Books & Writing

What do plots and gravy have in common? Both need to thicken or you’ve got thin soup. I’m reminded of this every time I’m nodding off while reading in bed, a sure sign I’m not fully engaged. Other times I can’t get to sleep because the book I’m reading has my adrenaline pumping and I’m racing to get … [Read more...] about THE PLOT THICKENS

There’s not much you can buy for 99 cents these days. I was grocery shopping the other day, and the cheapest thing I bought was a pound of bananas. And I was not buying big-ticket items, by any means. So imagine how thrilled I was when my publisher announced they were running a special promotion of … [Read more...] about GET IN THE SWIM!

Okay, so I wrote a book. In record time. I patted myself on the back for having worked feverishly and not overthinking it. I just threw words on paper in a way I hoped made sense. And it DID make sense while I was writing it. Now that I’m in the process of revising, what seemed coherent at the time … [Read more...] about If Chimpanzees Could Type

I’m sitting at the breakfast bar with my laptop as I write this. Normally, I write in my office ten steps from my kitchen where I enjoy a view of the Times Square area in New York City from the 29th floor of my condo building. On days when the light pours in through the floor-the-ceiling window, I … [Read more...] about Now and Then

A funny thing happened to me when I was on book tour. My first novel Garden of Lies had just been released. During my book tour I had lunch with an editor who was bemoaning the fact that an author of hers who’d also recently published her first novel had led an uneventful life, unlike me. “She’s … [Read more...] about I’ll Have What She’s Having