There are a lot of things I am especially thankful for this year. This great community of friends here at BRP is high on the list, as is my publisher, Five Star Cengage Gale and the staff there. My latest book with them, Stalking Season, came out the middle of this month, while I was out of town with limited Internet access. The acquisitions editor, Tiffany, had a special presentation featuring my book and four others that had received starred reviews from Publishers Weekly, and I was not going to be able to promote that day, October 30th, as that was the day my sister was having surgery for breast cancer. Even though I try to keep personal information about my family and myself out of business correspondence, I did let Tiffany know why I would not be online to promote her event. She immediately sent me the nicest message, "Please don’t worry for a second about having to do anything on October 30th.  I’ll do all the promoting for you that day (and on the FS Facebook page afte...

As we start the week heading toward Thanksgiving, it made me think about the time I got all philosophical and used my newspaper column to ask if we don’t use the Thanksgiving holiday as an unconscious excuse not to be thankful the other 364 days of the year. Or at least not be aware of all the things we have to be thankful for. So I decided to make a concentrated effort to search my soul and come up with something to be thankful for every day. Here is the list I made that year: I'm thankful for the cold weather that chills my bones and helps me to appreciate the heat of summer. (Next August you're free to remind me I said this.) I'm thankful for the puppy that comes in my office to chew on my toes and remind me there's more to life than just work. I'm thankful for mail delivery because I know it will draw me out of the house at least once a day.  I'm thankful for the kid who will bail me out and cook dinner when I'm working on a deadline, even though...

TRUTH: WRITERS RARELY HELP OTHER WRITERS While I have found contrary stories to this truth, I have - unfortunately - seen this to be true at times. There are writers who are not open to sharing information, to providing advice, to helping other writers up the rings to PublishDom. Niles talks about how interesting it is that as a writer moves up the ranks to having an established name, in gaining professional credits, and on earning money for his/her creative endeavors, the lack of help diminishes. She finds two reasons behind this: 1) The established writer fears losing his/her reputation. Example: established writer helps a newbie and recommends her to an agent or editor. The agent/editor thinks the work isn’t that great (which is subjective thinking anyway), and now the established writer fears his/her taste will be questioned and his/her reputation may be sullied. 2) The established writer fears losing his/her attention. Example: established writer helps a newbie get connected with ...