I like to talk about writing because I’m a writer. And if you ask me, I LOVE to talk about my books! Oh, I can tell you all about the half-dozens mostly-formed plots in my head, the interlocking trilogies, the fascinating characters, the wild plot twists – I can paint you vivid pictures that will have you begging me for more.

But the issue here is: it’s all in my head until I put it somewhere else. Like paper. Or a computer screen. And that’s where it’ll stay until I do some other things that result in it getting published, like endless queries and twitter conversations and ambushing editors at conventions and signing up for writer’s pitch conferences so I can pitch. Or I can jump through a thousand less hoops and self-publish, but I have to find a great cover artist, edit the everloving crap out of my work, get some beta readers, edit it again, ask an editor to edit, re-work and edit again, and then publish it.

Then I have to promote it, because while I do have some loyal and ardent readers, I don’t have great throngs of them as of yet. So I have to weigh which promotional activities are going give me the most bang for my buck and I have to blog and Facebook and Tweet and Tumblr and Instagram all that stuff.

But it all starts with one fundamental truth: Continue reading →

So I’ve started on the next book.

I didn’t mean to, really. I still have a teeny-tiny bit of work on Someday In Dublin – not content, but formatting – and I just plain needed a break from it for a little while.

And this scene was rolling around in my head and I’ve found that when that happens, it’s best to just write it out. So I did.

The girl, out in the desert. Sitting on a mesa, under a sky full of stars. The stark, craggy rocks and bits of scrub brush around her. The lingering smell of the rain on the creosote bushes – something you can only experience while living in the desert (I grew up in New Mexico, so I know it well).

This one is going to be powerful. That’s the word. Powerful.

And now, back to the drips and drabs of Someday In Dublin.

This is what I love most about writing. I can go from a mesa to a cliff on the Irish coast, all in the same afternoon.