Ottawa River
Proofreading Your own Work

No one can proofread their own work with any competence. The mind is tricky, inserting words that don’t lie on the printed page. Ever tried to read those garbled words/passages that show up on...

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Me and Raymond Chandler

Really good books are about a lot of things, some of them heavy social issues. Raymond Chandler’s novels are about crime and corruption in the 1940s in a place he called Bay City, in truth, Santa...

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Why We Write What We Write

I write police procedurals in the  whodunit genre.  I like the cerebral quality of following the detective in an investigation. With a thriller you know soon who the evil villain is and his big...

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What Do I Want To Be Good At?

I see lots of women my age trundling craft supplies into the clubhouse:  lace making, quilting, scrapbooking, card creation. I pass by hearing them laughing and having a good time. I live in a tiny...

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Where Does Backstory Come in?

I’ve read one too many books that get a good story going then drop into the past tense to catch us up on why all these exciting events have happened. I’ve just published a 20,000 word EBook on the...

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Cop Talk

I also blog on a site called LadyKillers where the topic turned to favorite expressions of our characters. I’m not aware that the four main characters in my two series of mysteries have favorite...

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Whodunits or Thrillers?

Distinctions about what readers like to read and what writers write can be divided neatly. You can find my own subgenre of the mystery crime/suspense thriller genre on the police procedural branch...

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Getting Published – A Long Story

I thought everyone could write if they just sat down and put their mind to it.  As my facility for words came easily to me, I never thought it was important. A facility for manipulating numbers was...

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Get Ready. Get Set. Write.

I’m the rank amateur in another blog that I contribute to called Ladykillers as far  as making preparations to write. Even though I’ve published 6 well-received mysteries and 4 EBooks on the subject...

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