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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Snapshots of SWEET SALT AIR

Last week’s blog talked about which character in this book is my favorite, but I have other favorites here.  Since Sweet Salt Air is a highly sensual book, I’m thinking see, smell, feel, hear, and taste.  I’m calling them snapshots, because they’re just quick little moments from the book.  I guess that makes this blog…

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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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How much of me is in SWEET SALT AIR

June 18.  What seemed like a long way off a year ago is coming fast.  You all have been so patient.  I thank you for that. I just reread Sweet Salt Air.  I mean, wow, I’ve been distracted from it.  I’ve probably read twenty books since I finished writing it, and now I’m working on my next book,…

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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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Are you a typo freak?

Inevitably, when each of my books first comes out, I get notes from readers catching typos.  “ Doesn’t anyone proofread anymore?” they ask plaintively. The answer?  YES!  I carefully read through looking for errors, as do my editor, my agent, my assistant, and more people at the publishing house than I care to count.  And still, when the…

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Revising SWEET SALT AIR

Here’s how it works.  The author writes her book and sends it to her editor, who reads it, thinks about it, reacts to it, hopefully loves it – but also comes up with a few recommendations to make it even stronger. Sounds great, doesn’t it? Well, it isn’t always.  Authors have egos.  We have pride and fears.  Let me…

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Are you healthier eating organic?

Since one of the protagonists in Sweet Salt Air (my coming book) is a die-hard locavore, I was naturally interested in this.  Not that a locavore necessarily eats organic.  By definition, a locavore buys and eats food that is locally produced – food produced by local farmers and sold in local markets – but since…

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My summer reading list

I ask you what you’re reading many a Tuesday in the SPEEDY BD SURVEY, and you have every right to ask me back.  The answer?  I can’t read much when I’m working on a book, but now that Sweet Salt Air is done and summer here, my to-read pile is growing. At the top is…

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