I’m off to Milwaukee for my 50th high school reunion. It’s almost midnight and I haven’t started packing yet! Need to leave the house by 8am to catch a flight out of Albany. My last trip to Wisconsin, twelve years ago, was excruciatingly painful. I developed trigeminal neuralgia, maybe from clogged ears on the plane followed… [Read More]
Archives for June 2009
My blogging story arc – a field of dreams
In my mystery novels, I do my best to build tension, to keep the reader engaged for over 300 pages. More than one successful author has said there should be conflict on every page. And ideally, every chapter ends with a cliff hanger – an unresolved situation that keeps the reader turning the pages. Readers… [Read More]
Editing Excellence – Remembering My Father
“As a journalist in a newsroom, I never worried about how to write. I just did it. I put words on my computer screen to meet a deadline.” These words from Alexis Grant jumped out at me this morning. I’d left her blog up on my screen when I turned off the monitor late last… [Read More]
Norman Mailer admired my chest – because I was wearing my book cover!
Commenting on my post about blatant self-promotion, Marvin D. Wilson advised me to “let it all hang out” when it comes to hyping my books. The phrase brought back a treasured memory from 2007 – the night Norman Mailer gave me a beatific grin while he ogled my chest. Mailer was at the New York… [Read More]
BSP, or Blatant Self-Promotion. Why should it be a no-no?
“I’m going to become a world-famous author through my mastery of the Internet.” That was my response yesterday when our minister at the First Unitarian Universalist Society passed around the mike and asked us what goals we could set for ourselves over the summer. We were observing our annual “Flower Communion,” in which we bring flowers from our… [Read More]
In memory of dogs loved and lost
This morning my daughter’s dog Sequoia died peacefully at the vet’s office in Woodstock. A black chow mix, Sequoia had been Stacey’s devoted companion for 16 years. The dog had been abandoned, tied for hours to a fence post in Tompkins Square Park in New York’s East Village when Stacey rescued her, and they’ve been together… [Read More]