I am not a finance person. When I think of the words “financial” and “realities” in the same sentence, my brain tries to make a little symbolic dive under a sofa. All I can do with this post is just lay it out there and be honest. I have no problem telling everyone exactly what my book finances have been so far, because I think it’s important…
I have to admit, the research for The Dream Peddler wasn’t particularly intense, and that’s probably just because I chose not to do tons of research. Despite the historical setting, I had read enough books from the time and learned enough in school to at least sketch out what the world of my characters would be like. I stopped writing now and then to google things like images of…
If you’ve never seen Love Story starring Ryan O’Neal and Ali MacGraw, then you many not know that yes, it’s a love story but spoiler, she dies at the end. When I started thinking about my “perfect” day for this week’s post, for some reason my mind went to that movie, because there’s a scene near the end that I’ve always found interesting. I can’t remember exactly what Ali…
“How do you know when you’re the monster?” Fantasy is not really my thing. I’m a literary fiction addict. Once in a while I force myself outside my zone and I read a thriller or YA or what have you, but mostly I just jones until I’m onto my next literary book. They are piling up on my kindle at an alarming rate. In general, if I…
When I was in the stage of getting feedback on early drafts of this book, more than one reader told me they wished I would just come out and say precisely when and where the story takes place. “It’s obviously American,” they said. “Why not just name the town? And why not just say what year it is? Why do we have to guess?” Well, because I said…
In some ways, I really had to overcome my personality in order to write a book. I’m a hopeless introvert, so I’m still marveling at how an introvert who doesn’t really want to talk to anyone was ever able to write an entire book full of reasonably believable characters. Especially since I had to come up with a lot of things for them to say. This is a tough…
I am absolutely thrilled to welcome our fellow debut author Kristin Wright to the debutante ball this week. Her southern gothic suspense Lying Beneath The Oaks was recently released in January, and I know I’m not the only one who’d been looking forward to that for many months! Kristin is a native Midwesterner and a graduate of Michigan State University and the University of Michigan Law School. She works…
As I’ve mentioned a few times before, The Dream Peddler was directly inspired by my love of reading and my adolescent obsession with Emily of New Moon. There is nothing greater for me than reading the work of authors I love in order to be inspired. If I’m in a bit of writing doldrums, I’ll just pick up a book (a fabulous literary one, usually) and in no time…
I’ve been planning the movie of The Dream Peddler for a long, long time. I believe I’ve even mentioned Bradley Cooper a couple of times on this very blog. So I have a pretty good idea of which actors I would ideally cast for each role. The best part about this week’s blog is that I have full control. Every actor I’ve ever loved is not only available…
In many ways, The Dream Peddler is a love letter to L. M. Montgomery. I can’t think of any author whose work I spent more time reading during my adolescence. Eventually I collected every novel she ever wrote, and read many of them over and over. Back then I never gave any thought to the opportunities to read something new that I was squandering every time I picked…
