Back at the beginning of the month, a pair of (anonymous) questions regarding craft came in: How much of a biography do you give secondary characters before introducing them into a novel? And, Do you write around themes, or do the themes emerge as you tell yourself the story? Both of these boil down to…

I’ll go back to the Q&A later, but I wanted first to say something about the letters I get. Because I don’t generally give out my email address, those who want to write me either have to take their luck with this blog’s comments department, or sit down and put ink on paper, address it…

Q: Melissa gets us going on a discussion of nuts-and-bolts: How does a publishing contract work? How much (if any) freedom have you lost as far as what you write? At what point are you locked into a story idea? Have you ever had to finish writing something that you wanted to take in a…

Let’s talk research—with three related questions: WDI (and thanks for the card) asks: How do you research speech patterns and dialect? I was struck with this while re-reading The Moor. I understand that “place” and “time” can be straightforward to research (at least in the obvious ways); but how the heck do you manage the…

Thanks, Kay, for asking: How do you approach a rewrite? Do all the suggestions come from your editor, or do you have second, or additional thoughts about the first draft? A: The last few times I’ve been asked to do a presentation at one writing conference or another, I’ve chosen to do one on The…

Q: L. Crampton weighs in with a question that may be a good place to begin: My wonder-about is, what role writing plays when the rest of your life is demanding, as July was for you. I tend to feel most ‘anchored’ when writing well daily, but when my mom was ill for a couple…

Can we just pretend July didn’t happen? Let’s start all over with a Q&A for August, and we’ll see if we can manage to kick-start this thing into action with those. Anyone have any writing questions–techniques? Themes? Sales? Characters?

I sort of missed Bastille Day, and come to think of it, the Fourth of July as well. In fact, I would recommend that you never allow one of your family members to get sick on the 3rd of July, since very little happens the next day. And oddly enough, just a month or so…

As a supplement to the posting I did about royalties, Tess Gerritsen has a very helpful post about this subject in her blog for July 17th. Q: riobonito wants to know (and others seem interested), What influences do you consider, when describing or hearing a ‘California accent’. I have my own thoughts, but since you…

So, what sells books? I love libraries, as anyone who reads this blog or noticed the dedication to The Game will know, but it’e2’80’99s always tough to get a publisher to subsidize events at libraries. A touring author is, after all, supposed to be on the road encouraging people to buy her books, and love…