I was alone last week.
Alone.
Brilliant Scientist Husband (bless him; he must be rewarded) took the Astronaut to Florida (Kennedy Space Center, of course), leaving me to five solid days of writing, writing, writing, and, oh yes, writing. I accomplished a lot. Got down about 22K words. Ate about five hundred pounds of popcorn. Drank […]

Denise Mina is a doll. She’s one damn fine writer too. Glasgow - her town - has a growing heroin problem, and a rapidly rising murder rate. She told me and a hundred others about it at a conference last year. It was heart-wrenching to hear her speak about her beloved […]

Sarah Stewart Taylor joins us today as our guest blogger. Sarah is the author of the Sweeney St. George mystery series, which features an art history professor who specializes in the study of grave stones. Her latest title is Still As Death and it’s excellent. Enjoy!
It never fails. I arrive to do a reading […]

Every once in a while I come across a quote that makes me stop and think. Really think.
I often wonder how much of it is the quote itself, and how much of it is the timing of the quote.
Either way, those “it” quotes often motivate me into action or simply remind me of something I […]

I’d mentioned on Crimespace (are you all logged into Crimespace now?) that I was looking forward to finally seeing The Professionals on DVD.
The Pros was a British crime drama from the 1970s which has unfortunately never made it over to this side of the pond. But it turns out that you can buy a Region […]

Last weekend I got to do a wonderful thing: fill new bookcases. Ecstasy! Is it just me or does everyone else out there have the ongoing problem of not enough bookshelf space? Is it wrong for me to want every wall lined with floor to ceiling shelves? To fantasize about someday opening the door to […]

It’s kind of cold here in the Mid-Atlantic still, but the forecast is calling for temps in the 60s and 70s in the next days. My favorite kind of spring is a rarity in Maryland: a long, cool spring with the thermometer creeping just a tad higher every day, and never getting lower until […]

They’re everywhere: restaurants, doctors’ waiting rooms, banks, beauty shops, airport terminals, and grocery store check-out lines. They’ve even invaded public restrooms.
No matter where I go, I can’t seem to escape televisions.
Specifically, televisions tuned to news channels, sports updates, or E!
While I waited to check out at Albertson’s the other day I had […]

I don’t know about the rest of you, but I find it slightly unnerving when a character I wasn’t expecting pops up in the middle of a story. Especially when it’s a story I’m writing.
Uh huh.
It happened in my last book. I’m merrily typing along, subjecting my characters to any number of things (stabbing, strangulation, […]

I was watching TV the other night in that absent-minded way that I do…eating dinner and flipping through Publishers Weekly at the same time. I became aware that I was staring at what appeared to be soldiers in Iraq getting gobbled up by some horrendous monster.
Not the nightly news, though I can see why that […]