When I was back home on my book tour, I was asked to speak to high schoolers at my alma mater. I’ve gotten pretty well versed at giving my author talk, but I knew I couldn’t rely on that to engage this crowd. They didn’t care as much about the
Read MoreMaybe it’s my Midwesterner niceness, but I constantly find myself apologizing to readers when they tell me that my books make them cry. I don’t set out to write tearful stories. Honestly, I’m a pretty happy person overall, but when it comes to my novels, I can’t help but delve
Read MoreAnd why I won’t be standing naked in front of readers. My new year started off with a stress dream. Two months from the release of my second novel and the kick-off to my book tour, I had a dream that I stood naked in front of an audience of
Read MoreI used to be a fan of the notion that no plot was no problem when it came to writing a book. I took part in National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) because that mantra spoke to me. After all, I was a pantser at the time. I spent that November
Read MoreDuring a recent book club, a reader shared how she cried while reading The Last Carolina Girl. She went on to ask if it’s hard for me to write those scenes. The short answer: yes. And it only gets harder with each round of revisions. Why? Because with each draft,
Read MoreIf you have completed a first draft of a book, congratulations! That is a huge feat in and of itself. You may be wondering what to do next. Search for agents? Write a query letter? Consider self-publishing on Amazon? Before you do any of those things, I want to draw
Read MoreEverybody wants to be an author. Okay, perhaps that is an overstatement. So, let me try again: A LOT of people want to be an author. I know this because I have had A LOT of people tell me this since I first announced my book deal. I understand this
Read MoreI fail at marinating. Perhaps part of my problem is that I can be bad at planning ahead—blame my type b personality for that one. I can balk at things like meal planning and question the benefit of marinating. It has become such a joke in my family that we
Read More5 creative writing tips learned in a cubicle I used to write about RV toilets. Fresh out of college with a creative writing degree and full of idealism, I took a job at an advertising agency. I assumed it would be a temporary gig while I wrote and published my
Read MoreConfession: editing makes me grumpy. Or, at least according to my fourteen-year-old’s “accidental” Christmas gift to me. Okay, perhaps I need to back up and explain myself. Here’s what happened… First of all, I’ve come to know that I love deep work. I loathe distractions. This became even more evident
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