Good morning. I am so pleased to be here blogging to you. You will notice that I use no contractions in this blog. This is because, while reading the posts below, I happened to notice that everywhere there should be an apostrophe, there is instead a question mark. I have no desire for my blog to? appear? thus??? It is very distracting and even crazy-making for someone who is a born editor. Guess I should say why I am here. To promote my new book! It is called The Con Artist of Catalina Island: A McAfee Twins Christmas Novel, the fourth book in the McAfee Twins novels. The McAfee girls are Terry and Kerry; identical in looks, opposite in personality. Terry is a lesbian biker with a prison record; Kerry is a good-girl type who considers herself to be the keeper of Terry. They drive each other crazy but can’t conceive of being apart. Kerry says that when Terry was in prison it was like living on borrowed air. The girls are the proprietors of Double Indemnity Investigations, a two-woman PI firm. Normally they zip around Los Angeles solving crimes from the back of their hot pink Harley Softail Deuce,…

No, I’m not going to ask you to buy my book—you couldn’t even if you wanted since it doesn’t come out until March. I need a different kind of help—the kind of help only readers can give. First, let me introduce myself. I’m CJ Lyons and I’m a pediatric ER doc turned medical suspense author. My first novel, LIFELINES, will be published by Berkley on March 4, 2008. I love my new job as a writer—not only can I go to work in my pj’s, I also get the chance to meet lots of interesting people and ask questions that no one else would dare. I mean, how many 9-5er’s get to visit the FBI academy at Quantico or talk to crime scene experts about the “best” way to kill someone and get away with it? And no beepers, trauma alerts, or 3am calls to deal with—for the first time in 17 years, I’m finally getting some sleep! But there is one thing about being a writer that I’m not too happy about. It’s ruined me as a reader! All my life I’ve been a voracious reader, following my favorite authors blissfully into the worlds they created for me. But…

Whenever I say I write medieval romance, the first comment I get is “But you have to do so much research!” Let’s leave aside for the moment that for me, research is a “get to,” not a “have to.” The truth is, contemporary authors have to do research, too. I had breakfast with Mary Alice Monroe the other day and she is about to go out in the Atlantic Ocean on a shrimp boat in total darkness for the sake of her next book. This seems to me an entirely different level of commitment than Googling “forms of address Richard II.” The point of all the research, of course, isn’t to educate the reader. That sort of “information dump” kills the story. We do it because we want to plunge you into a world you can see, hear, taste, smell, and touch. We want to draw you in so deeply that you forget about the “real” world and live in the fictional one, at least for awhile. We try to create an experience so authentic that you believe not only the world, but the truth of the characters who live there. For me, it’s not a only a question of…

Since it’s shortly after the release of my first book, I’ve been thinking ofthe start of this journey. I’d known since I was twelve that I wanted to be awriter, but it took me almost twenty years to start writing. Why did I wait solong? Here were the biggest things that held me back. Excuse #1: I need to take classes/go to a conference before I can write a novel. Wow, that kept me from trying for over ten years! The truth is while classesand conferences are helpful, they aren’t necessary. Now, I’m not recommendingskipping college or thumbing your nose at literary courses, but don’t let thatbe a stumbling block in your path to writing a novel. Do you read a lot? Areyou a (reasonably) good speller? Are you willing to take constructive criticismand revise when necessary? Then you can do this. Excuse #2: But I don’t know HOW to write a novel. I used this one far longer than I want to admit. When I repeated it a severalyears ago to a writer friend of mine, she just smiled and said, “Then read abook on writing, dear.” Guess what? That worked! There are many great, usefulbooks aimed at helping…

Every few years, a dance/theater production, “Theatre of the Vampires,” is staged in Boulder, Colorado (where I live), in a spooky, old theater. Happily, the show was performed this past Halloween and, since THE VAMPIRE SHRINK — my first book in a series about a Denver psychologist who becomes involved in the vampire underworld — had just been released, the producers asked me to appear. Hundreds of people passed my table — many stopping to claim a postcard, examine a copy of my book or ask a question. A wonderful time was had by all, and I sold every copy of the book I brought. (Many thanks to my publisher for the gorgeous, full-page ad they ran on the back page of the playbill!)Boulder is a strange place. Unlike the questions I’ve answered at my other book signing events, the one people asked most frequently here in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains was: “Is this nonfiction?” They were uniformly disappointed when I said the book was fiction. There’s definitely a different mindset here! These folks wanted to believe in the existence of vampires! But, in general, people ask three questions: How do you identify yourself as a writer? What…

My hands were clammy and the nervous feeling in my stomach felt like it was trying to work its way out as I dialed the numbers on the telephone. “Hello?” he answered, and I was immediately taken off guard. “I…I am sorry, I didn’t expect you to pick up the phone,” I stumbled over the words, desperately thinking about what I could say. After all, he hadn’t actually answered the phone for years; how could I have predicted that he would now! “I dreamed about you all night last night,” I decided to go for broke with an honest explanation. “And I tried to call you yesterday,” he said quietly, like the words might betray some emotion. “Most of your old numbers don’t work, but I left some messages at the one that did. I just wanted to hear your voice.” Has something like this ever happened to you? I am a firm believer in the magic of love. Whether it is the science of chemical reactions or an attachment on a spiritual level that we can’t explain, I can honestly say that it is the last true magic I see in the world I once had a friend tell…

I’ve got a confession to make. The heroes in my romances are usually a prototype of my husband in some way, shape or form. After all, he’s the man I know best and I married him because I obviously find him hero-material. Combining him with a little Han Solo, I had in my opinion a wonderful male. But after many books, I began to think I needed a new prototype. Someone was bound to start noticing that my hot, yummy heroes were all a little alike. So, I started the search for another hero archetype. He had to be handsome, smart, witty and the number one requirement was that even if he wasn’t perfect (in fact, I was looking for slightly flawed), he needed to be okay with not being perfect. I like heroes who feel great in their own skins. I looked and looked and couldn’t find anyone. Months rolled by. I began to despair. Even the issue of People magazine’s yearly Best Looking People provided no new fodder. The men all looked too handsome, too delicate, so perfect as to be uninteresting. Then I saw him. I was meeting my old work buddies (think a table full of…

People are always asking, Where do you get your ideas? Oh honey, if they only knew! Here are some of my favorite idea generators. Eavesdropping. I do that a lot. It’s easy, fun, and good for getting those creative juices flowing. Also, when friends say something intriguing, I let them know that some day their story or clever word usage could end up in a book. Fictionalized of course, so that often they won’t recognize themselves. With strangers…. they’ll never know.Observation. People watching is such a kick. Even more fun is making up stories about those you watch. Why are they behaving that way? Who are the people they are with? I’ll bet even non-writers do this. TV, radio, music and the movies. I’ve been known to take a premise or a snippet of and run with it. The end results never look remotely like the show from which I drew my inspiration. Magazines and newspapers. Tons of great stuff there. Especially those advice columns and the stories of personal triumphs over bad situations. And of course, life itself. Something happens to me or a friend or relative, or a friend’s friend, and I get to thinking, What if? I’m…

I started out writing romantic suspense, murders, serial killers, little things like that. Maybe I was watching too many forensics shows or something. Then a bit of paranormal slipped in there. You know, ghosts, psychics, big hunky, sexy detectives (yes, my Max Series by JB Skully from LiquidSilverBooks.com). After that came the humor. It just sort of slipped in there with Ladybird Long (my hunky, sexy detective’s mom from my Max series), then went off the charts with my first Jennifer Skully book, Sex and the Serial Killer. Finally, there was the really spicy stuff. And Jasmine Haynes was born (the pseudonym, not the real Jasmine). My mom asked me why I couldn’t write children’s books. I said that generally speaking people didn’t get murdered by vile methods in children’s books, and, really, there wasn’t supposed to be any S-E-X either. So, ever since, I’ve been leading a sort of double life. Actually, make that a triple life. Eventually, however, I had to come out of the closet. To my family. My neighbors. My accounting coworkers! My boss!!!! Here’s just a few of the things people said to me. 10) I imagine your husband needs Viagra. (I’m not quite sure…

Michael Connelly Originally uploaded by freshfiction Oh, shucks, we missed Harry Bosch! He couldn’t come to the Texas Book Festival — but Michael DConnelly — yup under those shades — was able to read, take questions and sign his books.!! Woo Hoo we got one for Fresh Fiction. Visit FreshFiction.com to learn more about books and authors.