When my son was young, the end credits to “Lamb Chop’s Play Along” featured The Song That Doesn’t End. Not surprisingly, he loved it. More surprisingly, I happen to love it too. For those not acquainted with this little gem: (My apologies to anyone who actually clicked it. You’ll now be singing it for weeks.) I love the song for its childlike denial of endings. If the song never ends,…
When I sat down to write a ninja detective mystery, I knew I had a couple of fairly substantial hurdles to clear. High on the list: unrepentant assassins don’t rank very high on the “winsome protagonist scale.”If I wanted to write a mystery series starring a highly trained killer, I needed to round off some of his edges a bit. Fortunately, there’s an app a writing trick for that. Most…
At heart, I’m a creature of simple comforts. The things I’m most attached to are my memories. Like most authors, I have a vivid imagination (probably too vivid – seeing as how I spend my days finding new and inventive ways to my kill my imaginary friends). Anything can trigger a memory, and almost everything does. I wouldn’t want it any other way. When I think about writing, I think…
Most of you know I have a marine aquarium focused on seahorses. (OK, technically all of you know it now.) Far fewer of you probably know that seahorses have rituals too. The most visible, and most dramatic, centers on courtship. Most seahorses mate for life (though some, like my female Ceti, decide to somewhat literally change horses in midstream). The courtship and mating process involves tail-holding, mid-water “dancing” and…
It’s hard to write about scary things the day after Halloween. The ghosts and goblins have disappeared, and my pre-coffee reflection scares me more than anything else this morning. But this week’s topic calls for fear, and fear is something with which I am very familiar. When I started writing, I feared I would never write well enough for publication. I wrote anyway. When I finished each of my manuscripts,…
When your novel features a ninja assassin as its protagonist, you have to think long and hard about what makes a villain. Ultimately, villainy is usually a matter of perspective. Real villains aren’t the mustache-twirling cardboard cutouts of Saturday-morning cartoon fame. Snidely Whiplash is funny, but not really frightening. Horror villains, like Nightmare on Elm Street’s infamous Freddy Krueger, are scary for a moment but not in a way that…
Let me begin by saying I don’t live in the country. My house lies in a fully residential suburb of Sacramento, California – sidewalks, urban sprawl, you get the idea. Which is why it came as such a surprise one evening when my son looked out the window and said, “Mom … there are turkeys in the yard.” “Real turkeys?” I asked. “As in – birds?” (I thought maybe he…
When the topic turns to humor, I must confess a deep and all-consuming love for the pun. One of my all-time favorite games involves punning back and forth with someone else until one of us loses the ability to add a new pun to the chain or bursts out laughing. Fortunately, I’m lucky enough to have several close friends and family members who not only appreciate but enjoy this particular…
Hello from sunny (and currently far-too-hot) Northern California! I’m Deb Susan, and I’m at the ball because I was attacked by ninjas. (Well, one ninja – and he’s fictitious – but I digress.) Although my Shinobi mystery series is set in 16th century Japan, I write in two very different (and much more mundane) places. On days when I finish the clients’ work before quitting time, I spend the remaining…
