Guess What I Did with Gene Simmons Last Night

Last week a family emergency found me spending several nights at a hospital in a neighboring town. The room had a recliner that, while certainly better than the Flintstones-era char found in rooms at the hospital in town, was no sleep number mattress.

Sleeping in strange places is a good way to have strange dreams, especially when you're already sleep-deprived, forget to eat dinner, and people are in and out of the room at all hours. This unexpected adventure did not disappoint.

The dream started out fairly normal, with my husband and I arriving at the home of one of my clients. The Christmas holiday was in full swing and twinkling fairy lights lit up a large stone patio that greeted us at the end of the driveway. 

Our host and my husband found common ground quickly and began discussing guns. Had my husband ever tried the newly modified gun from the NES game, Duck Hunt? My husband had not! Our host immediately invited him to come into the backyard to try it out on his skeet shooting equipment.

I was invited to join other guests in the basement rec room, where our teenage sons had retired to play authentic 1980s arcade games. Upon entering the rec room I was impressed to see it looked more like a hotel lounge with white leather sofas and light fixtures of shiny brass and sparkling crystal.

And who was sitting on the sofa with a glass of bourbon? Gene Simmons! I wasted no time striking up a conversation about an interview of his I'd recently watched, in which he discussed his mother, a holocaust survivor. 

Gene Simmons then invited me to play foosball. Every time he got a point, he'd stick out his tongue and wiggled it like a worm. I could feel my cheeks blush as I laughed.
"That's what I do when I get a point," he explained. "You want me to do it again? I need to get another point." 

When I let him get another point he continued, "This is how I win. I seduce women into letting me win."

Then I woke up.

As the day went on I realized the dream's message. If I want my books to be popular and "win", then I'm going to have to seduce my readers with a fabulous plot, interesting characters, and creative conflicts that will keep them glued to the page.

So tell me what you like in a book and, more importantly, what you don't like. Let's talk about it in the comments section!

Why I Kissed Blackbeard Goodbye

Here's a plot twist I never saw coming.

During the 2015 MAFWI conference, I attended a workshop led by Jim Rada, an author who hails from Pennsylvania. He stressed the importance of research when writing historical novels. This is also important, however, when writing any works that mentions a real person, trademark, or other type of brand.

I knew this would mean quite a bit of rewriting for HAUNTED WOMEN OF THE APPALACHIANS, my collection of 13 strange and inspired by true stories, but surely I'd be smart enough not to let it happen again. Right? Absolutely!

It was more like absolutely not. It started when I read How to Use Brand Names in Your Fiction (Just Like TFIOS), a guest blog article written by Kathryn Goldman on the Better Novel Project blog.

Imagine my dismay at realizing the way I displayed Blackbeard in my book could bring up some serious issues. The fictional character based on the real person didn't show in the best light. There was only one thing to do.

I kissed Blackbeard goodbye.

Then I went in an exploration into the past to find a new pirate. Hours later, when complaining about the dilemma to my husband, he asked, "Why don't you just make up a pirate?"

Excited, I returned to my research. Because I'm only about 1/3 of the way into my book, I don't need to rip it out and start over. And because my new pirate is a fictional female with a sweet back story, I won't feel obligated to force my plot to follow someone else's facts.

I'm more excited about my book every day, and can't wait to share the final product with you all.

How a Rainy Night Cured my Writer's Block

I was smack dab in the middle of the first draft of my first full-length cozy mystery when I fell into a rut. This wasn't an "I'll be over here playing Candy Crush for a few days" kind of rut. This was an "I've fallen and I can't get up and I'll be over here until someone comes along with a crowbar to wedge me from this space" kind of rut.

Everywhere I looked, there were problems. The writing seemed stilted. The characters felt flat. And the plot? Boring with a capital "B". Every time I opened the file, I groaned and closed it again. I went on like this for a couple of weeks.

Then I was driving home from my shift at our community center's local volunteer-run library. It was pouring down rain and my oldest son, who is 18 and also a member of my writing group, was with me. As it usually does, our conversation turned to writing and our current projects.

I rounded a corner and the headlights of my truck swept over a cluster of rocky brush at the edge of the woods bordering the road. For a split second, it looked like a body lying there in the rain. Suddenly, I had an idea. And this idea led to so many other ideas.

• What if it was raining during the opening scene of my book?
• What if it rained that entire weekend?
• What if the body was found in the rain?
• What if the rain washed away some of the evidence?
• What if...?

The ideas rained down until they formed a stream of thought that spilled into the rut and, as a result, ejected me right out of it. I got home and started writing up a storm, making small tweaks that added up to big changes.

Now my characters have a reason to be excited. The story directs the plot. And I can't wait to find out who killed off old...well, you'll have to read it to find out!

What do you do when writer's block hits? Are you likely to sit and wallow in it? Do you have any tried and true tips to share? Let's discuss them in the comments section!