The Between-Book BluesI finally finished the first draft of the latest Kit Melbourne novel, which I'm going to call Wizard's Bunker. It's not really the first draft, more like the second or third draft, because I continually hone and revise it as I g...

Paranormal White ElephantsMy obsession with the paranormal isn't exactly new. When I was a kid I nurtured ideas of becoming a parapsychologist. So I read a lot about different kinds of supernatural happenings. I've never seen a ghost, but I know a lo...

The Itch to WriteA dear friend of mine, who is also a writer, told me recently that she's giving up writing. After five years of work, she's written maybe a dozen novels and novellas, figured out how to market herself, built a following, joined a com...

The Next Novel IdeaI had an idea for a novel the other day, inspired by a podcast about the Exxon Valdez oil spill. What if someone whose life got destroyed by a major, preventable ecological disaster decided to band together with other malcontents a...

Animals=People=AnimalsThere's a local hunter who's been hanging around my backyard recently. Their camoflague doesn't really work against the shingle roof of my chicken house, but it's not like they'll listen to me. I don't have chickens yet, but it...

The perils of researchMy YouTube for-me page has quite a few anarchist instructional videos. You only have to look up so many "how to make a flamethrower" searches before the algorithm figures that's what you're into. Many authors joke about the thin...

Supernatural journalistThe conventional wisdom for fantasy authors is that while fantasy readers often enjoy mystery, the reverse is not true. But I was once one such reader. When I lived overseas, my reading choices were limited to what my family wo...

Heat Stealer Kindle IssueHey everyone, Earlier today I sent out the newsletter asking people to rate or review The Heat Stealer, the third book in the Alternate Susan series.A lovely reader (thanks, Cheryl!) just messaged me to let me know that there...

How much realism is okay?My stories are usually set in America, but I'm selective about which specifically-American elements I include. The non-metric measurements is the obvious example of Americanism, but there's also things like how easy it is to...

Banal horrorWhen looking for heist stories, I came upon The Feather Thief (nonfiction) and read it one sitting. The gist of it is that a man obsessed with recreating Victorian-era salmon flys stole dead birds from a museum to rip them apart for their...