Editing

Meet Uncle Griz and Oscar

In the last episode, I introduced you to DEA Agent Sa-li Ma and his five-year-old daughter Maggie Rose. One of my loyal readers noted that Chinese names are generally last name first but not so with Ma. His family "Americanized" most of their names three decades...
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Surviving Writer’s Brain Cramps

Over the weekend I came down with a bad case of cramps. Writer's cramps. Brain cramps. Words got stuck, no matter what I tried. Then, I remembered a blog post I'd read just that week. Derek Doepker, an expert on ebook marketing who has become my guru (even though he...
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Wait! You’re A Writer?

All of us who write get a series of questions, most of which are asked out of curiosity, a few out of envy, and even fewer to debase us. How long does it take to write a book? What's your "real" job? How long do you write every day? How much money do you make? Are you...
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The Power of We

It's such a tiny word. We. W and E. And yet, it's such a powerful concept. It's the power of more than one doing something together. For a writer, "we" is the writer and her characters. They don't exist in a vacuum. Writers need to listen to their characters to be...
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