…and when I got back to Santa Fe from Taos this afternoon, what do I find waiting for me on the tubes of the Interweb but a final version of the Pirate King cover, really truly final this time: You can compare this with the one I’d thought was the final cover, a few posts…
Read MoreWednesdays here on Mutterings are about the writing process, from nouns to e-readers. Today, since I’m in Santa Fe for Left Coast Crime, I thought I’d talk about the conference as part of a writer’s life. We’re a solitary species, we writers. Except for a few of us who work in tandem, and for those…
Read MoreWe are instructed not to judge a book by its cover, and yet we do all the time. I once had a publisher tell me he initially rejected one of my books because he disliked the US cover, although later he adored the story. And if a publisher falls for what a cover has to…
Read MoreWriting is sometimes compared to other art forms: a novel as a painting (or mural), a short story as a deft watercolor. Personally, I think the closest parallel to writing a novel is designing a house. If I had not been a novelist, I would love to have been an architect. (My friend SJ Rozan…
Read MoreThis Tuesday will be the first Noel King memorial lecture, or in this case, conversation. Noel died two years ago, and we hope to make these events a regular part of life at UC Santa Cruz. Do join us. (Click on poster to enlarge.)
Read MoreOkay, sometimes we just have fun playing with this stuff:
Read MoreWednesdays with Laurie is a series of writing reflections, here on Mutterings, every—yes—Wednesday. Topics are random, although I expect that cumulatively, they will touch on most of what I have to say about the craft. Today: the time line. I haven’t seen the film cliché of the flipping pages of a calendar used for a while,…
Read MoreAs the final pass of Pirate King through my hands comes nearer—the galley proofs will reach me in a couple or three weeks—the next book begins to stir into life. This week I will take the first steps in a book that won’t become a reality for the rest of the world for a year…
Read MoreI’m writing a short story at the moment, and it’s reached the point where I’m looking over the words themselves. Part of the story is narrated by a precise kind of a person, who uses (as per last week’s post) nouns—or nominal phrases—that are specific rather than general: Langstroth boxes, not beehives; Gladstone bag rather…
Read MoreI’m not a big one for anniversaries and birthdays (sorry, kids) but it occurred to me this morning that I started this blog in February, and indeed, when I went looking, I found that last Thursday, Mutterings turned six. Interestingly, my first post (here) was about the lack of women in book awards (based on…
Read More