Raney and the road not taken

****Trigger warning for racism.**** I’ve had one legitimately wealthy relative: for the sake of this, we’ll call her Aunt A. She was my godmother, and since she never had any children of her own, she a) saw me as a substitute, and b) had no idea how to relate to a child. She’s the reason I hate squash to this … Read More

Cruel to be Kind: Killing Off a Major Character

Occasionally, because I’m not really that smart, I’ll put out a call for blog ideas. And sometimes I get one that’s so original there’s just no way to ignore it. So thanks to Claudia Tucker for asking: “Have you ever been tempted to ‘kill’ your main characters off and start with a new Hero who might be a an offspring … Read More

New Writer’s Day Video

It’s been a while since I posted here; life’s been a bit overwhelming. But now I’ve got something new to share. Over the past weekend I attended a combined reunion of my old college newspaper staff and fraternity.  It gave me the chance to go around Martin, TN and shoot some video of the real locations that inspired those in … Read More

Writing on demand for MY BLOODY VALENTINE

Every writer has at least one weakness, something they don’t do as well as they’d like. They know it, and their readers know it. Raymond Chandler knew he didn’t do plots well, which is why the structures of his novels a) don’t bear up to scrutiny, and b) are often cribbed from his previous short stories. Of course, what he … Read More

Just in time for Halloween: new Firefly Witch stories!

Three new stories featuring Tanna Tully, a.k.a. Lady Firefly, have arrived just in time for the quintessential witches’ holiday, Halloween (or Samhain, if you want to be technical about it). Here’s a bit about The Book of Cunning Women. In “The Mischief Shades,” she investigates a seemingly light-hearted haunting borne of a ghastly tragedy that hits surprisingly close to home; … Read More

Hearing Voices

A while back, Facebook friend Diana May-Waldman asked me, “When you write, do you ever get stuck in character for a little while?” My initial response was an instantaneous, “no,” but then I got to thinking about it. I write two series in first person: my Eddie LaCrosse novels, and the Firefly Witch short stories. When you write in first … Read More

The origin of character names: the Firefly Witch

Tanna Tully, aka the Firefly Witch, was my first continuing character. I had the term “firefly witch” banging around in my head ever since I first learned that witchcraft was actually religion called Wicca. That would’ve been sometime in the 80s, but it wasn’t until the 90s that I tried to create a character around the idea.   Because she … Read More

The apocryphal soundtracks to some of my books

It’s no secret that music is a big part of many of my novels, from inspiring the titles to influencing the plots to being part of the story itself. I’m not alone in this, I’m sure. Recently my friends at Facebook’s Heroic Fiction League, Nathan Long and John R. Fultz, posted “playlists” of YouTube videos, songs that either their heroes … Read More

Writers Day #4

  This is the fourth of a series of videos showing how a typical writer (i.e., me) works through the day.  This one is about research, something you can often do when real life intrudes on your actual writing time. [divider] [media url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRt9r6s-Xzw”]