Writing & Research

My work in progress (WIP) is TRANSITION. I’m back at the Gregory Inn, Lake George, NY. Everything is going smoothly as I follow my rough outline until it’s not. The characters and plot development take a turn I didn’t plan for.  In other words, my WIP puzzle is missing a piece. I have to put…

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Transition: The Middle

The middle is the bridge transporting the reader, you, from the beginning to the end of the story. Writing a book takes time and research in addition to story and persistence. The journey over the bridge from “I have got a great idea” to “they lived happily ever after” is tortuous. Whether you’re a plotter…

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Persistence — A Writing Essential

The road to success is paved with persistence, with an underlayment of information and earned luck—being in the right place at the right time with the right credentials. For me, after spending a lifetime reading books, I harbored a secret desire to write a commercial paperback, but the time was never right. Family, community, work,…

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Letting Go

My draft of Execution, the 5th book in the CL Bluestein thriller Seduction Series, has left my hands, electronically, for those of my content editor. I’m expecting it back with comments and suggestions in two weeks, give or take. This is my fifth time doing this. I expected to be used to it. But no,…

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Endings and Interruptions

I’m down to the last ten thousand pages of Execution, book five in the C.L. Bluestein Seduction Series.  Now I get to plot my revenge, dream up all kinds of murderous outcomes, and choose which ones to use.  Like the other books in the Seduction Series, its major theme is the harm caused by profits…

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Does a Hero’s Gender Matter in Fiction?

Q: Does a hero’s gender matter in fiction? What do you try to do when you write female characters and/or a female hero? What are they like and why? How much physical description do you include and why? What do male authors miss when they write female characters and vice versa? A: Good question. As…

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Creating Story

Armed with a slew of ideas taken from the news and history, I sat down to write from a very loose outline: guy kills people, guy get caught. Yeah. Not really specific enough. Turns out, finding the story is harder than it looks. Each individual problem has to be woven into the manuscript and addressed.…

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A Writer’s Dilemma

There is nothing new under the sun. I and every other writer knows this to be true. Sitting in front of a blank screen is not because there is a lack of input, it’s about what bits and pieces to pull out of the ether and mold into a story worth telling. For me, while…

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