One of the big writer maxims is: Write what you know.

It’s advice that usually works. Do you want real action, real emotions, real consequences? Remember what you’ve done in your own life, and write it out. “Write what you know” is a classic for a reason: pour all that lust for your midnight lover into your sex scenes, add the tiny details about what it’s like to live in Boise, Idaho, and use the uncomfortable memory of what you saw a friend go through in high school for a surprise plot twist to make the reader weep. Nothing sounds more real than what is actually real.

On the other hand we do sometimes run into problems. After all, how many of us have really faced down a demon? (more…)

A: [...] Another great thing we have going for our partnership is the fact that many of our skills and talents are complementary. For example, I am terrible at plotting, while Kat is absolutely amazing at it. I am great at writing sex scenes and emotional confrontations.

K: –Yes! Whereas I tend to shut my eyes and flail a bit. Though I do go back in and edit, and I think I tend to leave notes for Anna like, “Then they do something emotional here.” (more…)

One of my favorite things to come across while I’m reading is a really fantastic action scene. When the author’s somehow managed to tell me where everybody is, what they’re doing, how they’re feeling, what the action means, and what the consequences are — that’s a real talent, and a gem to come across in print. (more…)

One of the most fun parts of writing a paranormal romance is figuring out just where the “paranormal” is going to come in. Traditional vampire mythology? Trip to Faerie? Zombie hordes? I want to work out what the world is like, find all the bad bits, and then make my characters deal with ‘em. (more…)

Favorite guilty pleasure:

It’s terrible. Watching romantic comedies and mid-90s films for teenagers. (Yes, I almost quoted Empire Records instead of answering this question.) (more…)

cover flat for Salt and Silver

One night six years ago, Allie and her friends got drunk and chanted a fake spell they made up… and accidentally opened a portal to Hell. Now it resides in the basement of the diner Allie runs, and it’s a pain in the ass — mystical crap is always coming out, and then it has to be killed. Demon guts get everywhere, stuff gets smashed up, there are salt circles and sigils all over the place… It gets tedious.

The up side is that Allie gets her own personal demon hunter guarding the Door and killing the demons: a sexy and mysterious, Stetson-wearing, snide-remark-making, dark-eyed demon hunter named Ryan.

But after six years of jibes and sexual tension, the Door disappears at the same time there’s a surge in demonic activity — and no one seems to know what’s going on. Not Narnia the bitchy psychic witch, or Roxie, a kickass demon hunter from the other side of town.

It’s not Allie’s idea for a team of demon hunters to find another Door and go into it to see if Hell is about to take over Earth, but she definitely wants in on that plan. After years of seeing the havoc a Door to Hell wreaks on the world, she’s ready to grow up, take responsibility for helping open a Door in the first place, and kick some demon butt.

Okay, and she’d also like some quality make out time with Ryan, and mortal peril is always a turn-on, right?

That’s the summary for Salt and Silver, a paranormal romance coming out in May ‘09 from Tor Books. This here blog is to discuss writing, research, sex, Salt and Silver, and anything else that comes to mind. Stick around awhile — stuff’s happening here.