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Books, movies, and Chinese Food (Free subscription) | 03/19/2010
Leslie Williams hurries out to her car on a typical workday morning and discovers a dead body inside. Why was the corpse left for her to find? And what is the meaning of the message pinned to its chest? In Coral Moon , the senseless murder of a beloved Kanner Lake citizen spirals the small Idaho town into a terrifying glimpse of spiritual forces beyond our world. What appears true seems impossible....
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Forensics & Faith (Free subscription) | 03/18/2010
... Despair.com decides to create a T-shirt based on your latest and greatest public relations disaster. Buy the T-shirt here . Portfolio.com now lists Toyota in its "PR Hall of Shame"-- the worst PR disasters that put public health at risk. And we authors complain about having to deal with this whole branding marketing thing. Mind you, I love the Toyota brand. We've been a two-Lexus car...
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Forensics & Faith (Free subscription) | 03/18/2010
Are you the huge fan of Discovery Channel's Planet Earth that I am? If so you won't want to miss the follow-up series called Life , premiering this Sunday at 8 p.m. Eastern and Pacific times. Turn on your TIVO and tape it. Here's the line-up of the 11 episodes. You can preorder all the series' DVDs for $59.95 from the Discovery Channel. I don't see any page for it yet on Amazon. Perhaps that will...
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Timothy's Thoughts (Free subscription) | 03/18/2010
I’ve paid very little attention to EPIC, but I saw that Brandilyn Collins was bragging on her friend Stuart Vaughn Stockton winning an award from them. I followed the link to their list of winners and what I saw was shocking. Out of twenty-nine books that won awards for writing, ten of them included the word erotic or erotica in the category title. It made me wonder if EPIC, which claims to
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Forensics & Faith (Free subscription) | 03/17/2010
Last September Bruce Springsteen appeared with Elvis Costello for a taping of "Spectacle," Costello's talk/music show on the Sundance Channel. The show was taped at The Apollo Theater in Manhattan before a live audience. In his interview, Springsteen had more than a few words to say about writing songs. His insights are just as relevant to writing novels: ---------------------- "I’ve...
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Forensics & Faith (Free subscription) | 03/16/2010
Here is the CBA "April" list and the ECPA "March" list, both reflecting sales in the month of February. CBA just posted its list yesterday, so let's take a look at the comparison. Books appearing only on one list are highlighted in blue. For a reminder of how these lists are put together by ECPA and CBA, please refer to the first few paragraphs of this F&F post. CBA (Numbers...
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Readin N Writin with Patricia (Free subscription) | 03/15/2010
Missed publishing this post on Saturday. Hope everyone had a great weekend and remembered to turn their clocks ahead so they weren't late Sunday morning... Don't those em dashes make you crazy? Brian Klems of Writers Digest demonstrates how to use em dashes properly in your writing . Young adult lit comes of age ? So says the LA Times (ignore the pesky ads in the middle of the article) One of my former...
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Forensics & Faith (Free subscription) | 03/15/2010
Today I'm interviewed at the new Hook 'Em & Book 'Em blog written by Mark Young, an aspiring novelist with 30 years' experience in law enforcement. Hook 'Em & Book 'Em is a good blog for all you writers to follow. Even if you don't write suspense, chances are sometime in your novels one of your characters will deal with law enforcement in some way. In interviewing me about my novel Exposure...
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Forensics & Faith (Free subscription) | 03/11/2010
Major congratulations to Stuart Vaughn Stockton, who has won this year's Eppie Award in the science fiction category for his debut novel, Starfire . Many of you know Starfire is dear to my own heart. Stuart allowed me to use Starfire as the novel written by my character S-Man in the Kanner Lake series . Wilbur, Bailey, and all the other folks at Java Joint in Kanner Lake are thrilled for S-Man. Er,...
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Forensics & Faith (Free subscription) | 03/10/2010
Some of my most fun fan letters have come from younger readers. This one is particularly young to be tackling one of my books. You can't read the letter without smiling. I'm running it here as is--no spelling/grammatical fixes. I have blocked out certain plot details, using underlining in their place. ----------------- Dear Mrs. Collins, I am a big fan of you wrightings, I am currently reading your...
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Forensics & Faith (Free subscription) | 03/09/2010
Yesterday Publisher's Lunch linked to this interesting paper: The Short-Term Influence of Free Digital Versions of Books on Print Sales, by John Hilton III and David Wiley. I'm interested in the topic after two of my novels, Dark Pursuit and Exposure , were offered free on the Kindle for about the first three weeks of 2010. (The free offer put them at the top of the Kindle bestseller list for nine...
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Forensics & Faith (Free subscription) | 03/08/2010
Recently on an author e-mail loop someone raised the question about the spiritual message in Christian fiction. The writer wondered if the message should be "hidden" in order to better reach non-Christians. This writer's manuscript, as described, had little Christian message until the very last. That tactic had been criticized. Still, the writer wanted to create a story that would be entertaining...
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Forensics & Faith (Free subscription) | 03/05/2010
Ever needed just the right word to explain something--and the word didn't exist? It may now--through The Unword Dictionary . As purveyor of Today's Word on Twitter and Facebook, I love learning new words. Even so I often find in my writing that as my fingers fly I make them up. I'll noun a verb, verb a noun, or just create something that sounds right. Then I'll stare at the word and think, "Wait...
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Forensics & Faith (Free subscription) | 03/04/2010
Heard from my publisher yesterday that I'll be receiving the galleys for my next adult suspense, Deceit , on Friday. Which means I'll have to put in about six hours' work over the weekend to proof said galleys. I can't take the time during the regular work week, as I have to make word count on my current manuscript. I always love receiving galleys, as they present the text as it will be laid out in...
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Forensics & Faith (Free subscription) | 03/03/2010
The Hollywood Reporter has announced that Starz Entertainment has bought the U.S. television rights to The Pillars of the Earth , an epic novel by Ken Follett about the building of a cathedral in 12th century England. The eight-part mini-series will begin airing this summer. The Pillars of the Earth is a wonderful book. Published in 1989, it was a real departure for Ken Follett, who until that time...
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