Writing as therapy

Nora Ephron was one of the great screenwriters. If you don’t know her name, you know her movies: When Harry Met Sally, Sleepless in Seattle, You’ve Got Mail, Julie & Julia, to name a few. The other day, I stumbled upon the documentary, “Everything is Copy: Nora Ephron, Scripted and Unscripted” and found myself taking notes — Read More

Publishing Journey: T minus 2 months

I’m not sure how it’s already the end of March, but it is. My book comes out in two short months, on May 24. I have a couple of launch events lined up if you’re in the Southern California area: Thursday, May 26, 7pm Pages, a Bookstore 904 Manhattan Avenue Manhattan Beach, CA 90266   — Read More

Writing: Art and craft

I’m late to the 2014 party and just finished (and loved) Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel. As usually happens when I finish a novel I love, I Googled the author for insights into her writing process and found this interesting snippet on The Millions: “I took a lot of notes as I was — Read More

Enough with the artistic plight

This past weekend, I was having another bout of self-doubt (hey, I rhymed!) as I worked on a new novel. I started whining to my husband about how I don’t know where this book is going or if I can pull off the story and emotion I want. He said, “You’ll figure it out. Just — Read More

Writing when you have a day job

I’ve had a rush of inspiration lately. I want to write, write, write all the time and I can’t, can’t, can’t. Here’s where I’m at, fiction-wise: PEOPLE WHO KNEW ME comes out on May 24. I’ve had some marketing assignments related to the launch that are keeping me busy (more on this soon). While I was — Read More

Writing beyond fear

I’ve started working on a new thing (I’m hesitant to call it a novel yet) and I had a mini breakdown about it this weekend. I’m having all these “Can I pull this off?” thoughts. I’m overwhelmed by the task of piecing together the story, which has come to me in disjointed segments. It’s like a — Read More

Holy sh*t, people are reading my book

So, my publisher (St. Martin’s Press) is doing a giveaway of advanced copies of PEOPLE WHO KNEW ME on Goodreads. There are a couple days left, FYI. This is the second Goodreads giveaway. They did one a little while back and readers are starting to post… GULP … reviews. A while back, Stephen Colbert interviewed Jesse Eisenberg — Read More

Publishing Journey: Why pre-orders are SO important

In my last post, I wrote about how I really don’t want to tell you to pre-order my book. I feel weird doing that. So, instead, I’m going to explain why pre-orders are so important and let you draw your own conclusions. Sound good? Good. It’s like this: Pre-ordering an author’s book is pretty much the — Read More