Where Do Ideas Come From?

Guest Blogger: Steven James Often readers will ask me where I get my ideas. Honestly, the question is a little perplexing to me since I’m overwhelmed by ideas and have hundreds of files of them. I can’t seem to write them down fast enough to clear my brain. I’m guessing it’s …

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The Black Stiletto’s Stomping Grounds

Guest Blogger: Raymond Benson They say (who are “they,” anyway?) to write what you know, and while there’s a lot to be said for that adage, I’m not sure those of us who are practitioners of thrillers, mysteries, or other genres such as horror, science fiction, and fantasy—can write what we …

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Zombies

Guest Blogger: Jonathan Maberry DUST & DECAY (Simon & Schuster) is the second in my series of post-apocalyptic thrillers set fifteen years after a zombie plague has wiped out most of mankind. Okay…if you’re still reading this then you haven’t been scared off by words like ‘post-apocalyptic’ and ‘zombie’.  Good …

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Sacrifice

Guest Blogger: Christine Johnson I love music. All kinds of music, from punk to folk to blues to classical, I have a little bit of everything. No matter what kind of mood I’m in, there’s some album in my collection that fits. Like lots of writers, I listen to music …

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Building An Anthology

Guest Blogger: Toni L.P. Kelner Charlaine Harris and I have co-edited four urban fantasy anthologies together—HOME IMPROVEMENT: UNDEAD EDITION, the most recent, just came out this week. But I have to be honest—when Charlaine and I started working on our first anthology, we really weren’t that sure what anthologists did. …

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Unlikely Friends

Guest Blogger: Lisa Unger A long time ago I stopped thinking of characters as creations of my imagination, and started to understand that they are more like people who I’ve met along my colorful, complicated, ever-changing fictional journey. They come to me as they are, with their own names, personalities and …

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Open Letter to Readers

Guest Blogger: Lucienne Diver I’m doing a crazy-obsessive amount of promo…or, at least, guest blogs…for my new novel BAD BLOOD. Why? I love these characters.  I love this story.  I want people to buy a lot of e-books (and later print) so that I can justify continuing to spend so much …

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Cut Off, With Time Running Out

Guest Blogger: Meg Gardiner Thriller writers grumble that in the twenty-first century, it’s tough to create suspense by isolating a character in dangerous circumstances. For decades, authors could easily strand their heroes in a dark alley, or cast them alone onto a deserted shore, and force them to face down …

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Where Do You Not Get Your Ideas?

Guest Blogger: Dan Wells Every writer in the business hears the question: “where do you get your ideas?” Every convention I go to, every bookstore I sign in, every Q&A session of my podcast –it’s everywhere. And every writer has their own answer for it, assuming they don’t just throw …

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Where Do You Get Your Ideas?

Guest Blogger: Gregg Hurwitz The most dreaded question for authors. Because the truth is…we don’t really know ourselves. I suppose it’s like asking anyone where they get their ideas. We mostly have no clue, right? They just sort of show up in our heads. So the where is impossible, methinks, …

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