Since I’ve started reporting on my work-in-progress as I head toward deadline, I realize I’m blogging later and later at night and rambling more and more. Hope you don’t mind. Tonight’s subject, which I know i’ll be revisiting from time to time is Men. When friends read the early drafts of my first novel, PRIVATE RELATIONS, there was…

I’m cookin’, y’all! I finally made it past that backstory chapter that was really holding me up. I managed to cut four pages from twenty. It probably needs even more tightening, but I’ll catch it on the next draft. I reworked two chapters over the weekend and by the time I go to bed tonight,…

I thought I’d continue in the murderous vein, since that’s how I’m feeling at the moment. I’m still working on the blankety-blank backstory chapter. That’s because, after two solid hours of rewriting, I hit “close file,” the computer asked if it should “save changes?” and some sadistic spirit took hold of my fingers and clicked…

This morning at Starbucks, I saw my friend Maureen Sherbondy. She and her laptop are a fixture at the local Opium Den. She’s a poet and a short story writer, and she is really cranking on a novel. She makes me feel like a slacker, she works so hard. We had one of our usual…

Since I had a doc’s appointment this morning, I went to my second favorite Opium Den to work, which is closer to the doctor’s office. I spent a couple of hours there working on some of the backstory of my WIP, and three people I know from my local Opium Den (Starbucks, to the uninitiated) popped in, one…

Okay, now this is either very courageous of me or very stupid. Time will tell which. My deadline for BEFORE THE STORM is July 1, so I plan to post my progress here to keep me on task. Here’s where I stand as of this moment: I have a complete (well, almost) draft of the…

As I go deeper into the rewrite of my current Work-in-Progress, BEFORE THE STORM, I find myself thinking about the book I’ll write when this one is finished. It’s as though my brain needs to have two tracks going at one time: the rewrite uses the organizational, fine-tuning track, while the yet-to-be-written book uses the…

First, I went to the crimewriters’ dinner meeting, which was great.  Then I came home and was looking through some old pictures I want to hang up and found this pic, above. This is me on the deck of an old round oceanfront cottage in South Nags Head on the Outer Banks. The picture’s from the…

. . . or how I spent my Saturday night. I can’t complain. I’d already been to a baby shower and a Kentucky Derby party (at which I won $50!) by the time this charming pic was taken by my photographer in residence. I am half in my jammies. The dog blanket is a mess.…

As most of you know, I’ve written several books set in the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Now John (my significant other) and two other photographers are going to teach a photography workshop there in October, focusing on historic lighthouses of the Outer Banks. I can’t wait to tag along. I’ll be smack in the middle of another…