Lynne's Blog

Writing a good book is the first step. The most important one.  Publishing it so it looks professional is step two.  The third--marketing. I’ve read books on Indie marketing and ideas range from developing a top-notch website, creating YouTubes, or audiobooks, and...

I’ve heard that when writing fiction, anything goes.  You can kill a character off in one book, bring him back in another.  You can change locations, character occupations, family history, personality traits, hair color and even their choice of Ben and Jerry’s, from...

This is a reprint of an earlier blog of mine that hit a nerve with many writers.  The dilemma of spending time marketing your books vs. writing your books clearly resonated and drew lots of responses.  I’ve tried to practice what I preached in that post and have cut...

A few years ago, my third book, Deadly Provenance, was published. I had originally titled it Provenance until a friend thought readers might confuse it with a city in Rhode Island. Of course it is a mystery and contains several murders, so I decided to call it Deadly...

My second mystery, Time Exposure, takes place during the Civil War.  I wanted readers to abandon the present and immerse themselves in those brutal, tumultuous years of the mid-nineteenth century.  Scene by scene, chapter by chapter.   Since I wasn’t there, how could...

Celebrating this July 4th, I couldn’t resist sharing some of these bloopers on American history made by students over the years. Not only are they historically inane, but the language use is scary. They were compiled by Richard Lederer, a word and language expert....

As I write this, I’m listening to Antonio Vivaldi’s Violin Concerto for Violin, Strings and Continuo. I have a hard time writing to music with lyrics – the words tend to wind up on my page -- so I opt for background music, usually classical. Music is a terrific way to...

Instead of my regular blog this week, I decided to shamelessly toot my own horn.  Hope you don’t mind.  Here’s the story. . . Last week I had Chinese food for lunch.  As always, at the end of the meal, I would squeeze my eyes shut and tap three times on the table. ...

Did you ever find yourself reading a book, a good book, but find that something is bothering you about it? You can’t quite put your finger on it, so you sigh, throw it down for a while then pick it up later. The story is compelling, the descriptions atmospheric, the...

152 years ago next month the brutal battle at Gettysburg was fought. In only three days, 51,000 men were killed, wounded or gone missing; 5,000 horses were slaughtered on the battlefield. I visited Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, to gather details for my book, Time...