Life is What Happens When You’re Making Other Plans

Yes, I know it has been awhile since I've posted any words of wit and wisdom here, but it's not like I haven't been writing, I just haven't been writing here. I finished the first book in my retiree mystery series (it's being read by an agent at the time of writing) and started the...

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5 Tim’s Writerly Secrets

Well then. Robert Bose thinks that because he’s challenged me to reveal five author/editor secrets that I’m just going to give away my treasures for free. Ha! Not likely! I’m just going to make some crap up and hope that makes him happy. 1. If YOU don’t love the story you’re writing, then no one...

I’m Not a Machine!

Some people are under the impression that I've written all three novels recently. Not at all. The fantasy took more than three years to write and was finished last summer. The thriller took over three years to write and was just finished last week. The mystery took six months to write and was just finished...

Write, dammit, write!

Okay. A short note. I've just sent two manuscripts off to agents for consideration, and one is ready, willing, and able to go off to a publisher for a look-see. A psychological thriller, a mystery, and a fantasy quest. That means it's time.... to finish the next one, which is really the first one. The...

Mostly about Beta Readers

I had hoped for a big weekend of writing but decided that naps were important, too. I managed to clear the 70,000-word hurdle, with 5 days left to reach 80,000, though. Yah. No problemo. One of the harder parts of writing the first draft of a mystery novel is fighting the temptation to go back...

Stop Believing in Soul Mates

In the News this week: A boy murdered a girl because they broke up with him. Then he died from a gunshot wound. While we're pointing fingers at his father for owning the gun, or the mental health industry for not seeing whatever they didn't see, or the gun lobby for being the gun lobby,...

T’is the Season

Christmas isn't always an easy time of year for many people. I have been spoiled. For eight years THIS place was my home. Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise (at the time, Canadian Pacific Hotels & Resorts).  Christmas was spent with hundreds of friends, surrounded by more a thousand or more guests, in the land of a...

When Words Collide & A Novel is Launched

(Long post warning. Get comfortable.) Here in Calgary every August is a weekend event which I take two weeks off of work for When Words Collide Readers & Writers Festival at the Calgary Delta South Hotel. Although it officially starts at noon on the Friday and ends at midnight-ish on Sunday, when you combine pre- and post-festival workshops (which...

The Presence of Past Presents

Disclaimer: This is not a plea for sympathy or invites or company. It is just how it is for me this Christmas and what I'm doing about it. **************** Christmas has always been big for me, and Christmas 2015 is the first one in thirteen years in which I will be alone in the house...