...

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