How we got a cover for BLUEPRINTS

  If you’re reading this blog, you’re currently looking at the cover of my new book, BLUEPRINTS, which debuts this coming June. What do you think? Does the cover draw you in? This isn’t an idle question. It’s one that my publisher and I have been asking ourselves since this cover became “the one.” We…

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I have a title!

Book titles arrive different ways. Some crop up at the get-go, even before I start writing a book. Others come when my publisher reads the opening of the book and a word or phrase pops up that is perfect. Others take longer to find. My preference? I like having a title early on. It helps…

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Mockingbirds

Just finished my next book! I’ve been working on this baby for more than a year, and that doesn’t count the months before I started the actual writing, when I focused on research. This book – no title yet – demanded a lot of research. I had to learn about the tools a carpenter would…

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Notice any changes?

The new, gorgeous, trade paperback edition of Sweet Salt Air is now on sale! It’s the second generation, so to speak, which means it’s been improved upon. The changes are subtle. You may not notice them unless you study both editions side by side. I’m telling you about the changes here, so that you’ll know…

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What’s coming for Barbara in 2014

Young chick, old boots.  That’s my theme here.  As 2013 fades to 2014, it’s only natural to think about ending the old and beginning the new.  But is that what really happens? Not in my book.  And I mean that both literally and figuratively.  I don’t see that we end and begin.  Life is a…

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But do you like my book?

And so comes the Monday after the first weekend you’ve all have with my newest book.  I sit on tenterhooks wondering, worrying, hoping. Sweet Salt Air  has actually been out and around for the sake of getting early reviews.  Part of the promotional campaign leading up to its publication entailed sending Advance Reading Copies to…

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On sale now! What do I feel?

For starters, I feel like it’s about time!  I finished writing Sweet Salt Air a year ago, and though my publisher needed these months to publish the book well – and they have! – I feel like you all have waited forever.  On one hand, I want you hungry, so that you’ll race out and…

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My favorite character in SWEET SALT AIR

  Do I play favorites when it comes to my characters?  That depends on how you define playing favorites. For starters, I couldn’t spend a year writing a book about people I didn’t like.  That said, if each of them is totally loveable, the book is boring.  Also, I like to see growth in my characters, which…

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Two more book recommendations

What kinds of books do you like?  Do you switch between genres or stick to one?   Me, I usually avoid non-fiction.  Since I read the newspaper daily, I don’t want more of the same in my free time.  Likewise blood and gore; the real world has plenty.  No, fiction is definitely my thing, but, within…

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Dealing with the loss of my characters

Readers feel this.  You’ve been engrossed in a book for however long it takes to read it and then, suddenly, the characters are gone.  You write me asking what they’ll do now and whether they’ll ever be back. But if you miss them, think of what I’m feeling when I finish writing a book. Take Sweet…

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