People ask me all the time (no they don’t) how they can make their writing better. Because I’m a master of my craft (please) and I’m wildly successful (I have published work, I wouldn’t call it wildly successful) I’m constantly bombarded for advice (never, that’s how often. Never.) on making writing better. So here’s the secret, and maybe everyone will leave me alone (please ask me questions… I’m so lonely): Read it out loud. It’s that simple (no, really, it is. I promise). R

“New York City, 1980. Almost a year has passed since a serial murderer targeted hookers in the Bowery neighborhood of Private Investigator Harry DeMarko and his new partner Toni Bennett. It’s been a quiet year, but something sinister is happening again. Working girls are disappearing from the streets- only this time, there are no bodies to follow, no leads to chase. With no information upon which to base even a theory, much less a case, Harry and Toni grow increasingly frustr

It’s finished. 121k words. The final book in The Veiled Earth Trilogy is in the can. The journey I began with Magician, and continued in Martyr, has ended in Savior, and it didn’t turn out ANYTHING like I envisioned. Villains became heroes, heroes became citizens, and the world was saved, sort of. It’s the way everything works, I suppose. Life, I mean. You can never tell what’s going to happen, and people will always surprise you. And it’s finished. I feel kinda… weird. I’ve

So… after replenishing the 30k words I sliced away from the carcass of my latest novel, I added them back… and then some. The Veiled Earth: Savior is currently at 105k, and counting. The first book was only 101k. The second was 99k. But I want to do it RIGHT, damn it. I’ve lived with these characters for over ten years. I thought I knew their depths, I thought I knew their motivations, and I certainly thought I knew how it would end. I am delighted to discover I’m wrong on ev