For Honor’s Sake

Guest Blogger: Merry Jones Thrillers and mysteries are supposed to entertain.  I write with that in mind.  But sometimes, in the course of writing those entertaining books, I come across information that affects me.  For example, while doing research for BEHIND THE WALLS, I learned about the following: Case 1: …

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A Long Journey To Publication For A Story About Immortal Love

Guest Blogger: Alma Katsu Even though my first novel, THE TAKER, wasn’t published until last year, I’ve been writing on and off my entire life. However, my career in intelligence (yes, I worked for CIA) made it hard to pursue publication and I stopped writing for a long time. Then …

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Go Ahead, Watch TV and Movies

Guest Blogger: Martha Brockenbrough When I was growing up, my mom would let us know when—in her view—we’d had too much fun. My brothers and sisters and I jokingly called it TMF or “exceeding the fun quotient.” Mom used to feel the TV for telltale signs of warmth when she …

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4 Points to a Successful Writing Collaboration

Guest Bloggers: Angie Brenner and Joy E. Stocke A good companion shortens the longest road. — Turkish proverb “Why Turkey?” is the first question we’re often asked when we talk about our travels and collaborative memoir ANATOLIAN DAYS & NIGHTS. What seems obvious to us after visiting the four corners of …

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Just because you can…

Guest Blogger: Marie Lamba Fiction writers can create a story out of anything, and every character they put down on paper can have their own conflict, their own storyline. This is both a blessing and a curse. When writing my new paranormal novel DRAWN, I knew I was creating what, …

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Start Here

Guest Blogger: Daniel Palmer When it comes to writing novels, beginnings can be difficult. A blank page at first appears liberating, but it can soon become utterly paralyzing. As writers, we’ve been taught to grab the reader’s attention in the first few pages—the first sentence if possible—and then hold it …

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On the Fear of Writing

Guest Blogger: Caragh M. O’Brien Please understand: I am not an insecure or fearful person. I’m strong and tough, and I laugh at myself regularly. Spiders and mice can’t throw me, and I’m only marginally afraid of the dark or donning a bikini. But today, I’m afraid of writing, and in …

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The “Reality” of Fiction

Guest Blogger: John Lescroart “This book is a work of fiction.  Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.” This disclaimer occurs behind the title …

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Five Simple Rules for Thriller Writers

Guest Blogger: Kyle Mills After fifteen years making my living as a novelist, I recently had a couple of new and strange experiences. I was happily plugging away at my manuscript for THE IMMORTALISTS when I got a call from the Robert Ludlum estate asking if I’d be interested in …

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A Career

Guest Blogger: Reed Farrel Coleman By the time this blog post appears, my thirteenth (GUN CHURCH, Audible.com) and fourteenth (HURT MACHINE, Tyrus Books) novels will be on the shelves—actual and virtual. Although I don’t get quite as excited by the release of my latest novel or novels, I do still …

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