Category: Writing Wednesday

First Person Female

I’ve mentioned this before, but it’s taken me a while to grab hold of my female voice. Maybe a psychoanalyst can figure out why, but then again the reasons may not be germane. After my third Mas Arai mystery (that series is all written in the third person), I...

Flowing Freely

Every November I find a group of people who are doing NaNoWriMo and swim behind them in the water’s wake. NaNoWriMo is the annual write a novel–well, 50,000 words in one month–campaign. I first attempted to sign up but didn’t like being tied to a certain word count goal,...

WRITING WEDNESDAY: Plotting Using Evernote

My friend, exhibition developer Heather Lindquist, turned me onto the application, Evernote, when we were working together on the book, LIFE AFTER MANZANAR, which was published last year. Evernote, which can be a free download, is a quick way to create notebooks of pages. These pages can have notes...

End of ‘The Big Bachi’ Film Project

Some of you might have learned from my last newsletter, but I have sad news to report. I had to end the development of “The Big Bachi,” the independent film adaptation of my first Mas Arai mystery. I was helping to attempt to raise funds–I had even secured a...

Research via Eating

I don’t know if you noticed, but I’m challenging myself in writing about places where I don’t live. It’s a bit stressful because setting is so important to me, but I’ve investigated a lot of parts of Los Angeles in so many of my books, both fiction and nonfiction,...

Breathing

Lately I’ve had opportunities to breathe. I know that sounds odd–I mean, we all have to breathe to survive. But rather than be on a hamster wheel, which was much of my 2018, I’ve been able to take care of my physical environment, my health as well as my...

Day of Atonement

Having a long career as a writer is tough. There are technological disrupters (hello Internet and Kindle), changes in taste, and the advent of self-promotion. These days almost every book author needs some kind of social media presence. How exhausting. We are told that social media really doesn’t sell...

Embracing the Historical

While hopefully continuing my new Leilani Santiago mystery series set in Kaua’i, I want to concurrently work on historical mystery standalones. Why historical fiction? Well, I have a passion for it and have worked on several history nonfiction books. And I’m getting older–which is not a liability and maybe...

Hill Avenue Writers

WRITING WEDNESDAY: With my current work-in-progress, I’ve needed a special laser focus. I’ve spoken about going into hibernation and clearing my social calendar for a couple of weeks. But that doesn’t mean I have to go it alone. I’ve had a couple of dedicated writing sessions with other writers...

Dress Up

(April 2019) Ta da! Here’s the Edgar dress sans shoes, pedicure, makeup and pink hair. I’m leaving for NYC today; the awards dinner is tomorrow. I was fighting a bit of a dry cough a week earlier, but I think I’m good to go. Life, including writing, is full...