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My father, who’d actually begun his writing career as a young Stars and Stripes reporter during WWII and ended up a highly respected military historian in the Air Force, often told me, “Writing is 1% inspiration, and 99% perspiration. Nothing beats attaching the seat of your pants to a chair and pounding out your story until you’ve got it right.”

That viewpoint was hammered home to me by a literary agent here in San Antonio in the late 1970s. I saw him at a writers’ conference, and signed with...

One of the most amazing things about how our brains function – at least to me – is how we hold on to, and then categorize, our memories. Think about it. Where does this ability come from? We all do it to one degree or another, but why do some of us use it to create characters, and some of us don’t?

Back in the late 1970s, when I first began writing seriously (and by that, I mean taking creative writing courses, attending writers’ conferences, and finally completing my very first novel), I was...

Last week I talked about whether or not Writer’s Block is real, and I say it definitely is. Today I want to talk about my all-time favorite way to bust it wide open: Building family trees.

One of my major goals has always been to write a family saga, and set it in Texas. There’s nothing unusual about this – think True Women, which came from Janice Woods Windle’s discovery of a relative’s diary written during the days leading up to the Texas Revolution, or the magnificent, sprawling saga Texas!...

Writer’s Block is a real thing. Trust me – I know. What causes it? I don’t know the answer to that, but it’s real. People have laughed when I’ve said, “I can’t come up with a single word, not even a thought…Oh, Lord, I’m blocked.”

But it’s not funny.

I remember well the first time I ever experienced it – when I began to write TIP THE PIANO MAN about forty years ago. And, when it struck, it struck with a vengeance. I’ve never been so terrified in my whole life. My family had just been through a...

Don’t be afraid to change your story up – your words aren’t gold, and solid constructive criticism can make all the difference in the world. Feedback is so important to writers because we can’t work in a vacuum. We have to listen. And it doesn’t matter how much extra work an addition or a deletion will make you go through.

All that matters is the final product.

When I first began the fourteenth final draft of my mystery/suspense novel TIP THE PIANO MAN, I had no idea how different it would be...

Back when I first started writing and submitting - before computers - I submitted via snail mail through something known as the Writer's Market. Whatever was rumored or known about a publisher took years to be heard on the street, and by the time we heard it, it was probably obsolete.

No more. Now, if a writer gets pissed off at a publisher, he/she just posts it on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or a cooperating website and there it is. Frozen anger. In granite. No thought about the company. No...

I'm pretty much a control freak. I admit it. But I don't think it's all that unusual - most writers are. Yet back when I first began writing seriously, which was in 1985, I had no idea I'd be giving up nearly all autonomy over my work in exchange for just getting it published. Still, I was terrified not to give it up just in case the powers that be changed their minds, tossed my scribblings in the trash, and told me I should probably get a day job.

Back in those days, a computer and the...

I received an email yesterday in which a new writer asked me what I thought about writers’ groups. Did I think they were helpful to my craft? How much impact did I allow them to have on my work?

To be honest, I’m not a huge fan of them – but that opinion is based, in part, on my experiences from many years ago when I was young and easily influenced. (One of the main benefits of aging is that you stop worrying about what other people think of you!) My writers’ group was large and boasted...

Someone has asked how I title my articles and books, and I have to confess – it’s a little embarrassing because it’s so simple.

Let me tell you a story. Back in 1985, the evening after my father had passed away, Kevin took our daughter and me down on the San Antonio Riverwalk to listen to our favorite singer, Mike Clancey, at an intimate club. (Mike still plays all around the city.) That night, seeing my swollen, tear-washed face, he sang beautiful, original songs in an attempt to comfort me....

When I was asked how I selected a setting for a book, I was relieved because this is a question I can answer pretty easily.

I was raised in an Air Force family, and as most of you military brats know, that means you get to see the world and travel to a new duty station every couple of years. As a part of my education, my father often gave me writing assignments in which I had to describe a new locale or incorporate the history of an area into a story. By the time I was in the 4th or 5th grade,...

I received an email the day after a speaking engagement from a lady who wanted to know if I'd ever written any non-fiction articles. The answer to that is a resounding YES! And I loved writing them.

During the time that I was Managing Editor of AGELESS TIMES, a lovely senior publication in San Antonio that closed its doors in the early 2000's, I was privileged to write many articles and columns. I wrote for many other places, too, but AGELESS TIMES was my favorite.

One of the most special...

Writing is a personal endeavor. It should come from the heart, with passion and conviction. If an author only writes for money or fame, success will be fleeting at best. I can promise you that.

Twenty-three years ago, even though I wasn't a senior citizen at that time, I managed three publications in Texas - all of them created specifically for active seniors - and I loved every minute of it. The experience was fun and brought me lots of opportunities, but more importantly, it showed me that I...

A reader asked about my research for WHISPERS THROUGH TIME, the first novel in my series by the same name released in 2021. I had to think about that because, in my memory, the research was all accidental.

It all began when we saw DANCES WITH WOLVES, Kevin Costner's amazing movie about the Lakota Sioux Indians - but it wasn't the Indians' story that tugged at my heartstrings. And even though we owned a wolfdog, it wasn't Two Socks that pulled me in. It was the buffalo thundering across the...

Someone asked how I came up with names for my characters, and that's a great question!

When I'm first beginning a story, I pick the names out of a hat - actually, two hats (one for first names and one for last names) - but the names usually change before the end of the first draft because by then the characters have become real people to me and their original names no longer fit. (For example, a woman who lives in a small town in 2045 and drops F-Bombs like a sailor wouldn't be named...

A reader wanted to know how I start a novel. Do I write a line on a napkin, throw together an idea board, maybe begin an outline? That's a good question I haven't thought too much about. I've written several different kinds of books, and each one put me through a different process.

For example, the first novel in my WHISPERS THROUGH TIME series (the book itself is also entitled WHISPERS THROUGH TIME) has two plots running parallel to each other - one historical, the other contemporary. A...